Tony McHale

Tony McHale (born Anthony John Wright, Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire) is a British actor, writer, director and producer, who is known for starring in Coronation Street and also known as a "stooge" to Jeremy Beadle on Game For A Laugh and later Beadle's About. He trained at the Rose Bruford College. He also enjoyed a long stint as a writer/story consultant/director on the top rated BBC1 soap opera EastEnders from its conception to the mid 1990s. He co-created BBC medical drama Holby City, and served as its executive producer and showrunner from 2007 to 2010. McHale also served as a core writer on numerous other TV dramas. Early life Tony McHale was born Anthony John Wright in Wibsey a suburb of Bradford in West Yorkshire. His father Gordon Wright was a police officer and road safety specialist who was awarded an MBE for his work. His mother Madeline Wright was a school teacher. He attended St Paul's Church Primary School, Buttershaw, where he passed his eleven plus and went on to Hanson Grammar School. His introduction to drama was through his mother's love of theatre, although they went infrequently, and reading plays from the school library. He started performing in the annual school play, initially playing female roles as was expected from the boys in the lower school, before going on to play the title role in Ben Jonson's Volpone in the sixth form. At the age of fifteen he joined the West Riding Youth Theatre. During his time with the Youth Theatre he played such roles as Danforth in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and Bagley in Peter Terson's The Apprentices. It was this experience that spurred him on to apply for drama schools. In 1969 he went on to study at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Sidcup, Kent.