Oliver Gordon Battcock (16 September 1903 – 26 September 1970) was an English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er, actor and producer. Battcock was a left-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowled right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born in

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4 ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

. Battcock made his debut for

in the 1925

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

against the Kent Second XI. He played

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for Buckinghamshire from 1925 to 1939, and again from 1946 to 1951, making 115 appearances. Battcock made the first of his two first-class appearances for the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

in 1938 against

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. His second came the following season against

Oxford University 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 ...

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

. In his two first-class matches, he scored 30 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 30.00, with a high score of 27. With the ball he took two wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 51.00, with best figures of 1/10. As an actor, under the name Oliver Gordon, he made his West End debut in ''The Midshipmaid'' in August 1931. He subsequently played opposite such stage stars as

Gerald du Maurier Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier (26 March 1873 – 11 April 1934) was an English actor and manager. He was the son of author George du Maurier and his wife, Emma Wightwick, and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1903, he m ...

(in ''Diplomacy'', 1933) and

Seymour Hicks Sir Edward Seymour Hicks (30 January 1871 – 6 April 1949), better known as Seymour Hicks, was a British actor, music hall performer, playwright, actor-manager and producer. He became known, early in his career, for writing, starring in and p ...

(in ''Vintage Wine'', 1934), as well as appearing in several films. During

World War II 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 opposin ...

he ran the

Theatre Royal, Windsor The Theatre Royal is an Edwardian era, Edwardian theatre on Thames Street in Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in Berkshire. The present building is the second theatre to stand on this site and opened on 13 December 1910. Built for Sir Wiliam Shipley an ...

, inaugurating its longstanding tradition of lavish pantomimes. According to John Counsell, founder of the Windsor Repertory Company, he was able "for five years to maintain, in spite of the strains and stresses of man and woman power shortage, of rationing and lack of materials, an astonishingly high level of production." In later years he was closely associated as director-producer with both the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham and

Salisbury Playhouse Salisbury Playhouse is a theatre in the English city of Salisbury, Wiltshire. It was built in 1976 and comprises the 517-seat Main House and the 149-seat Salberg, a rehearsal room and a community & education space. It is part of Arts Council En ...

; among his final credits, at Salisbury, was

Widow Twankey Widow Twankey (originally Twankay, sometimes Twanky) is a female character in the pantomime '' Aladdin''. She is a pantomime dame, played by an older man. History The story of Aladdin is drawn from the '' Arabian Nights'', a collection of Midd ...

in ''Aladdin'' (1969-70), which he also directed. He was married to Gemma Fagan, daughter of Irish actor

James Bernard Fagan James Bernard Fagan (18 May 1873 – 17 February 1933) was an Irish-born actor, theatre manager, producer and playwright active in England. After turning from the law to the stage, Fagan began his acting career, including four years from 1895 t ...

. He died in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on 26 September 1970.

References

External links

Oliver Battcock
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

Oliver Battcock
at CricketArchive * {{DEFAULTSORT:Battcock Oliver 1903 births 1970 deaths Sportspeople from Slough English cricketers Buckinghamshire cricketers Buckinghamshire cricket captains Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers 20th-century English male actors