Laidman Browne

{{Short description|English actor (1896–1961)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

File:Laidman Browne.jpg

Laidman Browne (13 September 1896 – 11 September 1961) was an English stage, radio and television actor.{{cite web|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f20d9dc|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180107120040/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f20d9dc|url-status=dead|archive-date=7 January 2018|title=Laidman Browne|publisher=}}

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1896, he was a founder member of the Newcastle Repertory Company in 1925, playing leading parts there until 1931.'Obituary: Laidman Browne', The Stage, 14 September 1961, p. 17. Later, in 1939, he was a founder member of the BBC Radio Repertory Company, with whom he remained for 12 years, reputedly playing 2,126 roles.'Radio's Laidman Browne Dies Aged 65', Daily Express, 12 September 1961, p. 4. In 1949 he was the narrator of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band', the first book read on the BBC's long-running series A Book at Bedtime.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wAEk9veAhpAC&pg=PA45|title=The A to Z of British Radio|first=Seán|last=Street|date=4 August 2009|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9780810870130|via=Google Books}} His stage credits included seasons at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, together with such West End plays as 1066 and All That (1935-36) and A Dead Secret (1957).https://theatricalia.com/person/1vg/laidman-browne

He died in Bournemouth in 1961, aged 64.