Brian Hewlett

Description

Brian Hewlett joined The Archers as Neil Carter in April 1973, having already appeared in two earlier episodes as Johnny, one of Tom Forrest's adopted sons!

After leaving school, in 1956, he attended the Rose Bruford Training College of Speech and Drama for three years, before beginning his professional career at Sir Bernard (later Lord) Miles' Mermaid Theatre in London, with roles in Lock-Up Your Daughters, Treasure Island and Great Expectations. He then embarked on a nationwide tour with Brendan Behan's The Hostage, in which he played the title role.

Throughout the following decades Brian has maintained contact with theatre-work in many repertory companies and the West End. Favourite roles include Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, and Amos Hart (Mr. Cellophane) in the original London production (1980) of Chicago.

Brian's radio career began in 1964, when he played opposite Chris Gittins (Walter Gabriel in The Archers) in a play called Frost, directed by the legendary R. D. Smith in the BBC's former Broad Street studios in Birmingham.

Other radio roles quickly followed and have continued throughout the rest of his career, including the infamous Widmerpool in the epic 26-episode dramatisation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, broadcast periodically over a four-year period.

To date, Brian has only one feature film credit, but it's a special one: a role in Roger Corman's classic version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death, starring Vincent Price. His television work ranges from Compact and Emergency Ward 10 to EastEnders and Pulaski, and he also performed in a repertory-format series of new plays called The Younger Generation in the 1960s for Granada Television in company with Johnny Briggs and the late John Thaw.

Having spent a large part of his career living in London, Brian moved to Norfolk in the early 1980s, and now enjoys all contact with the natural world, both at his home and on holiday trips abroad to such locations as Peru, Kenya and Rwanda - where he was able to observe rare mountain gorillas. Watching and photographing wildlife are interests that have gradually evolved, and "conservation of habitat and biodiversity are issues that are of paramount importance" he says.