page_title: John Moffatt (actor)
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: John Moffatt (actor) / Life and career / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Liverpool Playhouse theatre.
context_page_description: Albert John Moffatt was an English actor and playwright, known for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot on BBC Radio in twenty-five productions and for a wide range of stage roles in the West End from the 1950s to the 1980s.
  Moffatt's parents wished him to follow a career in a bank, but Moffatt secretly studied acting and made his stage debut in 1944. After five years in provincial repertory theatre he made his first London appearance in 1946. In the early 1950s he was cast in small parts in productions headed by John Gielgud and Noël Coward, and achieved increasingly prominent roles over the next decade. He was a member of the English Stage Company, the Old Vic, and the National Theatre companies. His range was considerable, embracing the classics, new plays, revue and pantomime.
  Moffatt began broadcasting on radio in 1950 and on television in 1953. His most enduring role was that of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in a long sequence of radio adaptations of her novels, beginning in 1987 and continuing at intervals until 2007. He was, perhaps, less well known as a film actor but took part in twelve films between 1956 and 1987.
context_section_description: Moffatt was born in Badby, Daventry, Northamptonshire, the son of Ernest Moffatt and his wife Letitia, née Hickman, servants to Queen Alexandra at Marlborough House and Sandringham. He was educated at East Sheen County School in west London, after which he spent three years as a bank clerk in the City of London.  In the evenings he attended drama classes given by John Burrell at Toynbee Hall. Moffatt kept the lessons secret from his parents, who considered the theatre too insecure a career.
  He made his first stage appearance in 1944 at the Liverpool Playhouse, playing the Raven, in a touring production for children of The Snow Queen. He made his debut in regular theatre at the Perth Repertory in 1945, where his colleagues included Alec McCowen, with whom he established a lifelong friendship. Over the next five years he learnt his craft playing more than 200 parts in repertory companies at Oxford and Windsor, and the Bristol Old Vic. At Oxford he and the young Tony Hancock played Ugly Sisters together. Moffatt retained a fondness for pantomime; he became a celebrated Dame, and was the author of five pantomimes.
caption: Liverpool Playhouse, where Moffatt made his debut
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