EULAC_6636 Norman Beaton "The most familiar of the handful of black actors able to sustain a career in British television from the 1960s to the 1990s,\u00a0Norman Beaton\u00a0became particularly associated with spirited patriarch roles, most famously as the eponymous barber of\u00a0Desmond's\u00a0(Channel 4, 1989-94), but was a much more versatile actor than his popular image acknowledged. A highly expressive performer who was equally at ease with weighty parts and light comedy, he won great respect on stage and screen but, like many black actors of the time, frequently found consistent television or film roles, particularly ones worthy of his talents, thin on the ground.\r\nBorn 31 October 1934 in Georgetown, Guyana (then British Guiana), he did some amateur acting while training as a teacher, and developed a parallel career as a Calypso singer, scoring a no. 1 hit in Trinidad and Tobago with 'Come Back Melvina' in 1959. Arriving in Britain in 1960, he became Liverpool's first black teacher, but the experience was not an entirely happy one, and he was soon back making music, hanging out with the likes of\u00a0Adrian Henri,\u00a0Roger McGough\u00a0and the other 'Liverpool poets' and watching from the sidelines as his peers found success.\r\nHe entered the theatre in 1965 with the musical drama\u00a0Jack of Spades, for which he wrote both the scenario - inspired by his own experiences as a young West Indian in Liverpool - and the music. With a flurry of successes as a stage composer, narrator and, increasingly, actor, it looked like his career was beginning to take off.\r\n" This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693669. arrival Story arrival TEXT University of St Andrews EULAC "The most familiar of the handful of black actors able to sustain a career in British television from the 1960s to the 1990s,\u00a0Norman Beaton\u00a0became particularly associated with spirited patriarch roles, most famously as the eponymous barber of\u00a0Desmond's\u00a0(Channel 4, 1989-94), but was a much more versatile actor than his popular image acknowledged. A highly expressive performer who was equally at ease with weighty parts and light comedy, he won great respect on stage and screen but, like many black actors of the time, frequently found consistent television or film roles, particularly ones worthy of his talents, thin on the ground.\r\nBorn 31 October 1934 in Georgetown, Guyana (then British Guiana), he did some amateur acting while training as a teacher, and developed a parallel career as a Calypso singer, scoring a no. 1 hit in Trinidad and Tobago with 'Come Back Melvina' in 1959. Arriving in Britain in 1960, he became Liverpool's first black teacher, but the experience was not an entirely happy one, and he was soon back making music, hanging out with the likes of\u00a0Adrian Henri,\u00a0Roger McGough\u00a0and the other 'Liverpool poets' and watching from the sidelines as his peers found success.\r\nHe entered the theatre in 1965 with the musical drama\u00a0Jack of Spades, for which he wrote both the scenario - inspired by his own experiences as a young West Indian in Liverpool - and the music. With a flurry of successes as a stage composer, narrator and, increasingly, actor, it looked like his career was beginning to take off.\r\n" 55.70235509327093 -4.394531250000001 6.80780765850133 -58.15475463867188