Merseyside Mirth Makers - Ken Jones

Ken Jones

Ken Jones was born in the Everton district of Liverpool on the 20th of February 1930 and, on leaving school, went into the building trade before working as a signwriter. He also acted with the amateur Merseyside Community theatre where he met the actor-writer Sheila Fay, then a teacher. The couple ran a theatre in Liverpool and, before deciding to turn professional, they both trained at Rada. On graduating in 1958 they joined Joan Littlewood's celebrated Theatre Workshop in Stratford, East London. Jones later reflected that Littlewood's ban on make-up forced actors to get inside characters without using artificial aids.

He appeared as the accountant Rex in Eric Chappell's comedy series 'The Squirrels', playing the hen-pecked, worrying, ineffectual bookkeeper, forever caught between his frenzied boss (Bernard Hepton) and his suffocating wife (Patsy Rowlands). He and his wife Sheila also starred in The Wackers (1975) as a couple, Billy and Mary Clarkson, bringing up their divided Liverpool family – half Protestant, half Catholic, half Liverpool football club supporters, half Everton supporters. These programmes made Jones a familiar face on television. He also starred in the Liver Birds, in which he played Uncle Dermot alongside his wife Sheila, who played Mrs Hennessy.

Ken and Sheila were married on the 30th of October 1964 at St Polycarp Church, in Everton, near where Ken’s family had made their home in Anfield.
Another memorable appearance was in Neville Smith's soccer gem The Golden Vision (1968) which chronicled Everton's revered centre forward Alex Young, and where he was happy to 'lay it on thick' as in his other comedy roles. He was nifty at naturalism, and belonged for a time to a bold squad of Liverpudlian lions which included Neville Smith, Bill Dean and Peter Kerrigan, who all excelled.

Impish and furtive are words that spring to mind when remembering his many comedy performances. He was a gift for casting directors, always able to add a mischievous twinkle to a scene, frequently playing incompetent little devils whose ambition in life was little more than to be a spiv. Although he was a television sitcom star in his own right, he is destined to be remembered in the supporting cast of the hugely popular Porridge, alongside Ronnie Barker's wily character Norman Fletcher. He played "Horrible" Ives, who earned his nickname – from both inmates and warders – through displaying the loathsome qualities of being a creep and a snitch. Jailed for fraud, Bernard Ives was also a perpetual cheat, notable for starting his sentences with the words: "'Ere, listen."

Two inmates of Slade Prison

Throughout his full career, whether sighing wearily or nudging hopefully, he always raised a smile.Writer Allan Prior said of him in 1968: "Actors like Ken Jones make you wonder if they are actors at all or people who have walked in off Lime Street. No Actors Studio could teach Mr Jones anything. He is for real."

see next :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/05/merseyside-mirth-makers-jean-boht.html