Michael Keating has died at the age of 79 (1947–2026)

Summary

All at Big Finish were sad to learn about the death of actor Michael Keating. Born in Edmonton, north London on 10 February 1947, Michael began his acting career in 1966 and went on to become one of the most recognisable and best-loved faces in British science fiction. His first professional role was at Nottingham Playhouse under the artistic directorship of the classical actor John Neville. After two and a half years at Nottingham, he went on to perform in theatres across the United Kingdom, including the Library Theatre Manchester, the Pitlochry Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and the Lyric Theatre Belfast, as well as numerous repertory and touring productions throughout England. As Vila Restal in the BBC's Blake's 7, Michael appeared across all four series of the show, from 1978 to 1981 – the only cast member to appear in all 52 episodes. Vila was nominally the gang's thief and self-declared coward, though Michael always preferred a more precise description: cautious, not cowardly. In his hands, Vila was something richer than comic relief. He was warm, wily, honest about his own limitations, and almost impossible not to love. Beyond the confines of the spaceship Liberator, Michael enjoyed a long and varied career in theatre and television, including stints with both the National Theatre and the Old Vic. In 1985, he created the role of Marty at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End in Are You Lonesome Tonight, Alan Bleasdale's play about Elvis Presley, in which Martin Shaw played the King. And, away from his screen career, Michael was a keen rambler with a love of the outdoors, a voracious reader, and by all accounts a thoughtful and deeply easy-going man, as generous in conversation as he was in the studio. Michael's first role beind the microphone at Big Finish was in the monthly Doctor Who range, guest-starring alongside Paul McGann and India Fisher in the Eighth Doctor story, The Twilight Kingdom, in 2004. After sporadic appearances in other ranges, he fin...