Christopher Strauli (born 13 April 1946) is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is known for appearing as Norman Binns in the British

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network. Until 1974, this was prima ...

sitcom '' Only When I Laugh''.

Early life and education

Strauli was born in

Harpenden Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,240 in the 2011 census, whilst the population of the civil parish was 29,448. H ...

, Hertfordshire. He was educated at Felixstowe Grammar School in

Felixstowe Felixstowe ( ) is a port town in Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. Felixstowe is approximately 116km (72 miles) northeast of London. H ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

. After

teacher-training college A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

he gave up a career as a mathematics and science teacher to attend the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Sena ...

in London.

Career

Following his education spent some years at the

Bristol Old Vic Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a f ...

, before earning some minor and supporting television roles. Since 1969, Strauli has appeared in at least two films and over twenty-five television productions. Strauli played Bunny Manders, the assistant to

A.J. Raffles Arthur J. Raffles (usually called A. J. Raffles) is a fictional character created in 1898 by E. W. Hornung, brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, an inversion of Holmeshe is a "gentlem ...

, the gentleman thief in the

series '' Raffles'' (1975–1977). He later appeared as feeble hospital

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health ...

Norman Binns in the ITV

sitcom A sitcom, a Portmanteau, portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troup ...

'' Only When I Laugh'', occupying a bed in a ward next to characters played by

James Bolam James Christopher Bolam (born 16 June 1935) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in '' The Likely Lads'' and its sequel ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'', Jack Ford in ''When the Boat Comes In'', Roy F ...

and

Peter Bowles Peter Bowles (16 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an English television and stage actor. He gained prominence for television dramas such as '' Callan: A Magnum for Schneider'' and ''I, Claudius''. He is however, best remembered for his roles ...

and attended by doctor Richard Wilson. Strauli was then recruited by the show's writer,

Eric Chappell Eric George Chappell (25 September 1933 – 21 April 2022) was an English television comedy writer and playwright who wrote or co-wrote some of the UK's biggest sitcom hits over a more than quarter-century career, first gaining significant noti ...

, to replace

Richard Beckinsale Richard Arthur Beckinsale (6 July 1947 – 19 March 1979) was an English actor. He played Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom ''Porridge'' (along with its sequel series '' Going Straight'') and Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom '' Rising Damp''. He is ...

in the film version of ''

Rising Damp Structural dampness is the presence of unwanted moisture in the structure of a building, either the result of intrusion from outside or condensation from within the structure. A high proportion of damp problems in buildings are caused by ambient ...

'' (another of Chappell's shows) as a new character, John, an art student. He appeared as Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet (1978) and Claudio in Measure for Measure (1979) as part of The

BBC Television Shakespeare The ''BBC Television Shakespeare'' is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and broadcast by BBC Television. Transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985, it ...

.
Played a leading character, Paul Hatfield, in ITV 1985-86 sitcom ''

Full House ''Full House'' is an American television sitcom created by Jeff Franklin for ABC. The show is about widowed father Danny Tanner who enlists his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and childhood best friend Joey Gladstone to help raise his thr ...

'' (known as ''Mixed Doubles'' in the United States) (1985) and also featured in some of

Victoria Wood Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over s ...

's sketch shows. In recent years he has concentrated predominantly on theatre work. He appeared in the TV movie '' S.O.S. Titanic'' (1979) as wireless operator

Harold Cottam Harold Thomas Cottam (27 January 1891 – 30 May 1984) was a British wireless operator on the RMS ''Carpathia'' who fortuitously happened to receive the distress call from the sinking RMS ''Titanic'' on 15 April 1912. Cottam's decision to aw ...

, and in 3 episodes of the 1987 television serial of '' Fortunes of War'' playing Toby Lush. He played Nigel Smith in 1 episode of: '' Bergerac'': "Tangos in the Night" the same year.
Strauli also appeared in '' Doctors'' as Paul Woodford in "God's Gift"(2000), '' Down to Earth'' as Mr. Bell in ‘The Great Escape’(2000), and '' Waking the Dead'', playing Duncan Sanderson MP, in Parts 1 and 2 of "False Flag" (2004)

References

External links

strauli.co.uk
Strauli's official website
strauli.blogspot.com
Strauli's

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

* 1946 births English male film actors English male soap opera actors English male stage actors Living people People from Harpenden Male actors from Hertfordshire Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art {{UK-stage-actor-stub