Roger Kitter
Educated at Clifton College Bristol, Roger left school after “O” levels to pursue a career in show business which at the end of this year will have spanned 38 years.
It is very rare for any performer to be able to combine a career which combines stand up comedy and acting., but he has managed to do this very successfully.
He has appeared many times at the famous London Palladium “opening” for international stars including Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Petula Clark, and the legendary Perry Como.
Roger has also starred in West End farces such as “Run For Your Wife”,”Pyjama Tops” and “What No Pyjamas?” and toured nationally in the farce “ Women Of A Certain Age”. He also appeared as “Oberon” in William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
He received rave reviews when he starred as Howard Cunningham in the musical version of the hit TV series “Happy Days”.
As a presenter, auctioneer, and after dinner speaker Roger appears at numerous corporate events and golf days (he plays to a 15 handicap) and is regularly to be seen at most of the top West End hotels for clients such as “Daikin Air Conditioning”, “Coca Cola”, "The Insolvency Practitioners Association” and “The Ford Motor Company”, to name but a few.
Television and Radio have played a major part in Roger’s career, constantly appearing in shows such as “Birds of a Feather”, “Get Back”, “Goodnight Sweetheart”, and “The New Statesman”.
He is probably best known for playing the cowardly Italian officer “Captain Alberto Bertorelli” in the hugely successful BBC series “Allo Allo”, which ran for ten years and has had yet another re-run on BBC 1 this year. He also starred in the West End version of the show which toured nationally and culminated in a record breaking run in Australia. In 1997 the entire team got together for the last time to perform the show in Bournemouth for the season.
A regular BBC Radio 2 broadcaster Roger starred for eight years in the series “The Impressionists” before developing his career by devising his own BBC Radio 2 quiz “The Names The Game”, which ran for nine years.
Roger made quite an impact on the music scene with his hit record in the 80’s, a send up of tennis ace John McEnroe called “Chalk Dust The Umpire Strikes Back” released under the name of The Brat”. Not only was it a big top twenty hit in the UK , it reached no. 2 in Holland , no. 4 in Belgium , and no. 8 in South Africa.
During 2003 and 2004 Roger did several tours with his old pal Jim Davidson, doing the first half of Jim’s concerts. He also appeared with Jim in his Xmas seasons during those respective years.
After pantomime finished in February 2004 Roger immediately went on to star in a new version of Davidsons’ adult pantomime, “Sinderella”, as one of The Ugly Sisters, a role which he created so successfully in The West End a few years ago. The show toured all the major venues for two months and a video and CD was released at Christmas.
2004 saw Roger starring in his first feature film role with Summer Phoenix, sister of the late River Phoenix. It was a comedy called “Susie Gold” in which Roger played Tony, the promiscuous father in law of Susie’s sister. The film was a major release last year.
In the autumn of that same year, in between his after dinner speaking commitments, Roger co-wrote a six part, one hour comedy/drama series about the life of his father, known as “Sir” Leonard, who was a colourful character known throughout the racing and casino world. This is a project which he will also take the role of executive producer , and may even take a supporting role in the production.
At the same time he did the narration on a one hour documentary, for The UK and American markets, about the life of a larger than life property millionairess with whom he went to school, and who is a close friend.
Once again in 2005 he was appearing at many corporate golf days and after dinner speaking engagements. The BBC also repeated “ Spywatch” this year, a ten part children’s series in which Roger plays “Professor CD Rom”, alongside Keith Barron.
2006 once again saw Roger doing his corporate entertaining throughout the year.
Two weeks prior to pantomime commencing he was starring in London in a new play by Roy Smiles called “The Ho Ho Club!” at the celebrated Kings Head in Islington for six weeks, a production which he co-produced with Karl Howman who was also the director.
For the Panto season he was delighted to be starring alongside Bradley Walsh in the Xmas production of Cinderella at The Milton Keynes Theatre. Roger is always in demand for pantomime and is acknowledged to be one of the country’s top panto “Dames”!
This year he has been seen fulfilling his usual corporate presenting and golf commitments.
He is currently co- producing and preparing a further production of The Ho-Ho Club to tour The Middle East & Far East early in the New Year after he finishes this years version of “Cinderella” at The Manchester Opera House.He has been happily married to former actress Karan David for 32 years and they have a 18 year old daughter called Chloe and a Yorkshire terrier called Bertie Buttons.