Grange Hill, Holby City, Doctor Who and Brookside actor Stuart Organ dies aged 72

Grange Hill actor Stuart Organ has died aged 72, his representative has confirmed.

The British actor was best known for playing the firm but fair Peter Robson, the longest-serving member of staff in the school, on the children’s television drama. As Robson, he was a PE and geography teacher before being promoted to headteacher in the series about life in a London comprehensive school.

The show ran from 1978 to 2008 and made headlines for its gritty social realism, tackling issues such as racism, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, mental illness and HIV and Aids. Organ also portrayed Kevin Cross in the TV soap opera Brookside and featured in a host of shows including popular BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, where he appeared alongside Sylvester McCoy.

His career also included appearances in medical dramas Casualty and Holby City and a number of films including 1990’s Those Glory Glory Days, 1994’s festive film Present Spirits and 1997’s Fork In The Road.

Organ started his professional career at Leeds Playhouse in 1975 in a performance of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, a spin-off of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and would also tread the boards as Judge Turpin in Queens Theatre Hornchurch’s Sweeney Todd.

Grange Hill made household names of characters such as Zammo McGuire, played by Lee MacDonald, and Tucker Jenkins, played by Todd Carty. In 2022, creator Sir Phil Redmond spoke about the show returning as a film.