Bernard Wrigley (born 25 February 1948 in

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England) is an English singer, actor and comedian. He is sometimes known by the nickname "The Bolton Bullfrog". Wrigley's career as a singer and storyteller began in the late 1960s, when a love of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

led him to perform in folk clubs. Since then he has released over sixteen albums of traditional and original songs, stories and

monologues In theatre, a monologue (also known as monolog in North American English) (in , from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character (arts), character, most often to expres ...

. His main instruments are the

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

and

concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

. He began acting around the same time and has made many appearances on stage, most famously in

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

's ''

Waiting for Godot ''Waiting for Godot'' ( or ) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in which the two main characters, Vladimir (Waiting for Godot), Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters w ...

'' alongside

Mike Harding Mike Harding (born 23 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, writer, broadcaster and musician. Early life and education Harding's father, Louis Arthur "Curly" Harding, a navigator in the RAF, was killed in the Second Worl ...

at Bolton's Octagon Theatre, and

Jim Cartwright Jim Cartwright (born 27 June 1958) is an English dramatist, born in Municipal Borough of Farnworth, Farnworth, Lancashire. Cartwright's first play, Road (play), ''Road'', won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the B ...

's ''

Road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

'' at the

Royal Exchange Theatre The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal Exc ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. Wrigley has made many appearances in British TV programmes in a career spanning over five decades, including ''

Phoenix Nights '' Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights'', sometimes shortened to ''Phoenix Nights'', is a British sitcom about The Phoenix Club, a working men's club in the northern English town of Bolton, Greater Manchester. The show is a spin-off from the "In th ...

'' (where he was Dodgy Eric, who sold club owner Brian Potter a ''

Das Boot (; ) is a 1981 West Germany, West German war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer and Klaus Wennemann. An Film adaptation, adaptation of Lothar-Günthe ...

fruit machine In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagat ...

, a

bucking bronco A bucking horse is any breed of horse, male or female, with a propensity to buck. They have been, and still are, referred to by various names, including bronco, broncho, and roughstock. The harder they buck, the more desirable they are for rod ...

and an obscene

bouncy castle Bounce or The Bounce may refer to: * Deflection (physics), the event where an object collides with and bounces against a plane surface Books * Mr. Bounce, a character from the Mr. Men series of children's books Broadcasting, film and TV * '' ...

), ''

Emmerdale ''Emmerdale'' (known as ''Emmerdale Farm'' until 1989) is a British television soap opera that is broadcast on ITV (TV network), ITV. The show is set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a List of fictional towns and villages, fict ...

'' (as eccentric rocket inventor Barry Clegg) and ''

Coronation Street ''Coronation Street'' (colloquially referred to as ''Corrie'') is a British television soap opera created by ITV Granada, Granada Television and shown on ITV (TV network), ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres on a cobbled, terraced ...

'' (most recently as the Rev. Marvin Winstanley, the shady 'internet priest' whom Roy and Hayley approached to arrange their wedding - Wrigley's sixth character in the

soap Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

). His other credits include ''

Wood and Walters ''Wood and Walters'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Julie Walters and Victoria Wood for Granada Television and written entirely by Wood. The show was short-lived, with one pilot in 1981 and a series of seven shows in 1982. B ...

'', ''

Home and Away ''Home and Away'' (''H&A'') is an Australian television soap opera. It was created by Alan Bateman and commenced broadcast on the Seven Network on 17 January 1988. Bateman came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point, N ...

'', ''

Last of the Summer Wine ''Last of the Summer Wine'' is a British sitcom set in Yorkshire created and written by Roy Clarke and originally broadcast by the BBC from 1973 to 2010. It premiered as an episode of ''Comedy Playhouse'' on 4 January 1973, and the first seri ...

'', ''

Cold Feet ''Cold Feet'' is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV (TV network), ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his 1997 Comedy Premieres, Comedy ...

'', ''

Coogan's Run ''Coogan's Run'' is a 1995 UK TV series featuring Steve Coogan as a series of odd characters living in the fictional town of Ottle. It was written by various people including Coogan, Patrick Marber, David Tyler, Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathew ...

'', '' dinnerladies'', '' Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings'', '' Shameless'', '' Heartbeat'' '' In with the Flynns'' and

Fat Friends ''Fat Friends'' is a British drama that aired on ITV from 12 October 2000 to 24 March 2005, consisting of 25 episodes over four series. Set in Leeds, the series explores the lives of several slimming club members, with a focus on the various ...

. He also appeared as a union official in ''

Brassed Off ''Brassed Off'' is a 1996 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Mark Herman and starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor. The film is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure ...

'' and as a school teacher in ''

Rita, Sue and Bob Too ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'' is a 1987 British comedy-drama film directed by Alan Clarke and starring Michelle Holmes, Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan, and Lesley Sharp. Set in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the film is about two teenage schoolg ...

''. In 1978 he was a night school teacher in

Alan Bennett Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. He has received numerous awards and honours including four BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2005 he received the Socie ...

's play, '' Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf''. On

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

he has acted in plays lasting from 15 to 90 minutes.

BBC Radio Lancashire BBC Radio Lancashire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Lancashire. Originally launched as BBC Radio Blackburn, in 1981 it expanded to cover the whole county and was renamed BBC Radio Lancashire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB ...

has broadcast many of his pre-recorded series, such as ''Wrigley's Ramblings'' and ''Home Brewed'', and his readings of many stories written by Tommy Thompson. As a writer he has released various combinations of his songs and monologues. In 2006, he produced a book of silly one-verse poems ''Shorts For All Occasions'', which was followed in 2008 by ''The Longs & The Shorts Of It''.

Discography

*''The Phenomenal B. Wrigley'' (1971) *''Rough and Wrigley'' (1974) *''Songs, Stories & Elephants'' (1976) *''Ten Ton Special'' (1976) *''The Bolton Bullfrog'' (1981) *''Rude Bits!'' (1985) *''The Instrumental Album'' (1988) *''Wanted: Live!'' (1991) *''Buggerlugs'' (1992) *''Albert, Arthur & the Car Park'' (1997) *''Magnificent Monologues'' (2000) *''Fairly Truthful Tales'' (2002) *''Magnificent Monologues Volume 2'' (2002) *''Monologology'' (2003) *''Amblethwaite 'Appenings'' (2004) *''God's Own County'' (2005) *''Every Song Tells a Story'' (2009) *''Songs of the Seven Seas'' (2011)

References

External links

* * 1948 births Living people English male singers English folk singers English male television actors Male actors from Bolton Transatlantic Records artists English male comedians Comedians from Lancashire {{UK-tv-actor-1940s-stub