Noel Howlett

Who was Noel Howlett?

Noel Howlett was an English actor, principally remembered as the incompetent headmaster, Morris Cromwell, in the ITV 1970s cult television programme Please Sir!. He was the subject of infatuation by Deputy Head Doris Ewell, played by Joan Sanderson.

Howlett was born in Maidstone, Kent, and began his career as Richard Greatham in Noël Coward's Hay Fever . At Northampton Repertory Theatre in 1930 he played Sherlock Holmes. He also appeared as Mr Williams in the 1948 film The Winslow Boy, starring Robert Donat. At Stratford-on-Avon in 1953, he played Old Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Edward IV, Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew and Gloucester in King Lear.

He appeared as Professor Rushton in a one-off 1967 edition of the The Avengers entitled 'Mission Highly Improbable' and also as the Reverend Simon Blanding in a one-off 1967 edition of Man in a Suitcase called 'Dead Man's Shoes'. Other screen appearances include Softly, Softly and Danger Man, both 1960s TV shows. He also appeared in one 1976 episode of the BBC situation comedy The Good Life as slightly eccentric allotment gardener Mr Wakeley.