R.I.P. Mark Kingston

[Reza]

London Telegraph

Mark Kingston

Mark Kingston, who has died aged 77, created many
West End roles in his 50-odd years on stage
notably the lecturer, Frank, who taught Julie
Walters in Educating Rita, by Willie Russell, and
Reg in the Alan Ayckbourn trilogy The Norman Conquests .

6:18PM BST 26 Oct 2011


Highly respected and much liked by his peers,
Kingston also appeared in many parts on
television, among them that of Danny South (based
on Jimmy Greaves) in United, the BBC serial about the world of football.
Mark Kingston

Among his friends was Sir Alec Guinness,
alongside whom he played eight roles (all the
other parts) in the two-handed play Yahoo, about
Jonathan Swift. He also appeared with Guinness in
John Mortimer's Voyage Round My Father.

Mark Kingston was born on April 18 1934 in
Deptford, into a close-knit working-class family;
his father was a blacksmith who helped with the
construction of Mulberry harbours after D-Day;
his mother packed biscuits for Peek Frean's.
Educated at Greenwich Central School, Mark
claimed to have seldom opened a book; rather, he
loved football and became a junior boxing champion.

At the age of 15, however, he met a teacher, Tom
Love, who changed his life. Love taught
literature through drama, and introduced him to
plays, poetry and Shakespeare, leading Mark to
discover a passion for acting. He became a clerk
in a shipping office and went to evening classes
at Toynbee Hall, studying acting. Dismayed by
this turn of events, his father declared: I've got a poof for a son.

Following further study at Lamda (where he
jettisoned his cockney accent), Kingston got his
first professional job in 1952, in panto at the
Boston Hippodrome. Playing the Emperor of China
alongside Diana Dors as Aladdin, he found
performing at the 2,000-seater arena a
terrifying experience. He moved on to rep in
Bridgwater, where one of the actors in the
company, Kenneth Williams, advised and encouraged him.

Kingston's next engagement was at Ryde, on the
Isle of Wight, where he panicked during the dress
rehearsal of his first major part in weekly rep,
decamping from the theatre and boarding the ferry
for the mainland. The ship did not sail on time,
and Kingston returned to the theatre.

He was subsequently cast as Feste in Twelfth
Night alongside Vivien Leigh at the Old Vic,
which embarked on a world tour. Also in the
company was Marigold Sharman, whom he had
recently met at Birmingham rep. She played Maria
in Twelfth Night, and they married when the
company was in Brisbane, enjoying a honeymoon on
the Great Barrier Reef. Kingston was named
Australia's Actor Of The Year for his performance as Feste.

Back in Britain, Peter Ustinov cast him as the
sergeant major in his play The Unknown Soldier,
at Chichester, after which Alec Guinness invited
him to take the part of Peter Quilpe in TS Eliot's The Cocktail Party.

Kingston's career in the West End was now
launched. He played the lead in The Mousetrap and
The Woman In Black, and appeared in Clouds, by
Michael Frayn, and in Dragon's Tail, with
Penelope Keith (both directed by Michael Rudman).
His last major appearance was in David Hare's Racing Demon at Chichester.

On television, besides Danny South, Kingston had
prominent parts in Shine On Harvey Moon; Give My
Regards To Broad Street; Beryl's Lot; and No Job
For A Lady (again with Penelope Keith). He also
created a one-man show about Shakespeare, which he performed at Edinburgh.

Mark Kingston's favourite pastime became golf. He
was for many years a member of Richmond Golf Club
and of The Stage Golfing Society, being its captain in 1994.

When his wife Marigold developed dementia he went
into the actors home Denville Hall to be with her. She survives him.