Gordon Gostelow

Who was Gordon Gostelow?

Gordon Gostelow was a New Zealand actor. He was educated in Australia at North Sydney Boys High School and Sydney University where he graduated in Economics.

Gostelow went to England in the mid-1950s and worked in the theatre, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and various roles on British television. He played the part of Perks in the 1968 TV serial of The Railway Children. He played the character of Milo Clancey in the Doctor Who serial The Space Pirates in 1969, and the Duke of Medina Sidonia in Elizabeth R. In 1984, he took the part of Alf Battle in the supermarket sitcom Tripper's Day. He appeared in a 1999 episode of Midsomer Murders, entitled "Death's Shadow".

In the thoroughly enjoyable 1980 episode of Nova "It's About Time", Gostelow, as St. Augustine, appears to a perplexed Dudley Moore who had been asked what happened before the beginning of time. St. Augustine remarks, "What was God doing before He created Heaven and Earth?... If God was doing anything, He was perhaps devising punishments for people who pry into mysteries." He points out to Moore the absurdity of using the concept of 'before' "to frame a question about the one event in the universe to which it is inappropriate, namely the beginning of time."