David Burke

Actor

May 25, 1934 (91 years)

† May 1, 2026

Liverpool, England, UK

Biography

David Burke was a British actor, known for playing Dr. John Watson in two series of Granada Television's 1980s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which starred Jeremy Brett in the title role. He also starred as Josef Stalin in the last two episodes of Reilly, Ace of Spies.

Filmography

7.5

Midsomer Murders

John Farrow

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

8.2

Agatha Christie's Poirot

Sir Arthur Stanley

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

5.3

Coronation Street

Jack Benjamin

The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap.

7.8

The Closer

Mr. Murdoch

Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.

6.6

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

7.8

The Avengers

John Wrightson

A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).

8.2

Sherlock Holmes

Dr. John H. Watson

Sherlock Holmes uses his abilities to take on cases by private clients and those that the Scotland Yard are unable to solve, along with his friend Dr. Watson.

5.7

Crown Court

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

7.7

Spooks

Fiona's Father

Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.

7.1

Screen Two

Gareth

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

7.2

Waking the Dead

Philip Bryant

A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.

6.8

The Bill

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

5.2

The Wednesday Play

Len

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

4.8

No Hiding Place

No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.

6.5

The Champions

Roger Carson

After a plane carrying three Agents crashes in the Himalayas, they are rescued by an advanced civilisation secretly living in Tibet who grant them enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities.