John Howard Davies

John Howard Davies was an English actor, producer and director, famous for appearing in the title role in the 1948 film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. After joining the BBC as a production assistant in 1966, Davies became a hugely influential television director and producer, specialising in comedy. He played a key role in British TV comedy across four decades, working variously as the commissioning producer, producer or director on many of the most successful British comedy shows of the era, including The World of Beachcomber, Steptoe and Son, All Gas and Gaiters, The Benny Hill Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Goodies, Fawlty Towers, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Only Fools and Horses, Yes, Minister, Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Davies was the producer of all four seasons of the hit BBC sitcom The Good Life, and is also somewhat notorious for being the person who ended Benny Hill's TV career in the late 1980s.