Gordon Gostelow

Gordon Gostelow (14 May 1925 – 3 June 2007) was a New Zealand actor. He was educated in Australia at North Sydney Boys High School and Sydney University where he graduated in Economics. Gostelow went to England in the mid-1950s and worked in the theatre (pantomime and comedy), including the Royal Shakespeare Company and various roles on British television. In Shakespeare he was especially associated with the role of the alcoholic reprobate Bardolph in the Henriad plays. He played the character on television in both An Age of Kings in 1960 and in the BBC Television Shakespeare's version of the plays in 1979. He also played several other roles in the former production, but was said to have been "born" to play Bardolph. He played the parts of Perks in the 1968 TV serial of The Railway Children, Milo Clancey in the Doctor Who serial The Space Pirates in 1969, and the Duke of Medina Sidonia in Elizabeth R. In 1984, he took the part of Alf Battle in the supermarket sitcom Tripper's Day. He appeared in a 1999 episode of Midsomer Murders, entitled "Death's Shadow". His film career included roles in Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (1963), The Idol (1966), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), The Day Christ Died (1980, as Nicodemus), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989). In the 1980 episode of Nova "It's About Time", Gostelow, as St. Augustine, appears from the past to game contestant Dudley Moore when Moore is stumped by the question of what happened before the beginning of time. St. Augustine remarks, "What was God doing before He created Heaven and Earth? (and time)... If God was doing anything, He was perhaps devising punishments for people who pry into mysteries." He points out to Moore the absurdity of using the concept of 'before' "to frame a question about the one event in the universe to which it is inappropriate, namely the beginning of time."