Raymond Sargent (2 October 1952 – 9 March 2008) was a British actor, musician and dramatist.

Early life

Along with his sister Jean, he was born in the town of

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

, Dorset to a mother from

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

and

father.

Career

Following several years of study as an electro-mechanic instrument mechanic, then an instrument maker Raymond discovered a passion for drama when his future wife Julia Banwell introduced him to amateur dramatics. He then studied acting professionally at Mountview Theatre School in London.

Theatre

He toured for two years from 1994–1996 with the highly successful nationally touring musical production of

The Buddy Holly Story ''The Buddy Holly Story'' is a 1978 American biographical film which tells the life and career of rock and roll musician Buddy Holly. It features an Academy Award-winning musical score, adapted by Joe Renzetti and Oscar-nominated lead performan ...

playing Norman Petty and Jack Daw, he also played parts in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Rhinoceros! and Hard Times.

Television

During his early career, he played small parts in television programmes such as Only Fools and Horses, Miss Marple, cult programmes

The Two Ronnies ''The Two Ronnies'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from April 1971 to December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo sections, seria ...

, Blake's 7 and

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

. He later played larger parts in 'Let's Roll- The Story of Flight 93' and 'Time Tourists'. He also appeared in several television advertisements and training videos.

Film

Raymond performed in many student films throughout his career including several for local filmmaker Jamie Shearing.

Music

Raymond was a self-taught musician playing the saxophone, guitar,

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

, piano and

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

amongst other instruments. He played in

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

trio the Wimborne Minstrels, with Charles Spicer and Phil Humphries and in a ceilidh band called No Strings Attached. Raymond wrote original music for his one-man shows and for other projects such as the 'New Music for the River Stour' project, which was performed in Wimborne, Dorset by a local choir.

Dramatisations

Raymond was best known for touring his one-man shows nationally. From 2002 onwards, he performed theatrical adaptations of The Three Strangers by

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

and The Signalman by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

as halves of his production 'Two Victorian Tales'. He also performed an original dramatisation of

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

's last years and his relationship with

Dance

Raymond was an experienced folk dance 'caller' and applied the skills used for his one-man shows to ceilidh dancing to dance, providing lower cost folk dances by accompanying self-created backing tracks on his saxophone, demonstrating and instructing or 'calling' dances by himself. These were known as 'Track Ceilidhs'. Raymond provided the choreography for

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 unt ...

's television adaptation of

The Mayor of Casterbridge ''The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character'' is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in D ...

, which he was also an extra in along with his wife Julia, and daughter Laura.

Writing

Raymond held educational workshops on adapting written material for the stage, original script writing, theatre skills, public address and poetry writing. He also read poetry for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

Poetry Please ''Poetry Please'' is a weekly radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in which listeners request poems, which are then read by a cast of actors. It is broadcast on Sunday afternoons and repeated the following Saturday night. The current presenter ...

References

* T. E. Lawrence#cite note-21

External links

*http://www.raymondsargent.com/biog.htm *http://www.raymondsargent.com/two_victorian_tales.htm *http://www.raymondsargent.com/wimborne_minstrels.htm *http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2436988/ *http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1223881/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Sargent, Raymond 1952 births 2008 deaths English male film actors People from Poole English male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English male writers