Roy Castle - Television Career

Television Career

In the mid-1960s he starred in the BBC television show The Roy Castle Show. In 1965, he appeared in the film Dr. Who and the Daleks, playing the role of Dr. Who's first male assistant, Ian Chesterton, quite differently from the way it had been played in the original television series by William Russell. He also appeared in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors as a jazz musician suffering a curse after copying voodoo tunes. He also appeared in Carry On up the Khyber in 1968. In 1973, Castle teamed up with the actor and comedian Ronnie Barker in the original one-off called Another Fine Mess (an episode from a series called Seven of One). Barker was one of Castle's best friends, and paid tribute to their work together shortly after Castle's death.

Between 1967 and 1968 Castle co-starred with Jimmy Edwards in the London West End run of the comedy farce show Big Bad Mouse when Eric Sykes had to withdraw because of illness. The show was resident at the Shaftesbury Theatre and, while being loosely scripted, it offered both Edwards and Castle the chance to freely ad-lib and generally break the 'fourth wall' with the audience, Castle breaking into trumpet performances while Edwards walked into a front stall seat to read a newspaper, tap dancing and firing ping-pong balls into the stalls. He also once stood in for Bruce Forsyth hosting The Generation Game in 1975 while Forsyth was ill.