48 Facts About Brian Rix

Brian Norman Roger Rix, Baron Rix was an English actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage, including Dry Rot, Simple Spymen and One for the Pot.

Brian Rix often worked with his wife Elspet Gray and sister Sheila Mercier, who became the matriarch in Emmerdale Farm.

Brian Rix entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher in 1992 and was president of Mencap from 1998 until his death.

Brian Rix was born in Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of four children.

Brian Rix had an interest in cricket and only wished to play for Yorkshire in his childhood.

Brian Rix did play for Hull Cricket Club when he was 16.

All four Brian Rix children had become interested in the theatre because of their mother, Fanny, who ran an amateur dramatic society and was the lead soprano in the local operatic society.

Brian Rix became a professional actor when he was 18, on deferment from service with the Royal Air Force, with Donald Wolfit's Shakespeare Company.

Brian Rix's deferment was extended and he gained his first weekly repertory experience with the White Rose Players at the opera house in Harrogate.

In 1950 the newly-weds toured together with Reluctant Heroes until Brian Rix managed to persuade the Whitehall Theatre management that this army farce was the ideal play to follow the long-running Worm's Eye View.

Alongside the regulars from his theatre company, Brian Rix appeared in these TV productions with such names as Dora Bryan, Joan Sims, Ian Carmichael, John Le Mesurier, Patrick Cargill, Fabia Drake, Sheila Hancock, Warren Mitchell, Thora Hird and Francis Matthews.

Brian Rix appeared in 11 films and though he felt these were less suited to his talents as a farceur, these met with some box-office success.

Brian Rix himself played the gormless north-country recruit, Horace Gregory, in both film and throughout the four-year run at the Whitehall, where his reputation for losing his trousers began.

Brian Rix subsequently lost them at least 12,000 times in the 26 years he was on stage in the farces; though he lost them less in the TV plays.

Brian Rix was always philosophical about his lack of recognition, accepting it as the fate of so many low comedians before him.

The Aldwych farces ran for 10 years, seven months and four days, while Brian Rix went on for another 16 years.

Brian Rix had a particularly long and fruitful relationship with the director Wallace Douglas and with the set designer, Rhoda Gray, who created the setting for practically all of Brian Rix's productions, both in the theatre and on TV.

In 1967, Brian Rix moved on to the Garrick Theatre after the Whitehall Theatre lease expired.

Brian Rix played the first four weeks and then Leslie Crowther returned and played the last six.

She's Done It Again, opened at the Garrick to the best reviews Brian Rix had ever enjoyed, but it had the shortest run of any of his productions to that date.

Brian Rix's favoured explanation was that the play, funny as it was, might have seemed somewhat old-fashioned, as it was adapted by Michael Pertwee from a pre-war farce, Nap Hand, by Vernon Sylvaine and based upon the birth of Dionne quintuplets.

Brian Rix, who had never enjoyed touring, now hated the endless nights away from home, and was delighted when the play was turned first into a television series for HTV, Men of Affairs and then into a film.

Brian Rix was by now becoming tired of going on stage night after night, and sensing that he had reached the peak of his success, began to consider retiring from the stage.

Ably assisted by his former stage manager and now PA, Joanne Benjamin, Rix was responsible for obtaining productions for various West End theatres including the Shaftesbury, the Duke of York's, the Ambassadors and the re-built Astoria which opened with the award-winning Elvis, starring P J Proby, Shakin' Stevens and Tim Whitnall.

Brian Rix found being on the other side of the footlights increasingly frustrating, and in 1980 he became the Secretary-General of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults.

Brian Rix returned to performing and the stage intermittently in later years, playing Shakespeare on BBC Radio, doing a six-month run in a revival of Dry Rot, directing a play with Cannon and Ball, playing his favourite big band jazz on BBC Radio 2, and touring three one-night-only shows, one with his wife, which explored theatrical history and his own remarkable experiences of life.

From 1986 to 1993, Brian Rix served as chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain's Drama Panel.

Brian Rix was an active chair of the Arts Council Disability Committee raising the profile and perceived importance of arts and disability issues within Arts Council decision-making.

Brian Rix's approach meant he was able to cut through bureaucratic constraints.

Brian Rix was one of the most regular attenders in the House and every year introduced numerous amendments to legislation, mainly that associated with health, social welfare and education.

Brian Rix found the length of time required to change legislation very frustrating.

One example in 1994 was when Brian Rix introduced a private member's bill ensuring that local authorities would provide short-term breaks for carers and cared-for alike, on a reasonably timed basis.

Brian Rix tried again when New Labour became the government in 1997, but again to no avail.

Brian Rix discovered in the mid-1990s that the legislation regarding State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme had been altered under Margaret Thatcher.

Brian Rix campaigned to restore the original payment and after a number of years arguing the point with the New Labour Government, he succeeded.

Brian Rix was a constant supporter of the Rix Centre at the University of East London, which develops and disseminates tools and training for multi-media advocacy to enhance the lives of people with a learning disability.

Brian Rix served as the first chairman of the Arts Council Monitoring Committee on Arts and Disability as well as founding and chairing the charity Libertas which produced dozens of audio guides for disabled people at museums, historical buildings and other places of interest.

Brian Rix campaigned against smoking; having been a smoker for ten years, Brian Rix gave up smoking on Boxing Day in 1950 when he lost his voice during a matinee of Reluctant Heroes.

Brian Rix subsequently became a passionate non-smoker and a founding member of Action on Smoking and Health.

Brian Rix became a radio ham at the age of 13 and became a life vice-president of the Radio Society of Great Britain in 1979.

Brian Rix was president of the Friends of Richmond Park.

Brian Rix was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in October 1961 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at a friend's house in Surrey, and again in April 1977, when Andrews surprised him at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.

Brian Rix was a castaway on Desert Island Discs on two occasions.

Brian Rix died on 20 August 2016 at Denville Hall in Northwood, London.

Brian Rix was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1977 Birthday Honours, and knighted in June 1986 for his services to charity.

Brian Rix was Vice Lord Lieutenant of Greater London from 1987 to 1997 and was the first chancellor of the University of East London from 1997 to 2012.

Brian Rix was the author of two autobiographies, My Farce From My Elbow and Farce About Face, and two theatre histories, Tour de Farce and Life in the Farce Lane.

Brian Rix edited, compiled and contributed to Gullible's Travails, an anthology of travel stories by famous people for the Mencap Blue Sky Appeal.