Philip Franks

Philip Franks is an English actor and director born on 2 February 1956 in London. The only child of Patricia and Robert Franks, he grew up in a household shaped by his father's career as a squadron leader pilot in the Royal Air Force. Franks traces his passion for theatre to age six, when his parents brought him to a production of The Tempest. The following year he insisted on accompanying them to a performance of Hamlet, and by age seven he had committed himself to a lifelong engagement with the stage. He was educated at Oxford University.

Franks made his Broadway appearance in 1983, performing in All's Well that Ends Well. He is also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and his stage work has extended into directing across numerous prominent British venues. His directing credits include Kafka's Dick and The Kiss of the Spiderwoman at Nottingham Playhouse, The Cocktail Party at the Edinburgh Festival, Rebecca at the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Hamlet at Greenwich, Macbeth at Sheffield Crucible, The Duchess of Malfi at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and in the West End, Private Lives and The Heiress at the Royal National Theatre, The White Devil at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Nicholas Nickleby at Chichester Festival Theatre, and The Tempest at Liverpool Playhouse.

To British television audiences, Franks is best known for two long-running series. He played the tax inspector Cedric "Charley" Charlton in the comedy drama The Darling Buds of May and Sergeant Raymond Craddock in Heartbeat. His television guest appearances include Absolutely Fabulous, Pie in the Sky, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Bleak House, The Buddha of Suburbia, The Green Man, and To Serve Them All My Days. For his role as Tom Pinch in Martin Chuzzlewit, Franks shaved his head, leaving only wispy strands at the sides, a transformation that prompted fans who recognized him on the street to ask whether he had done so for religious reasons.

Franks made regular appearances alongside Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner on the game show Countdown, having originally applied to the programme as a contestant before becoming more widely known, and continued in that role until 2006. From December 2012 he played the Narrator in the 40th anniversary UK touring production of Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Show.

His work in radio includes directing several BBC productions. He directed A Patriot for Me by John Osborne for BBC Radio 3, with a cast that included Richard Goulding, Peter Egan, Amanda Root, and Michael Pennington. He also directed A Cold Supper Behind Harrods by David Morley, a story inspired by real events in which three former Special Operations Executive agents reunite in 1997 and are forced to confront their own conduct during the Second World War. That production starred David Jason, Anton Lesser, Stephanie Cole, and Sophie Roberts, with Lesser portraying codemaker Leo Marks and Cole playing Vera Atkins.