Leslie Lawton

Timothy Westerby

Leslie was born in Scotland and started his career as a child actor in television and films. On leaving school he appeared with most of the leading British regional theatre companies, played leading roles in West End plays and musicals and starred in countless TV series and plays in the U.K., Canada and the U.S.A.

He appeared in a record number of TV sitcoms opposite such comic legends as Robert Morley, Arthur Lowe, Sidney James, Beryl Reid, Sheila Hancock, Richard Briers and Leonard Rossiter.

On stage he was the first British actor to star in two Kander & Ebb musicals – as the ‘MC’ in Cabaret and as ‘Billy Flynn’ in the first national tour of Chicago. Other national tours include ‘Ken Harrison’ in Whose Life Is It Anyway, ‘Sidney’ in Absurd Person Singular and ‘Gary Essendine’ in Coward’s Present Laughter.

He started directing in the theatre in rep. and was Artistic Director of 5 theatres including Liverpool Playhouse and Edinburgh Royal Lyceum before joining the Theatre of Comedy Company where he was Ray Cooney’s Associate Director for ten years.

Included in his Cooney work were leading roles in the West End: In Two Into One and in Run For Your Wife (in which he spent 4 years), he played ‘John Smith’ opposite Henry McGee’s ‘Stanley’ and ‘Stanley’ opposite the ‘John Smith’s’ of Ray Cooney himself, Ralph Bates, Jeffrey Holland and Terry Scott. The Scott/Lawton pairing was also seen on a lengthy Far and Middle East tour (also starring Judy Buxton). He created the role of ‘Richard Willey’ in Out of Order and played ‘David Mortimore’ in the Windsor tryout of It Runs in the Family and in the subsequent London run.

He has directed 19 productions of Run for Your Wife (including London, Australia, Israel and Sweden), Out of Order in Denmark, Israel and Australia (where it starred Donald Sinden and Ronnie Corbett), Two Into One in Israel (where he was the first non-Israeli to win the coveted Director Of The Year Award) and on the UK tour, and countless productions of other Cooney warhorses including Funny Money, One For the Pot, Move Over Mrs Markham and Wife Begins at Forty in Australia and New York.

He has acted and/or directed in 27 countries around the World and currently has 4 hit productions running in Israel – Cooney’s Two Into One (now into its 3rd year) and Caught In the Net (now in its 2nd year), Pam Gems’ Piaf and Ayckbourn’s Things We Do For Love. In September 2004 he returns to direct Noises Off at Israel’s National Theatre.

For the BBC he directed Sir Norman Wisdom in Robbing Hood, Dame Thora Hird in In Loving Memory and Dame Judi Dench and all-star cast in Hay Fever.