Christopher Strauli
Encyclopedia
Christopher Strauli is an English
film
, television
and theatre
actor
. He is probably most famous for appearing as Norman Binns in the British sitcom Only When I Laugh
, alongside James Bolam
, Peter Bowles
, Richard Wilson and Derrick Branche.
, Hertfordshire
, England.
Strauli was educated at Felixstowe Grammar School, located in Felixstowe
, Suffolk
. After teacher-training college
he gave up a career as a mathematics
and science
teacher to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
, located in London
.
, located in Bristol
, before earning some minor and supporting television roles.
Since 1969, Strauli has appeared in at least two films and over twenty-five television productions.
Strauli played Bunny Manders, the assistant to A. J. Raffles
, the gentleman thief in the Yorkshire Television
series Raffles
(1975–1977). He later appeared as feeble hospital
patient
Norman Binns in the ITV
sitcom Only When I Laugh
, occupying a bed in a ward next to characters played by James Bolam
and Peter Bowles
and attended by doctor Richard Wilson. Strauli was then recruited by the show's writer, Eric Chappell
, to replace Richard Beckinsale
in the film version of Rising Damp
(another of Chappell's shows) as a new character, John, an art student.
He appeared as a leading character, Paul Hatfield, in ITV sitcom Full House
(known as Mixed Doubles in the United States
) (1985) and also featured in some of Victoria Wood
's sketch shows. In recent years he has concentrated predominantly on theatre
work.
Strauli also appeared in the television serial of Fortunes of War
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He is probably most famous for appearing as Norman Binns in the British sitcom Only When I Laugh
Only When I Laugh (TV series)
Only When I Laugh is a British television sitcom made by Yorkshire Television for ITV between 29 October 1979 and 16 December 1982. It was set in the ward of an NHS hospital. The title is the answer to the question, "Does it hurt?"...
, alongside James Bolam
James Bolam
James Christopher Bolam, MBE is a British actor, best known for his roles as Jack Ford in When the Boat Comes In, Trevor Chaplin in The Beiderbecke Trilogy, Terry Collier in The Likely Lads and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Roy Figgis in Only When I Laugh, Dr Arthur Gilder in...
, Peter Bowles
Peter Bowles
-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...
, Richard Wilson and Derrick Branche.
Early life and education
He was born in HarpendenHarpenden
Harpenden is a town in Hertfordshire, England.The town's total population is just under 30,000.-Geography and administration:There are two civil parishes: Harpenden and Harpenden Rural....
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England.
Strauli was educated at Felixstowe Grammar School, located in Felixstowe
Felixstowe
Felixstowe is a seaside town on the North Sea coast of Suffolk, England. The town gives its name to the nearby Port of Felixstowe, which is the largest container port in the United Kingdom and is owned by Hutchinson Ports UK...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. After teacher-training college
Teacher training college
A teacher training college is a college of higher education that specialises in training students to be teachers.Many universities offer similar facilities, a number of which acquired their provision by taking over a teacher training college or by a teacher training college evolving into a...
he gave up a career as a mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
teacher to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...
, located in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Career
Following his education spent some years at the Bristol Old VicBristol Old Vic
The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
, located in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, before earning some minor and supporting television roles.
Since 1969, Strauli has appeared in at least two films and over twenty-five television productions.
Strauli played Bunny Manders, the assistant to A. J. Raffles
A. J. Raffles
Arthur J. Raffles is a character created in the 1890s by E. W. Hornung, a brother-in-law to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Holmes — he is a "gentleman thief," living in the Albany, a prestigious address in London, playing...
, the gentleman thief in the Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
series Raffles
Raffles (TV series)
Raffles was a 1977 television adaptation of the A. J. Raffles stories by Ernest William Hornung. The series was produced by Yorkshire Television and written by Phillip Mackie...
(1975–1977). He later appeared as feeble hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
patient
Patient
A patient is any recipient of healthcare services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, advanced practice registered nurse, veterinarian, or other health care provider....
Norman Binns in the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
sitcom Only When I Laugh
Only When I Laugh (TV series)
Only When I Laugh is a British television sitcom made by Yorkshire Television for ITV between 29 October 1979 and 16 December 1982. It was set in the ward of an NHS hospital. The title is the answer to the question, "Does it hurt?"...
, occupying a bed in a ward next to characters played by James Bolam
James Bolam
James Christopher Bolam, MBE is a British actor, best known for his roles as Jack Ford in When the Boat Comes In, Trevor Chaplin in The Beiderbecke Trilogy, Terry Collier in The Likely Lads and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Roy Figgis in Only When I Laugh, Dr Arthur Gilder in...
and Peter Bowles
Peter Bowles
-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...
and attended by doctor Richard Wilson. Strauli was then recruited by the show's writer, Eric Chappell
Eric Chappell
Eric Chappell is an English comedy writer who wrote and co-wrote a number of the UK's biggest sitcom hits during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s...
, to replace Richard Beckinsale
Richard Beckinsale
Richard Arthur Beckinsale was an English actor, best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge and Alan Moore in the British sitcom Rising Damp....
in the film version of Rising Damp
Rising Damp
Rising Damp is a television sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, first broadcast from 1974 to 1978. It was adapted for television by Eric Chappell from his well-received 1971 stage play, The Banana Box The series was the highest-ranking ITV sitcom on the 100 Best Sitcoms poll run in...
(another of Chappell's shows) as a new character, John, an art student.
He appeared as a leading character, Paul Hatfield, in ITV sitcom Full House
Full House (UK TV series)
Full House is a British sitcom which aired for three series from 1985 to 1986. It was the last sitcom to be jointly co-created by the sitcom writing team of Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, however, it was mainly written by Mortimer alone, with Mortimer writing 12 episodes alone, along with a...
(known as Mixed Doubles in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) (1985) and also featured in some of Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...
's sketch shows. In recent years he has concentrated predominantly on theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
work.
Strauli also appeared in the television serial of Fortunes of War
Fortunes of War (tv series)
Fortunes of War is a 1987 BBC television adaptation of Olivia Manning's cycle of novels Fortunes of War. It stars Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle, lecturer in English Literature in Bucharest during the early part of the Second World War, and Emma Thompson as his wife Harriet...
.
External links
- strauli.co.uk, Strauli's official website
- strauli.blogspot.com, Strauli's blogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
- Staff writerStaff writerStaff writer is a byline that indicates that the author of the article at hand is employed by the periodical that published the article as a regular staff member, and not as a freelance writer or special contributor....
(undated). "Christopher Strauli". Cherished Television (nostalgia television website). Accessed 23 August 2010.