Liverpool is the home of so many actors, and the birthplace of Tony Booth.
His adult life, though, began in quite another form of theatre; in Paris in
fact, as a member of the armed forces attached to NATO. There he developed, as
he says, "a taste for Bardot and Brandy", and a life-long taste for
acting.
He went into films and television after years of repertory, and will always
be remembered as the warring son-in-law in the classic 'til Death Us Do Part.
He has featured or starred in the West End in Life of the Party and No
Time for Sergeants.
Recent theatre work includes Brothers Of The Brush at the Liverpool
Everyman Theatre, The Narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the
West End and on a national tour, Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals and
Chief Constable James Anderton in Stalker.
Tony was seen as Tommy in Priests, a film by the acclaimed writer
Jimmy McGovern and directed by the award winning Antonia Bird. He has also
filmed an episode of Heartbeat and played a leading role in a short film
which will be released shortly, Down Among The Deadmen.
Tony has a leading role in a feature film entitled Owd Bob to be
released shortly and Treasure Island to be released in late 1998. Last
year saw the publication in paperback of his biography, A Labour of Love.
Tony was a consultant on The Things We Do For Love recently screened
on Granada.
His hobbies include politics and racing, "but not necessarily in that
order!"
(Many thanks to John Markham Associates for supplying us
with the above information and the photograph.)
Tony has also acted in several of IRDP's productions: as Lenny, the armed
robber in Shiver Breathing
by James Payne (a winning play in
the
Woolwich Young Radio Playwrights'
Competition) for which Tony put in a terrifying performance on the stage of
the Cottesloe Theatre at the Royal National, South Bank, London as well as for
the radio broadcast on LBC; as Boss McGinty in the LBC / US National Public
Radio co-production of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Valley of Fear;
and most recently as the Priest in
The Sons of Catholic Gentlemen by Francis Beckett, a winning play in the
London Radio Playwrights' Festival in 1997. Anne Karpf, writing in The
Guardian about The Sons of Catholic Gentlemen, said "Booth is
admirably restrained as a priest, affording us the intertextual irony of hearing
this master of excess play a continent cleric."
For more quotes from the critics, visit our
page of articles written about
The Sons of Catholic Gentlemen.
IRDP also contributed an acting budget to engage Tony in Down Among The
Deadmen, which was directed by John Beacham. IRDP director, Tim Crook, says
that Tony is "one of the most generous and honest actors I've ever worked
with".
