Features
Rotherham's own: Duggie Brown
Granada Television's series "The Comedians" established Rotherham's Duggie Brown as a national entertainment figure, although he was already well known throughout the UK with his successful cabaret act. In the early seventies Duggie moved into the drama field, beginning with an appearance in the film "Kes". Numerous roles followed including "Another Sunday and Sweet FA", "Rank and File", "The Price of Coal,” for the BBC and "The Hard Word" for ITV.
He was then to star in the Shelagh Delaney BBC Series "The House That Jack Built" followed by the BBC detective series "The Enigma Files". Moving back to Granada TV in 1980, he starred in the situation comedies” Take My Wife" and "The Glamour Girls". He was also the "Captain" of the Saturday morning children's series "The Mersey Pirate".
The more recent programmes he has been featured in include "The Bill", "Minder", "Ellington" and in November 1995 Duggie was pleased to have a role in the highly acclaimed BBC Drama series "The House of Cards".
Amongst his theatre performances are Liverpool Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse, The Little Theatre Middlesbrough, and The Grand Theatre Leeds. He also had the great pleasure of playing "Ray Piper" in "Brookside" for Mersey Television and in 1997 "George Freeman" in "Coronation Street". He was also seen as Verney Sedgewick in the 25th year of the series “Last of the Summer Wine" and in January 1999 Duggie was featured in the new series of "Peak Practice” along with a couple of episodes of “All Creatures Great and Small” the James Herriott BBC TV Series.
1999 was a very busy year for Duggie. In July he finished work on a new film by Steven Woodcock, entitled "Between Two Women”, now released in the USA. He is also in the follow-up production entitled “The Jealous God”. For the rest of the year he was treading new ground, playing "The Fool" in Shakespeare's "King Lear" for the Northern Broadsides Theatre Company nationwide tour.
Following the success of the “King Lear” tour Duggie then directed and acted in a brand new musical play called “Danny”. It toured for 6 months, with him playing the part of “Father O Laughlin”.
In 2002 he was featured in the BBC Hospital Drama “Holby City”, followed by the ITV Drama production “A is for Acid” and again for the BBC “Eastenders” in 2003.
In 2004 Duggie was seen on national TV in the ITV series “Fat Friends". He also made a second appearance in “Coronation Street” in 2004 playing Honor Blackman’s husband and in 2005 in ”Heartbeat”. So far Duggie has appeared in “Doctors”, and Hotel Babylon” for the BBC in 2006
Duggie’s laptop PC is never far away, and he passes any spare time with web design, and you can see his latest page at www.duggiebrown.co.uk
But although he has been active in many different fields of the entertainment business Comedy is still the favourite field for Duggie.
During the past few years Duggie has been in great demand as an after dinner speaker at golf events and hosting conferences. Below are just a few of the names who have engaged Duggie's services:
Ford Iveco, Renault, Swiss Vaults Bank, Gardner Merchant, Autoglass, Phillips, Magnet, Legal and General, Appleyard Leasing, M.P.Burke, Scania Trucks, Vodafone, ATS Tyres, Man Trucks, Sphinx CST.., TNT, Bostik and many more.
He has managed to cram into his busy years, cruising for P&O, Princess Cruises, Cunard, Seabourn The QE2 –The Q.M.2 and Crystal Cruises. Royal Caribbean But Duggie always makes sure he has time for his hobby of golf, and is past captain of The Variety Club of Gt. Britain Golfing Society and is a proud memberof THE GRAND ORDER of WATER RATS , and is frequently involved in many charity fund raising events.
With thanks to Duggie for his kind permission to use this information.
©2004