Ian Bleasdale is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 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...

 and television presenter. He was born in Upholland

Upholland

Upholland is a civil parish and village in West Lancashire, England. It is situated approximately 3 miles east of Skelmersdale, also in West Lancashire, and 4½ miles west of Wigan in Greater Manchester.-Geography:...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

 and divides his time between Haworth

Haworth

Haworth is a rural village in the City of Bradford metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is located amongst the Pennines, southwest of Keighley and west of Bradford. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope...

 in West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

 and 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...

. He started off life as a teacher before deciding that he wanted to become an actor, something which he would later joke forced his mother to take to her sickbed.

He has appeared in various programmes, including The Beiderbecke Affair

The Beiderbecke Affair

The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the UK by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981...

, Inspector Morse

Inspector Morse (TV series)

Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....

, The Brittas Empire

The Brittas Empire

The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Richard Fegen and Andrew Norriss. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre....

, Andy Capp

Andy Capp (TV series)

Andy Capp is a British sitcom based on the cartoon Andy Capp. It starred James Bolam and ran for one series in 1988. It was written by Keith Waterhouse. Unusually for a sitcom, there was no studio audience during the filming of Andy Capp...

, Soldier Soldier

Soldier Soldier

Soldier Soldier is a British television drama series. The title comes from a traditional song of the same name.Produced by Central Television and broadcast on the ITV network, it ran for a total of seven series and 82 episodes from 1991 to 1997...

, All Creatures Great and Small and even as a photographer who got physical with Mike Baldwin on Coronation Street

Coronation Street

Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

.

However, Bleasdale was best known for his role as paramedic Josh Griffiths

Josh Griffiths

Josh Griffiths was one of the longest-serving fictional characters in the popular BBC drama Casualty, played by Ian Bleasdale since 1989. He worked for the fictional Holby Ambulance Service.-Storylines:...

 on the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television drama, Casualty

Casualty (TV series)

Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

. He was the second longest serving character in the show's 20 year history, bettered only by Derek Thompson's character Charlie Fairhead. Josh first appeared in episode 1 of series 4 (1989) and started as a speaking extra. His role has gone from strength to strength over the years and he has had several harrowing storylines so far, including the death of his family in a house fire, and his second wife Collette having an affair with a colleague and finally leaving him. He left the show on 3 November 2007 after 18 years. He has not been on TV in an acting role since but took place in the 2009 series of Celebrity MasterChef.

He appeared for a short part in one of the last episodes of The Bill.

Since leaving Casualty, Bleasdale has been presenting the BBC 1 show Hospital Heroes.

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