Stanley Baxter

With his spectacular television sketch shows in the sixties, seventies and eighties, Stanley Baxter was a superstar of the medium, with his impressions..even including the Queen..and his fascination with language and dialect - as shown in his Parliamo Glasgow routines.

He was born in Glasgow in 1926, and his stage-struck mother coached him to do impressions of Mae West and the Scottish entertainer Harry Lauder -  although Stanley didn’t have a clue who they were.

This helped him into an early career as a child actor on the radio, and then into the Army’s entertainment unit when doing his national service, appearing alongside Kenneth Williams, who was to become a lifelong friend.

Then came the apprenticeship of theatre work - first in Glasgow, then in London - followed by his own radio show in Scotland.

It was television though where he really excelled. First on the BBC and then on ITV his shows were lavish, but expensive - the major factor in their cancellation in the mid-eighties…after which he went into semi-retirement, fiercely protecting his private life and he died in 2025 at the age of 99.

He’s remembered for his astonishing gift of mimicry, immaculate timing, spectacular costumes and cheeky grin. Some wanted to know about the man behind the mask - Stanley Baxter responded with ‘The mask is what’s important. The mask is the talent. That’s the work.’