Clive Francis began his acting career at the age of 16 in weekly repertory as a Penguin Player at Bexhill-on-Sea and has acted on stage, radio, television and films.
He is also a caricaturist and has had several exhibitions at the National Theatre. His caricatures have appeared on the covers of several books including Blessings in Disguise by Alec Guinness and a biography of John Gielgud. His own publications include: Laughlines, There Is Nothing Like a Dane (Hamlet) There Is Nothing Like a Thane (Macbeth). A Star is Drawn and The Many Faces of Gielgud, to celebrate Gielgud's 90th birthday.[citation needed]
Francis considers his part as Mr. Sloane in the ITV Playhouse production of Entertaining Mr Sloane in 1968 as his first look important television role, appearing alongside the likes of Sheila Hancock and Edward Woodward. He states on his website[2] that the production was taped just a week after the murder of playwright Joe Orton.
In 1981, Francis played the Roman officer and imperial spy Attius in the ABC miniseries Masada opposite Peter O'Toole. In 1986, Francis guest starred in episode five, "The Man with the Twisted Lip," of the series Sherlock Holmes, as Neville St Clair. Francis starred in the series The 10%ers; The Piglet Files (which as noted above used his caricatures in the credits), as Colonel Windham in Sharpe's Company and May to December.
Francis has guest-starred in dozens of other television programmes, including Yes, Prime Minister, in which he played Luke, a private secretary for foreign affairs, who, the Prime Minister is told, is in fact a spy for the Foreign Office, a department whose policy is often in conflict with the PM's.
His first West End appearance was in There's A Girl in My Soup opposite Donald Sinden. Since then he has gone on to appear in over twenty West End shows including, The School for Scandal, The Importance of Being Ernest, The Rear Column, Benefactors, The Return of A. J. Raffles, Bloomsbury, Single Spies, Look after Lulu!, The Circle, Entertaining Mr Sloane, What the Butler Saw, Gross Indecency, Enron, The Madness of King George and Inspector Calls.
He also appeared at the National Theatre in A Small Family Business, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Never so Good and Les Blancs. For the RSC, Francis appeared in Three Hours after Marriage, Troilus and Cressida and A Christmas Carol.
Apart from adapting A Christmas Carol as his one-man show, Clive Francis has also brought from the page to the stage The Hound of the Baskervilles, Three Men in a Boat, Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana, and Susan Hill's The Small Hand. Together with composer Charles Miller, he adapted the book and wrote the lyrics to the Alice in Wonderland adaptation, Alice the Musical!.[4]
