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John Abbott (British actor)
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
actor and author. His television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
credits include Timeslip
Timeslip
Timeslip is a British children's science fiction television series made by ATV for the ITV network and broadcast between 1970 and 1971. The series centres around two children, Simon Randall and Liz Skinner who discover the existence of a strange anomaly, known as the “Time Barrier”, that enables...
, Z-Cars
Z-Cars
Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...
, Softly, Softly
Softly, Softly (TV series)
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...
, Special Branch
Special Branch (TV series)
Special Branch is a British television series made by Thames Television for ITV and shown between 1969 and 1974. A police drama series, the action was centred on members of the Special Branch anti-espionage and anti-terrorist department of the London Metropolitan Police.The first two series were...
, Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
(in the serial Horror of Fang Rock
Horror of Fang Rock
Horror of Fang Rock is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 3 September to 24 September 1977.-Synopsis:...
), Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Angels
Angels (TV series)
Angels was originally a British television seasonal drama series dealing with the subject of student nurses and was broadcast by the BBC between 1975 and 1978. The show's format then switched to a twice weekly soap opera format from 1979 to 1983. The show's title derived from the name of the...
, Bergerac
Bergerac (TV series)
Bergerac was a British television show set on Jersey. Produced by the BBC in association with the Seven Network, and screened on BBC1, it starred John Nettles as the title character Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, a detective in "Le Bureau des Étrangers" Bergerac was a British television show...
, Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
and Wycliffe
Wycliffe (TV series)
Wycliffe is a British TV series, based on W. J. Burley's novels about Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe . It was produced by HTV and broadcast on the ITV Network, following a pilot episode on 7 August 1993, between 24 July 1994 and 5 July 1998. The series was filmed in Cornwall, with a...
.
Abbott was also cast by his director from his Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
story as the Vicar in the early series of Emmerdale Farm and recounts that anecdote on the commentary on the DVD release of that story.
Abbott was also the Vicar who appeared at the end of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
and asked Hugh Grant if he could be of assistance when Hugh was cursing at the prospect of his impending marriage to the wrong girl.
Abbott went on to become a teacher of acting and taught Shakespeare, Stand-Up and Improvisation at the ArtsEd School of Acting in London, where he was also Head of Academic Studies for a time. He wrote The Improvisation Book, an introduction to conducting successful improvisation sessions (Nick Hern Books, 2007).