Blackball

Melvin Kenneth "Mel" Smith is an English comedian, writer, film director, producer, and actor. He is most famous for his work on the sketch comedy shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones. Smith's father, Kenneth, was born in Tow Law,... County Durham, and worked at a coal mine in the Second World War looking after the pit ponies. After the war he moved to London, and married Smith's mother, whose parents owned a greengrocer's store in Chiswick, west London. When the government legalised high street betting, he turned the shop into the first betting shop in Chiswick. Smith was born and brought up in Chiswick, over the shop. He was educated at Hogarth Primary School, Chiswick and the private Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford University he produced The Tempest, and this led to his joining the Royal Court Theatre production team in London, and then Bristol Old Vic. He was also associate director of Sheffield's Crucible Theatre for two years. Later, he directed a theatre production of "Not in Front of the Audience".
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