Deryck Guyler was a British comedy
actor, best known for roles as an officious short-tempered
middle-aged man in sitcoms such as Please, Sir and
Sykes. He was born in Cheshire and brought up in Liverpool,
and originally planned a career in the church. By the
time the Second World War broke out, he had already
decided to go into professional acting, and ENSA gave
him the opportunity to reach a wider audience.
After the war, Guyler became a regular on the immensely
popular radio series, It's That Man Again (ITMA). His
success continued into the 1960s when he starred in
the gently satirical radio programme about life in
the British civil service The Men from the Ministry
with Richard Murdoch.
Guyler's first television success came as one of
Michael Bentine's sidekicks in the inventive and surreal
BBC show It's a Square World (1960). More recently,
he appeared in numerous television light entertainment
shows in which he performed a novelty act playing the
washboard. He was also a regular on the sitcoms Please,
Sir and Sykes. In 1983, he retired to Brisbane, Australia,
where he lived until his death. |