In The News

Actor Ken Jones passes away

Actor Ken Jones passes away

THE character actor Ken Jones, who had appeared in many of the most popular TV shows of the past 40 years, has passed away at the age of 83.

He will be remembered by many for playing the character of ‘Horrible’ Ives in the sit-com Porridge (1974-1975), which starred Ronnie Barker. Mr. Jones had appeared in half of the first series and the first episode of the second series, by which time he was already starring in another TV show, The Squirrels. He returned to appear in the 1979 film based on Porridge (Doing Time).

After training at RADA, Mr. Jones, who was from Liverpool, had embarked on a busy career in television and on stage from the early 1960s. He was cast in small roles in a range of shows, including Softly Softly, The Wednesday Play and Dixon of Dock Green. 

His first starring role in a sit-com came in 1971 with The Last of the Baskets in which he played factory worker Clifford Basket who inherited a stately home and a place in the House of Lords.

Before landing the role in Porridge, he had worked on such popular shows as The Liver Birds, Z Cars and The Wackers.

During the 1980s, Mr. Jones starred in three notable shows — The Nesbitts Are Coming, Second Out and Dead Ernest in which he played the character Archangel Derek. In recent years his television credits included Out of Sight, Peak Practice, Casualty and Doctors. 

Away from television, he also found time to appear in a number of West End stage shows including Willy Russell’s Breezeblock Park (1977) and Raymond Briggs’s When The Wind Blows (1983).

Mr. Jones also wrote a number of plays with his wife, the actor-writer Sheila Fay. She passed away in 2013.

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