Grange Hill and Brookside star Stuart Organ, who played Mr Robson in TV school drama, dies

Actor Stuart Organ, who played a teacher in children's TV school drama Grange Hill, has died aged 72.

Organ also appeared in Doctor Who and Casualty, but was best known as Mr Robson, the longest-serving staff member, who taught PE and geography in the BBC series about life in a London comprehensive school.

He appeared in the show for 15 years from 1988, with his character promoted to head teacher after 10 years.

Grange Hill, which ran for 30 years from 1978, became well known for tackling issues such as racism, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, mental illness and HIV and Aids.

Organ also starred as Kevin Cross in Brookside, the Channel Four soap opera, created by Sir Phil Redmond, the man behind Grange Hill.

He featured in a host of other programmes, including Doctor Who, where he appeared alongside Sylvester McCoy, Casualty and Holby City.

During the 1990s, he appeared in the movies Present Spirit (1994) and Fork In The Road (1997).

His professional career began in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at Leeds Playhouse in 1975, and he also appeared on stage in Sweeney Todd, in Queens Theatre in Hornchurch.

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Grange Hill made household names of characters such as Zammo McGuire, played by Lee MacDonald, and Tucker Jenkins, played by Todd Carty.

In 2022, creator Phil Redmond spoke about the show returning as a film.

He has appeared as the voiceover on cartoons and video games, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the BBC said, and his voice is known to London Underground passengers, as it's used to announce stations, lines, late arrivals and telling users to mind the gap.