Maurice Colbourne

Early life

Roger Middleton was born in Sheffield, three weeks after Britain and France declared war on Germany upon the outbreak of the Second World War, and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He took his stage name from that of an earlier actor called Maurice Colbourne, who shared the same birthday (in a different year) as his.

Career

In 1972, Colbourne co-founded, together with Michael Irving and Guy Sprung, the Half Moon Theatre near Aldgate, east London. This was a successful, radical theatre company, performing initially in an 80-seat disused synagogue in Half Moon Passage, E1. In 1985, the company moved to a converted chapel in Mile End Road, near Stepney Green. He performed in many productions at Half Moon Theatre, including In the Jungle of the Cities, Will Wat, If Not, What Will?, Heroes of the Iceberg Hotel, Sawdust Caesar, Dan Dare and Chaste Maid in Cheapside. He also directed several productions, including Silver Tassie, Alkestis, The Shoemakers and Pig Bank. He returned in 1979 to perform in Guys and Dolls.

Colbourne first became well known when he played the lead role of John Kline in a BBC drama series, Gangsters, from 1975–78, and afterwards appeared regularly on television. This included a guest appearance in a 1977 episode of Van der Valk, "Everybody Does It". He played Charles Marston, the love interest of Lady Fogarty, in the seventh series of The Onedin Line screened from 22 July to 23 September 1979. He played a mercenary in an episode of the Return of the Saint called "Duel in Venice". He played the character Jack Coker in the BBC's television miniseries adaptation of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1981). He also twice appeared in Doctor Who as the character Lytton (in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) and Attack of the Cybermen (1985)).

Colbourne played lead character Tom Howard in 61 episodes of the successful BBC television drama Howards' Way from 1985 to 1989. During a break in filming of the fifth series, he died aged 49 from a heart attack while renovating a holiday home in Dinan, Brittany, France, leaving behind his wife of 10 years Chan Lian Si, and their daughter Clara. Howard's Way continued to the end of series five and for a sixth series, to tie up the storylines, with Colbourne's character being written out of the scripts.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1970 Cry of the Banshee Villager 1970 Times For 1976 Escape from the Dark (aka The Littlest Horse Thieves) Luke Armstrong 1977 The Duellists Tall Second 1979 Bloodline Jon Swinton 1980 Hawk the Slayer Axe Man 1 Dead Man's Kit Lt Commander Kohbal 1981 Venom Sampson

Television

Theatre