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Some months ago, the Society received a request to consider the late Brian Cant, a well known and loved Ipswich born actor and television presenter, to receive a Blue Plaque. Unfortunately, he had passed away in 2017 and did not qualify under the Society’s ‘20-year rule’ which was designed to protect the integrity of our Blue Plaque scheme.
After further consideration it was thought that it would be fitting to include an article on his life in the Eminent Ipswichians feature of our Newsletter.
Brian Cant was born in Ipswich on 12 July, 1933 and was educated at Northgate Grammar School for Boys, now known as Northgate High School.
He was a keen footballer and trained with the Ipswich Town youth side. He also volunteered as helper at the Ipswich theatre. A career with Ipswich Town did not materialise and he found employment with an Ipswich printer as a lithographic artist, later moving to London where he took part in amateur dramatics before turning professional. In 1958 he spent the summer season with the Buxton Rep in Derbyshire. By the 1960s he was appearing in TV dramas and while working for the BBC he auditioned for the new pre-school children’s programme Play School. He was cast as a presenter and first appeared in May 1964, staying with the programme for twenty-one years.
He was also working on other programmes between 1966 and 1999 including Camberwick Green, Trumpton, Chigley, Play Away, Bricabrac and Dappledown farm.
His television appearances in the 1960s included two episodes in Doctor Who and also The Dominators. In 1979 he presented the BBC programme The Great Egg Race and in 1982 he was one of the guest presenters of the series It’s a Knockout. He later returned to TV drama, appearing three times in BBC’s drama Doctors.
He made a few brief appearances in films including in 1965 The Pleasure Club, in 1966’s Sandwich Man and in 1995 Christopher Lee’s A Feast at Midnight*.
Brian Cant lived in Chalfont St Giles. He married his first wife, Mary Gibson, in 1959 and they divorced in 1984. They had two sons, Nicholas and Richard, who is also an actor. In 1984 he married the writer and director, Cherry Britton who is the sister of the TV personality Fern Britton. They had three children, Rose, Christabel and Peter who is also an actor.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1999 but kept on working, not making his illness public until 2010. That same year he received a well-deserved special award at the Children’s BAFTAs for his work in children’s television.
Brian Cant died on 19 June 2017, aged 83, at a London retirement home favoured by the acting profession.
Tony Robson
[Sources: Wikipedia, The Guardian obituary, East Anglian Daily Times obituary.]
*Also notable for being the feature film debut of future Conservative politician Michael Gove as the chaplain.