Elsie Noël Dyson (23 December 1916 – 29 June 1995) was an English character actress
Dyson played a number of roles in theatre, television and films (including in telemovies) but is best remembered as a versatile character actress in TV serials who became a familiar face to British viewers in a career spanning almost 50 years from 1949 until her death. Dyson's best remembered roles are as matriarch
Ida Barlow
Ida Barlow (also Leathers) is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera '' Coronation Street'', played by Noel Dyson between 1960 and 1961.
Creation
Casting
Creator Tony Warren originally had Betty Alberge in mind for the part ...
, one of the original characters in the long-running
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
''
Coronation Street'' (1960–61), and Nanny in the
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...
''
Father, Dear Father
''Father, Dear Father'' is a British television sitcom produced by Thames Television for ITV from 1968 to 1973 starring Patrick Cargill. It was subsequently made into a spin-off film of the same title released in 1973.
An Australian sequel s ...
'' (1968–73).
Early life and career
Dyson was born into a wealthy
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
family (she was given the middle name Noel because she was born two days before
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
), and was educated at the prestigious
Roedean School
Roedean School is an independent day and boarding school founded in 1885 in Roedean Village on the outskirts of Brighton, East Sussex, England, and governed by Royal Charter. It is for girls aged 11 to 18. The campus is situated near the Sus ...
in
Brighton. Following a period at a
finishing school in Paris, she returned to England and enrolled at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...
from which she graduated in 1938. She initially performed in
repertory
A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation.
United Kingdom
Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawin ...
companies around Britain, in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
and elsewhere, before moving on to London's
West End.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, Dyson temporarily ceased acting to become a
Voluntary Aid Detachment
The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units we ...
nurse, before returning to the acting profession, initially mainly in stage productions, then from the late 1940s started to become involved with television productions. Dyson's first known TV credit came in a 1949
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'', and for the next decade or so she would appear, mainly in one-off supporting roles, in a number of TV programmes as well as a handful of films.