Ivan Owen

Ivan Owen, children’s entertainer, born August 19 1927 was the actor who voiced the contradiction in the British character between love of stuffiness & love of anarchy. He brought to life Basil Brush, the truculent & bouncy children’s television & stage fox puppet, for which he donated his best county voice. Part of Basil’s magnetism came from the misalliance between his voice – said to have been modelled on the gentlemanly caddish actor Terry Thomas – & his outrageous behaviour.

Though Basil, with his “Boom! Boom!” warcry, would never have taken a back seat, Owen always seemed anxious to do so. Describing himself as a “failed actor”, he ran a Rolls-Royce & lived a civilised life in a large Devon house, but made it an iron rule never to be photographed or give interviews.

He got his chance to become a national non-figure in 1966, when Basil appeared on David Nixon’s BBC-TV conjuring show, The Nixon Line. The tall, bald conjuror was often upstaged by the restless, relentless puppet, who was sometimes described as the best thing on the show. In 1968, Basil & Ivan got their own BBC Saturday early-evening show. Basil’s straight men were the long-suffering butts of dreadful jokes and puns: Likely Lads actor Rodney Bewes was followed by “Mr Derek” (Derek Fowlds), Roy North, Howard Williams & Billy Boyle.

The fox made Owen a millionaire & created a Basil Brush industry. This included stage tours which drew the crowds – they broke box-office records at Croydon & filled the Blackpool Opera House – & the sponsorship of more than 70 products. Television programmes sold to 15 countries, & were a particular hit in New Zealand along with the stage show. A dispute about time-slots caused the show to be axed in 1980: Owen had aspirations for a later evening appearance to extend Basil’s range. In 1982, however, the puppet reappeared on ITV, in Let’s Read With Basil Brush, & then co-hosted the BBC’s Crackerjack children’s programme. Guest appearances ranged from the Val Doonican Show to Fantasy Football League.

Ivan Owen was born in south London & went to schools in Dulwich & Dartford, before joining the aircraft manufacturer Handley Page as an apprentice joiner. National service in the RAF from 1946 introduced him to the comedian Terry Scott & the idea of acting for a living, so, in 1948, he went to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He was flung out for watching the trooping of the colour when he should have been at work & had to make his way in repertory theatre, including Watford at £4 a week, & as an assistant floor manager for the BBC.

In 1956, Owen started doing voices for the puppet theatre run by John Wright in Camden Town & met Peter Firmin, who was developing ideas for television, & who made the Basil puppet, 15 inches tall, at a cost of £20. Basil’s debut came in the 1963 television show, The Three Scampies. Owen then supplied the voice of the dog Fred Barker, on ITV’s Music Box, but it was the wily fox that the BBC picked up on.

According to his old friend Edward Barnes, a former head of BBC children’s programmes, Owen was a cheerful, ebullient & amusing man. Nonetheless, he maintained his invisibility to the end: “I suppose it’s rather akin to MI5, keeping my identity secret.”

He died of cancer on the 17th of October 2000 leaving his wife Jennifer, sons Michael and Jonathan, & daughter Christine.