R.I.P. Dan Meaden

[Reza]

thestage.co.uk


Dan Meaden, stage, film and television actor

Published Tuesday 10 January 2012 at 17:52 by Richard Anthony Baker

Of all the work undertaken by the actor Dan Meaden, he was most proud
of his stage appearances. Between 1959 and 1980, he was seen in
countless productions staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at
Stratford-upon-Avon, the Old Vic and the Aldwych. Throughout his
life, he was passionate about the work of Shakespeare and did all he
could to dispel the view that the playwright was somehow elitist. He
also appeared in two world premieres, John Osborne's Luther (1961), a
play about Martin Luther, one of the instigators of the Protestant
Reformation, in which the title role was taken by Albert Finney, and
Peter Shaffer's masterpiece about the destruction of the Incan
empire, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), first presented at
Chichester before transferring to the Old Vic.

Meaden first became interested in the theatre when he was sent to
elocution lessons as a boy to try to cure his shyness. Early in his
career, he was part of Geoffrey Hastings' summer rep company in the
Cornish resort of Newquay. Then, in 1960, he appeared in an
adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations at the Mermaid. Two years
later, he was with the Glasgow Citizens' company for productions of A
Midsummer Night's Dream, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire
and Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan.

On television, he took several roles in The Benny Hill Show (1965).
There followed 49 episodes of the police series, Softly Softly
(1966-68), in which he played Detective Constable Ben Box, and
Patrick Macnee's spy drama, The Avengers (1968). He was also one of
the story tellers on the children's programme, Jackanory (1969). To
cap it all, he was seen in the James Bond movie, Never Say Never
Again (1983), starring Sean Connery. During the 1990s, he appeared in
television commercials promoting Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Coca-Cola and
Geneva Gin.

Dan Meaden, who was born on October 11, 1935, died on November 28,
2011, at the age of 76.