Peter Kerrigan
Birthday: Born in 1916-01-01 in Bootle, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
Deathday: Alive
Peter Kerrigan was a Liverpudlian actor famous for his work on a series of TV plays, many of which were directed by Ken Loach, and for his role as George Malone in Alan Bleasdale's Boys From the Blackstuff. Born in Bootle in 1916, Kerrigan was a docker originally and, as a Communist Party member, founded the Birkenhead Port Workers Defence Committee. At some point in the '50s, he joined the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers and he wrote the 1958 pamphlet, 'What Next For Britain's Port Workers?' on behalf of the Socialist Labour League - the party he had joined following his departure from the CP. In official retirement Kerrigan became an actor appearing in the militant dockworkers drama The Big Flame, written by Jim Allen and directed by Ken Loach. The play stimulated the formation of a political group of the same name, largely based in Liverpool. He was soon in demand, appearing in Loach's The Rank and File and Days of Hope, as well as the Play For Today's The Spongers and United Kingdom, and the drama The Gathering Seed - all of which were again written by Allen. He also appeared in Z Cars, The Sweeney, Family at War, Strumpet City, Crown Court, Brookside and Scully. But he'll perhaps be best remembered as George Malone in The Blackstuff and its subsequent spin off series, Boys from The Blackstuff, in which he played a blacklisted former docker and trade unionist.
TV Credits
The Sweeney
Character: Bowyer
Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter....
Scully
Character: Old Man
Scully was a British television drama with some comedy elements set in the city of Liverpool, England, that originated from a BBC Play For Today episode "Scully's New Years Eve". Originally broadcast on Channel Four in 1984, the single series was spread over six half-hour episodes plus a one-hour final episode. It was written by playwright Alan Bleasdale. The drama is notable for featuring many of the Liverpool football club first-team squad of that era. Francis Scully is a teenage boy who has ...
Boys from the Blackstuff
Character: George Malone
Alan Bleasdale's five-part series relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac layers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman and union leader, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harrassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers ...
The Gathering Seed
Character: Fred Rowsey
The saga of Manchester lad Joe Henshaw, a story that takes in family life, the trials and tribulations of the Labour movement and World War Two...
Days of Hope
Character: Peter
Days of Hope is a BBC television drama serial produced in 1975. The series dealt with the lives of a working-class family from the turmoils of the First World War in 1916 to the General Strike in 1926. It was written by Jim Allen, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach....
Movie Credits
The Spongers
Character: Peter
In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days to address her overdue rent payments. Meanwhile, the local council is under pressure to cut expenditure, and their decisions result in Pauline's mentally handicapped daughter Paula being transferred from a care home for special needs children to an old people's home, where she is all alone....
Talk About Work
Character: Self (uncredited)
Ken Loach's censored production for the Central Office of Information....
The Big Flame
Character: Peter Conner
After a prolonged industrial dispute in the Liverpool Docks, the striking workers reject management demands of a return to work and decide instead to occupy the docks and run the operation themselves....
The Black Stuff
Character: George Malone
A Liverpool tarmac gang set off for a contract in Middlesbrough. After a day of work, the group are approached by two gypsies who offer them a lucrative side job....
The Rank and File
Character: Eddie
Wilkinsons glass-works dominates a Staffordshire town. After a small walkout over pay discrepancies, the workers of the factory vote to go on strike, but they are denied support by their trade union....
Bag of Yeast
Character: James Scannell
When teacher Tony Scannell decides he wants to be ordained as a Catholic Priest his decision has wide ranging effects on his family and loved ones....
United Kingdom
Character: Peter Connor
Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises....
Lucky
Character: Det. Sgt. Williams
“Set in Liverpool in the early 70s, the film tells the story of Samuel 'Lucky' Ubooto, a half African, half Irish man in his 20s whose decidedly unlucky career as a criminal has resulted in a series of stretches in prison for theft. The story follows Lucky on the day of his release from his latest sentence. As he wanders around Liverpool, not really belonging anywhere, it becomes clear that he is still waiting for his father, a man who has long since abandoned Lucky and his family, to return and...
The Body
Character: Self
A psychedelic documentary of the body electric, with music by Pink Floyd. The film was directed and produced by Roy Battersby. The film's narrators, Frank Finlay and Vanessa Redgrave, provide commentary that combines the knowledge of human biologists and anatomical experts. The film's soundtrack, Music from the Body, was composed by Ron Geesin and Roger Waters....