Al Hunter Ashton

Life

Hunter was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, and came from a working-class background. Born Alan Hunter (he later changed his name by deed poll to Al Hunter), he wrote scripts for his own amusement from the age of 15; he worked in his spare time as a stand-up comedian in clubs for £15 a night but became a stripper on discovering that he could earn the same amount for shedding his clothes every evening. "My stripping routine was actually funnier than my stand-up one," he said.

He acted under the name "Al Ashton", choosing this to ensure he appeared high up in any alphabetical credits. He wrote under the name "Al Hunter". Later he combined the two, acting and writing under the name "Al Hunter Ashton".

Work

His first professional acting work was with a Theatre in Education company in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, and he was subsequently cast in Willy Russell plays such as Breezeblock Park (at the Liverpool Playhouse) and Blood Brothers (at the Derby Playhouse). Russell also later commissioned him to write the BBC Schools television play Teaching Matthew (in which Hunter also had a small role as a policeman, 1985), a satire on Russell's own Educating Rita.

Hunter worked very closely with the Stage 22 School of Arts Network in the UK and upon his death, children from the school made their own version of the Queen hit Only the Good Die Young which was dedicated to him and his three young children.

List of acting roles (incomplete)

List of writing credits (incomplete)

Death

On April 27, 2007, Al Hunter Ashton died of heart failure in his home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Episode eight of series five of the New Tricks TV series, titled "Mad Dogs", was dedicated to his memory.

Awards