# John Barrett (actor)

Jack Elvyn Barrett (18 February 1910 – 22 May 1983) was a British actor on film, television and stage, best known for his roles as Smellie Ibbotson in The Dustbinmen and Hylda Baker's father in Not On Your Nellie.

## Biography

Born in Rochdale in 1910, Barrett worked in a family business there, and in the 1930s began working in the theatre. He started as an assistant stage manager, and at different times worked as an actor, stage manager, director and actor-manager. Before and during World War II he produced and acted in local productions in Rochdale. Following the war, he joined weekly repertory companies across England, working in places such as Birmingham, Rugby, Bexhill-on-Sea and Hastings in Sussex, Portsmouth in Hampshire, Bournemouth in Dorset, and Burnley in Lancashire. In the mid 1950s, he made his first appearances on screen and thereafter had frequent roles on television and in films. In the 1960s and 1970s, he acted in London at the Royal Court Theatre, Savoy Theatre and the National Theatre under directors like William Gaskill, Michael Wearing, Lindsay Anderson, Richard Eyre and Bill Bryden.
The Daily Mirror wrote in 1976 that Barrett, then aged 66, "has the sort of career that makes him the envy of many younger actors". In 1968, he played the lead role in a revival of D. H. Lawrence's play A Collier's Friday Night, with reviewers saying, "The director, Peter Gill, elicits admirable style and even ensemble from a first-rate cast including John Barrett as the collier, Anne Dyson as his wife, Victor Henry as the son, and Jenifer Armitage as Maggie." "The characters have the ring of truth about them. Old Lambert (John Barrett) is marked physically and mentally by his work at the coalface. ... All are excellently portrayed in this first-rate production." In 1970, Barrett played the lead role in Barry Hines's play Billy's Last Stand. One reviewer wrote, "Both John Barrett as Billy and Ian McKellen as Darkly give powerful performances, each sombre, thoughtful, balanced and real, though, by the end, the melodrama seems even to have seeped through to their performances." Another said, "The acting is first-rate. ... John Barrett is wonderfully solid and self-satisfied at the start as an innocent faced by capitalism; and in his final gritty resignation to his fate the actor never puts an eyelid wrong."

## Filmography
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1959 | Jack the Ripper | Onlooker at 2nd Murder Scene | Uncredited |
| 1960 | Saturday Night and Sunday Morning | Man in Cafe | Uncredited |
| 1965 | City Under the Sea | Third Fisherman | Uncredited |
| 1966 | The Witches | Mr. Glass | Uncredited |
| 1966 | The Trygon Factor | Guide | |
| 1967 | Far from the Madding Crowd | Joseph Poorgrass | |
| 1968 | Star! | Speaker at Hyde Park | Uncredited |
| 1972 | Up the Chastity Belt | 1st Peasant | |
| 1972 | Nearest and Dearest | Joshua Pledge | |
| 1973 | O Lucky Man! | Bill | |
| 1973 | Malachi's Cove | Polwarth | |
| 1974 | Smokey Joe's Revenge | Bill Bassett | |
| 1976 | Robin and Marian | Jack | |
| 1976 | It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet | Crump | |
| 1976 | The Eagle Has Landed | Laker Armsby | |
| 1979 | Porridge | Hedley | |
| 1979 | Tess | Old Dairyhand | |
| 1979 | The Quiz Kid | Old Man | |
| 1981 | The French Lieutenant's Woman | Dairyman | |
| 1982 | Remembrance | Jimmy | |
| 1982 | The Missionary | Old Man outside Hotel |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1958 | Quatermass and the Pit | | |
| 1964 | The Massingham Affair | | |
| 1966–1970 | Mystery and Imagination - Casting the Runes | Coachman | |
| 1969–1970 | The Dustbinmen | Smellie Ibbotson (main role) | |
| 1971 | Play for Today | Billy (main role) | Billy's Last Stand |
| 1971 | One More On Top | | ITV play by Jonathan Hales |
| 1973 | The Jensen Code | Mr. Buckle | |
| 1974–1975 | Not On Your Nellie | Jed Pickersgill (main role) | Series 1 and 2, 13 episodes |
| 1976 | Play for Today | Ben Packman (main role) | Packman's Barn |
| 1976 | Shadows | Eli (main role) | The Inheritance |
| 1978–80 | All Creatures Great and Small | Kitson / Mr. Dent | |
| 1980 | God's Wonderful Railway | Robbie Grant (main role) | Clear Ahead, 3 episodes |
| 1980 | Juliet Bravo | Mr.Israel Smethurst (Lollipop man) | (Series 1, Ep. 5 – 'Trouble At T’Mill') |
| 1961,1980 | Coronation Street | Mr. Stark / Monty Shawcross | |
| 1982 | Objects of Affection (Alan Bennett plays) | Mr. Joey Wyman (main role) | Rolling Home |

### Selected stage performances

| Year | Title | Author | Theatre | Role | Director |
| 1939 | The Bear | Anton Chekhov | The Curtain Theatre, Rochdale | | Jack E. Barrett |
| 1939 | Laodice | Wallace B. Nichols | The Curtain Theatre, Rochdale | Euphorion, Lord of the Syrian Court | E. Nuttall Butterworth |
| 1942 | The Two Gentlemen of Verona | William Shakespeare | The Curtain Theatre, Rochdale | | Jack E. Barrett |
| 1946 | While the Sun Shines | Terence Rattigan | De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea | Duke | |
| 1952 | A Streetcar Named Desire | Tennessee Williams | White Rock Pavilion, Hastings | | |
| 1953 | Charley's Aunt | Brandon Thomas | Theatre Royal, Portsmouth | Brassett | Carl Clopet |
| 1954 | Grand National Night | Campbell Christie and Dorothy Christie | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | Morton (the butler) | John Barrett |
| 1954 | White Sheep of the Family | John Hay Beith and L. du Garde Peach | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | James Winter | John Barrett |
| 1954 | Piccadilly Alibi | Guy Paxton and Edward Hoile | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | | |
| 1954 | When We Are Married | J. B. Priestley | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | | John Barrett |
| 1954 | Dial M for Murder | Frederick Knott | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | | John Barrett |
| 1954 | Babes in the Wood (pantomime) | | Victoria Theatre, Burnley | Robber | Morris Parsons |
| 1968 | A Collier's Friday Night | D. H. Lawrence | Royal Court Theatre, London | Old Lambert, collier (main role) | Peter Gill |
| 1969 | Saved | Edward Bond | Royal Court Theatre, London | main role | William Gaskill |
| 1969 | Early Morning | Edward Bond | Royal Court Theatre, London | Gladstone | William Gaskill |
| 1970 | Billy's Last Stand | Barry Hines | Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London | Billy (main role) | Michael Wearing |
| 1971 | The Changing Room | David Storey | Royal Court Theatre, London | Harry | Lindsay Anderson |
| 1972 | Lloyd George Knew My Father | William Douglas-Home | Savoy Theatre, London | Robertson | Robin Midgley |
| 1974 | Bingo | Edward Bond | Royal Court Theatre, London | Old man | Jane Howell & John Dove |
| 1978 | Lark Rise | Flora Thompson | Cottesloe, National Theatre | | Bill Bryden and Sebastian Graham-Jones |
| 1980 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | Royal Court Theatre, London | Gravedigger | Richard Eyre |
| 1981 | The Crucible | Arthur Miller | Comedy Theatre, London | | Bill Bryden |