ALAN YOUNG

20 May

(19 November 1919 - 19 May 2016)

Northumberland-born Alan Young moved to Canada from the UK at age six. He was on radio as a teenager and had his own show on CBC at 17. His first film was Margie (1946) with Jeanne Crain, followed by Chicken Every Sunday with Dan Dailey, and Mr Belvedere Goes to College, with Clifton Webb. From the end of the 1940s he toured the US with a theatre show which led to having his own TV comedy revue on CBS, which ran for three years from 1951. His career lasted over seventy years on TV and films, encompassing many famous series but he is best remembered for 144 episodes of Mister Ed, the one about the talking horse. He also did voice-overs for Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Battle of the Planets, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Duck Tales, The Ren & Stimpy Show and many more – over 100 titles including videogames. Other films were Androcles and the Lion (1953), tom thumb (1958), The Cat From Outer Space (1978), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Em and Me (2004), but perhaps his best film was George Pal’s 1960 version of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. He was also in the 2002 remake with Guy Pearce, playing a cameo role as a florist, and before his death had narrated an animated version of the same story.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

ALAN YOUNG

PETER SHAFFER

PAUL McDOWELL