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Known For

Derek Griffiths is known for:

  • Watership Down
    When the warren belonging to a community of rabbits is threatened, a brave group led by Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry and Hazel leave their homeland in a search of a safe new haven.
  • Fierce Creatures
    Ex-policeman Rollo Lee is sent to run Marwood Zoo, the newly acquired business of a New Zealand tycoon. In order to meet high profit targets and keep the zoo open, Rollo enforces a new 'fierce creatures' policy, whereby only the most impressive and dangerous animals are allowed to remain in the zoo. However, the keepers are less enthusiastic about complying with these demands.
  • Are You Being Served?
    The clothing department's floor requires renovation; rather than let the staff sit idle while the area is closed off, the management sends them on a paid holiday in Costa Plonka, a fictional city in Spain. Their hotel and its surroundings prove to be dismal, and the group tries to pass the time by acting on the crushes they have developed for one another in the workplace. This results in disaster, as multiple amorous notes reach the wrong recipients and everyone gets wrong ideas about who fancies whom. Meanwhile, Carlos, the hotel manager receives an unwelcome visit from an old acquaintance, Cesar Rodriguez, who is after Mrs. Slocombe after seeing her passport. He is also plotting a revolutionary uprising and wants to use the hotel as his base.

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Biography

Derek Griffiths MBE (born 15 July 1946) is a British actor, singer and voice artist who appeared in numerous British children's television series in the 1970s to present and has more recently played parts in television drama. Griffiths was known in his early years for his Play School appearances alongside the likes of Chloe Ashcroft, Johnny Ball and Brian Cant. A talented multi-instrumentalist, he voiced over and sang the theme tune to Heads and Tails, a series of short animal films for children produced by BBC Television, and also sang and played the theme tune to the cartoon Bod. Another children's TV role was in Granada Television's early 1980s series Film Fun, in which he played the entire staff of a cinema (the manager, the commissionaire (with the catchphrase "Get on with it!"), the projectionist, the usherette and also himself) while also showing cartoons such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. He appeared on Crown Court (1973) as an accused fraudster Raoul Lapointe, from the Belgian Congo. In 1975, Griffiths played Ko-Ko in The Black Mikado at London's Cambridge Theatre. He also provided the English voice of SuperTed (the series SuperTed was originally made in Welsh). In 1997, Griffiths originated the role of Lumière in the original West End production of Beauty and the Beast at the Dominion Theatre and played the role of the Child Catcher in the West End run of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium. In 2014, Griffiths was presented with a BASCA Gold Badge of Merit award. This was in acknowledgement of his unique contribution to music. From 2016, he played Freddie Smith in Coronation Street: he left the role in March 2017 to star in a stage production of Driving Miss Daisy. In 2021, he joined the London cast of The Mousetrap.