Acting

Bert Parnaby

Born 1924-03-04 · Guisborough, North Yorkshire, England, UK

James Bertram "Bert" Parnaby (4 March 1924 – 30 July 1992) was a British actor who was notable for a string of TV and Film roles from the 1960s through the 1980s. His TV roles included performances in Blackadder, By the Sword Divided, Juliet Bravo, Inspector Morse and Last of the Summer Wine. In 1988, he appeared as Father Christmas in the BBC adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. His film credits included Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Dressmaker (1988) and The Reunion (1989). Whilst living in Didsbury, Bert was a schoolmaster at Manchester Grammar School during the 1950s and early 1960s. Teaching English, he was greatly involved in the production of teachers’ plays. He subsequently became an HMI (one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools). On leaving the education profession, Parnaby worked as a producer and performer for the BBC. His monologues on breakfast radio often started ‘I hate …’, for example the edition about the Post Office, which was based on the Didsbury branch, albeit unnamed. Parnaby died in July 1992 at the age of 68, shortly after the death of his wife Jane. A bench in their memory was later erected in Drummer Street, Cambridge.

Acting credits

Prick Up Your Ears poster
6.7

When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.

Prick Up Your Ears

1987

Dirty Movie poster
NR

Postman Bean is anxious to end his round early to catch a morning showing of 'The Sound of Muzak' at his local cinema. However, he is unaware that the cinema manager Terry Toadstool is using this as a smoke screen to view a pornographic film and that Bean's wife, traffic warden Monica, is the star.

Dirty Movie

1984

Reunion poster
6.7

Attorney Henry Strauss grew up in Germany, but left the country with his Jewish family during the rise of the Third Reich. Still wondering about what happened to his boyhood friend Konradin Von Lohenburg, Strauss travels back to Germany for the first time since he was a young man, bringing up some painful memories.

Reunion

1989

Bad News poster
8.7

A documentary crew films heavy metal band Bad News as they have trouble starting their van, pick up a schoolgirl groupie, and meet up with rock journalist Sally at a motorway service station where they argue about the cost of sausage and chips.

Bad News

1983

No artwork available
NR

'Imagine. The whole sky filled with silent sportsmen.' Henry is a teacher, and a very good one, but his dream of man-powered flight, and his habit of destroying the odd greenhouse on his test runs, threatens his career. Also there's his daughter Ruth, who would dearly love to retrieve her bicycle wheels from his flying machine.

Flights

1985

The Dressmaker poster
4.6

In England during World War II, a repressed dressmaker and her sister struggle looking after their 17-year-old niece, who is having a delusional affair with an American soldier.

The Dressmaker

1988

On the Palm poster
NR

Fledge needs a job. He'll take anything. And when Dawlish gives him strange errands to run, for cash in hand, strictly 'on the palm', it's a welcome change from the dole. Until he finds himself digging dirt on an old friend....

On the Palm

1987

Unfair Exchanges poster
NR

Julie Walters stars as a single mother seemingly haunted by a sinister telephone system that seems to have become an evil intelligence in its own right.

Unfair Exchanges

1985

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe poster
6.5

Four kids travel to the magical land of Narnia where they must battle an evil queen with the direction of the lion, Aslan.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe

1988

Rainy Day Women poster
7.0

In 1940, during World War II, an officer is sent to investigate rumours of German spies in a sleepy village where various people are the victims of war hysteria.

Rainy Day Women

1984

Gas and Candles poster
NR

Black comedy play about two pensioners struggling to manage on an old-age pension and living in a high-rise block of flats.

Gas and Candles

1991

Completely Bad News poster
NR

A double offering of heavy metal madness from The Comic Strip and Bad News.

Completely Bad News

2019

Daemon poster
7.5

11-year-old Nick moves into a large old house with his sisters Jennie and Clare, left in the care of Helga the Swedish au pair while their parents are away in America. Nick is unhappy at his new school, where he is befriended by a boy named Sam and intimidated by scripture teacher Mr. Crabb, who is interested in the occult and demonology. Nick hears voices in the house and receives messages on his computer screen; he also suffers inexplicable blisters on his feet and grazes on his elbows and knees. When he dreams of burning and wakes up in a bed full of ashes, Nick tells a psychiatrist that he feels he is possessed by a demon.

Daemon

1985