Barry Joseph Evans, (18 June 1943 — 9 February 1997), was a British actor best known for playing Michael Upton in Doctor in the House and Jeremy Brown in Mind Your Language.
He acted from a young age, playing leading roles in school plays. He also won the John Gielgud Scholarship at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Early in his film career, he played Jamie McGregor in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. The critics reviewed him favorably and called him a "bright and exciting new actor".
After a few small roles on TV, he took the lead role in Doctor in the House as Michael Upton, a student doctor. Evans also returned for the sequel series, Doctor at Large. As the Doctor series took up a lot of time to film, Evans did not return for Doctor in Charge or any of the further series. Later on, he remarked he was incredibly stupid to leave the series.
In 1976, he played the lead roles in two separate Awful British Sex Comedies, Adventures of a Taxi Driver and Under the Doctor. Evans didn't return for the next two Adventures of a... films and was replaced by Christopher Neil. Evans tried to return to the theatre afterwards, but wasn't earning enough money, having to claim benefits on more than one occasion. He wrote to London Weekend Television to remind them he was "still alive" and avaliable for work, leading to his casting as Jeremy Brown, the English-as-a-Foreign-Language teacher in Mind Your Language.
Despite a successful turn in Mind Your Language, Evans fell back on hard times near the end of The '80s as his youthful appearance made it hard for him to get mature roles. His final film role came in 1993 in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. After this, Evans was reduced to driving a minicab, Ironically just as he had done in Adventures of a Taxi Driver.
He died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 53, being found by police in his living room having suffered a blow to the head with a high level of alcohol in his system, a pre-1971 packet of aspirin, and a will.
Works on TV Tropes he appeared in:
Series- Redcap, episode "The Boys of B Company" (1964) — Tug Wilson
- Doctor in the House, 26 episodes (1969-79) — Michael Upton
- Doctor at Large, 29 episodes (1971) — Dr. Michael Upton
- Crossroads, 1 episode (1975) — Trevor Woods
- Mind Your Language, 42 episodes (1977-86) — Mr. Jeremy Brown
