Stan Pretty

The Waiter

Stan is delighted to return to Vienna for another Ray Cooney farce, having first played at Vienna’s English Theatre in There Goes the Bride as the much put-upon father of the groom.

His recent stage work has included numerous pantomimes and creating the role of the belligerent Lord Chancellor, Sir Harry Lumsden-Clark, in the farce On Your Honour at London’s Jermyn St. Theatre. Stan is also a keen Shakespearean and has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park and at the Ludlow Festival as well as touring for some years with a small-scale touring company he formed with actor/Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Milton. Together they have written and performed in three plays about the bard throughout the British Isles as well as in Germany and the United States.

Over many years, Stan’s considerable stage work has included The Shallow End with Nigel Terry and Jane Asher at the Royal Court, The Rover with Jeremy Irons for the RSC, Waste with Daniel Massey and Judi Dench in the West End and, a particular favourite, the role of Badger in Alan Bennett’s The Wind in the Willows at the Bristol Old Vic. As well as Vienna, he has appeared in Australia (‘Allo ‘Allo), Germany (Barefoot in the Park), France (Wolf Lullaby) and the United States (Burbage and the Bard).

His film appearances include Leon the Pig Farmer, Jenny’s War and Great Moments in Aviation and on television Bergerac, Minder, Boon, and Dempsey and Makepeace among others. He also frequently works with student directors at the National Film & Television School. An experienced voice-over artist and broadcaster, Stan is also a prolific audiobook reader. These include the award-winning Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey, Secrets of the Sea by Nicholas Shakespeare and The Resurrectionist by James Bradley, plus many hours of classics on the web.

In recent years Stan has devised and directed four large-scale community plays in his home town in Buckinghamshire for which he was awarded an MBE.