Bernard Joseph Cribbins was born on 29 December 1928 in the Derker area of Oldham, Lancashire, the son of First World War veteran John Edward Cribbins (1896–1964) and Ethel (née Clarkson; 1898–1989), a cotton weaver.[5][2] He had two sisters, alongside whom he grew up close to poverty.[6] He described his father as a "jack of all trades" who also dabbled in acting.[7]
Cribbins made his first West End theatre appearance in 1956 at the Arts Theatre, playing the two Dromios in A Comedy of Errors, and co-starred in the first West End productions of Not Now Darling, There Goes the Bride and Run for Your Wife. In 1960, he starred alongside Anna Quayle and Lionel Blair in the revue And Another Thing, written by Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge.[13] The show brought Cribbins to the attention of Parlophone head George Martin, who signed Cribbins to the label to record a single of a satirical song from the show titled "Folk Song".[14] Subsequently, Rudge and Dicks were asked to provide new material for Cribbins; their compositions "The Hole in the Ground", about an annoyed workman who eventually buries a harasser, and "Right Said Fred", about three workmen who struggle to move an unspecified heavy and awkward object into or out of a building (later also the name of a pop novelty band who named themselves after the song[15]), were top ten hits on the UK Singles Chart in 1962.[11][13] The third and final Cribbins single of the year "Gossip Calypso", written by Trevor Peacock, was another top 30 hit.[16]
In the 1960s Cribbins provided the voice of the character Tufty in RoSPA road safety films.[20] He also provided the voice of Buzby, a talking cartoon bird that was the mascot for the Post Office.[10] He also appeared in advertisements for Hornby model trains.[21] In 1978, he provided one of two voiceovers in the electricity safety public information filmPlay Safe. The other voice artist was Brian Wilde; Wilde voiced the owl and Cribbins voiced the robin.[22] In 1981, Music for Pleasure released a Swallows and Amazons audio book on tape cassette, read by Cribbins, abridged by Edward Phillips.[23]
Cribbins also provided the voiceover work for A Passion For Angling, starring Chris Yates and Bob James (1993).[24] In 1996, he played Puddleglum the marshwiggle in Brian Sibley's BBC Radio adaptation of C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair.[25] In 2013, he played Old Bailey in the radio adaptation of Neverwhere, dramatised by Dirk Maggs[26] and in 2015 he was among an ensemble cast in an audio production of The Jungle Book, in which he played the White Cobra.[18]
Cribbins was the star of the ITV series Cribbins (1969–70).[21] His other TV appearances include The Avengers (1968), Fawlty Towers (1975, as the spoon salesman Mr Hutchinson who is mistaken by the character Basil Fawlty for a hotel inspector),[27]Worzel Gummidge (1980), Shillingbury Tales (1980) and its spin-off Cuffy (1983).[2] Besides voicing The Wombles, Cribbins was a regular on BBC children's television in the 1970s as host of performance panel game Star Turn and Star Turn Challenge.[28]
These programmes concluded with Cribbins narrating a detective story as recurring character "Ivor Notion", with a script usually by Johnny Ball but sometimes by Myles Rudge, the co-writer of his Top 10 singles. He starred in the BBC's 1975 Christmas production Great Big Groovy Horse, a rock opera based on the story of the Trojan Horse shown on BBC2 alongside Julie Covington and Paul Jones.[29] It was later repeated on BBC1 in 1977.[30] He regularly appeared on BBC TV's The Good Old Days recreating songs made famous by the great stars of Music Hall.[31][32]
Cribbins starred as Jack in the series Old Jack's Boat, set in Staithes, and broadcast on the CBeebies channel starting in 2013. The cast included Helen Lederer, Janine Duvitski and former Doctor Who companion Freema Agyeman in supporting roles.[34] Although Agyeman and Cribbins both played companions and supporting characters during David Tennant's tenure in Doctor Who (appearing in six episodes together), Old Jack's Boat was the first time the two actors have appeared together on screen. On 9 May 2015, Cribbins gave a reading at VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in Horse Guards Parade, London which was broadcast live on BBC1.[35] He made his final on screen appearance as Wilfred Mott in the second 60th anniversary episode Wild Blue Yonder in December 2023; although he was due to appear in the third of the three episodes and more material had been written for him, Cribbins was too ill and so this became his only scene.
In January 2007, Cribbins had a guest role as glam rock promoter Arnold Korns in Horror of Glam Rock, a Doctor Who audiodrama by Big Finish Productions. In December 2007, he appeared as Wilfred Mott in the Christmas television special, "Voyage of the Damned" (although in the closing credits, his character was named as "Stan") ; he then appeared in a recurring capacity as Wilfred Mott for the 2008 series, as the grandfather of companionDonna Noble.[41] He became a Tenth Doctor temporary companion himself in "The End of Time", the two-part 2009–10 Christmas and New Year special, when his character was inadvertently responsible for that Doctor's demise. Cribbins's role as Wilfred Mott makes him the only actor to have played two companions[10] and the only actor featured alongside the Doctor's enemies, the Daleks, in both the TV and cinema versions of Doctor Who. In 2019, he reprised the role of Wilfred in "No Place" a story in The Tenth Doctor Adventures produced by Big Finish. In 2022, Cribbins was reported to be returning to Doctor Who alongside David Tennant and Catherine Tate for the programme's 60th anniversary specials.[42] His appearance, in "Wild Blue Yonder" (2023), aired posthumously; the episode was dedicated to his memory.[43]
Honours
Cribbins was awarded the General Service Medal, with clasp "Palestine 1945–48", for his service in Palestine with 2/3 Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, on 30 May 1948, under Army Order 146 of 1947.[44]
Cribbins signing autographs at the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend in 2013
Cribbins was named "British Icon of the Week" on 23 December 2020 by BBC America.[51]
Personal life and death
Cribbins and Gillian McBarnet, an assistant stage manager, were married from 1955 until her death on 11 October 2021.[2][52] They lived in Weybridge, Surrey,[53] and had no children, with Cribbins revealing in 2018 that they "lost one quite early on and that was the only time [they] got near it". He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, but said in 2018 that he was "in good health" at the age of 90 with the exception of a "nagging back condition".[54]
In 2018 his autobiography, Bernard Who? 75 Years of Doing Just About Anything, was published by Constable.[55] A successful social media campaign in 2022 led to his autobiography being recorded as an audiobook, with Cribbins as the narrator,[56] but recording was incomplete at the time of his death, and the book was released with a narration by Gordon Griffin.
Cribbins died at the age of 93 on 27 July 2022.[a] His funeral took place at Woking Crematorium in Woking, Surrey on 14 September.[57]
^ abcThe Guardian and People reported that Cribbins died on 27 July;[1][2] the latter cited a statement from his agent.[1] Other journalistic sources reported that he died on 28 July, the date his death was announced.[3][4]