Valentine Dyall (7 May 1908 – 24 June 1985) was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment with Fear.
He was the son of the actor Franklin Dyall and the actress and author Mary Phyllis Joan Logan, who acted and wrote as Concordia Merrel.
1930s to 1950s
In 1934, Dyall appeared with his father, actor Franklin Dyall, at the Manchester Hippodrome in Sir Oswald Stoll's presentation of Shakespeare's Henry V, playing the roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Captain Gower, and a cardinal of France. He also appeared in one movie with his father, the 1943 spy thriller Yellow Canary; Dyall's part was that of a German U-boat commander attempting to kidnap a British agent from a ship in the Atlantic, while his father played the ship's captain.
In 1946, he appeared, uncredited, as the character Stephen Lynn in the romantic film drama Brief Encounter; Lynn is protagonist Alec Harvey's friend whose unexpected arrival spoils Alec's opportunity of consummating his romance.
Dyall's film career peaked in the late 1940s; in 1949 he appeared in 12 films in that single year. However, those film roles varied greatly in size: two of them were leading roles (in Doctor Morelle and Vengeance Is Mine) whilst several others were just bit parts.
During the 1950s, Dyall made several guest appearances in episodes of the BBC Home Service radio comedy series The Goon Show, parodying his familiar radio persona.
Dyall appeared in Robert Wise's 1963 film The Haunting as Mr. Dudley, the sinister caretaker of the haunted Hill House. Also that year, he played the central character Lord Fortnum in Spike Milligan and John Antrobus's stage play The Bedsitting Room, set in the aftermath of nuclear war. The play opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January.[1][2] Dyall narrated the mondo documentary The Mystery and the Pleasure in 1966, and part-narrated the pseudo-documentary The Naked World of Harrison Marks in 1967. In the same year he voiced the character of evil mastermind Dr. Noah in the James Bond parody film Casino Royale; as well as the unseen God in Faust Legend-inspired comedy Bedazzled, for which he was uncredited. He later provided the voice of the mummy narrator in Secrets of Sex (1969).
In 1984, Dyall appeared in the BBC Miss Marple episode "The Body in the Library". His last role on television was as Marcade in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Love's Labour's Lost. His role as Captain Slarn in the Doctor Who radio serial Slipback was recorded on 10 June 1985, just 14 days before his death, and was broadcast posthumously.
^Milligan, Spike & Antrobus, John, The Bedsitting Room, Tandem: London, 1973. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972.
