Michael Angelis
Actor
THE ACTOR Michael Angelis, who has died at 76, was perhaps best known for having taken over from his fellow Liverpudlian, Ringo, Starr, as narrator of the children’s TV series, Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends (later Thomas & Friends), based on the Reverend W Awdry’s stories of Thomas The Tank Engine.
To adult audiences he was familiar as Arnie in September Song, as Martin Niarchos in Alan Bleasdale’s GBH,
Lucien Boswell in The Liver Birds, Mickey Startup in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and, most memorably, in Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff, in which he played Chrissie, one of five former Tarmac layers struggling for survival in a Liverpool where unemployment had spread like a plague.
He also made appearances in
Casualty, The Bill, Holby City and Yorkshire TV’s Heartbeat.
Born in London to Margaret and Evangelos Angelis, a Greek immigrant, he was brought up in the Dingle area of Liverpool. He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, in Glasgow, and acted with repertory theatre companies in England and Scotland, notably the Liverpool Everyman.
He first appeared on screen in the 1970s in programmes such as Z Cars, Thirty-Minute Theatre and an episode of Coronation Street, before stints in Minder, and World’s End.
He was married to the Coronation Street actress Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, from 1991 to 2001, and later married Jennifer Khalastchi. She survives him. His elder brother, Paul Angelis, who was also an actor, died in 2009.