Elsmore, Philip

Philip was born in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire. He is a former actor, director and broadcaster.

Following National Service with the RAF in West Germany, he trained as an actor playing minor roles. He spent a year with the Old Vic Company (1958 – 1959), followed by repertory and tours.

In 1963, he started work as a freelance continuity announcer and over several decades became a familiar voice in a number of ITV regions, including Border TV and Tyne Tees TV (spring 1964 – autumn 1965).

He was also an announcer for ABC TV. The company would be superseded by Thames TV in 1968 and Philip was one of the launch team of announcers, alongside Sheila Kennedy and David Hamilton.

Philip also announced at Southern TV for a time (c. 1965).

Without doubt, he is best known for his role as an announcer at Thames TV. He would later become senior continuity announcer there. He also made the first and last continuity announcements at Thames.

Whilst at Thames, he made cameo/guest appearances in various networked productions such as Rainbow, Pauline’s Quirkes, The Kenny Everett Video Cassette and Eric and Ernie’s Christmas Show – often parodying his role as a continuity announcer.

Philip appeared in Morecambe and Wise’s final TV sketch.

The end of Thames’ time as an ITV franchisee marked a renewed effort by Philip to return to acting. In subsequent years he appeared in a number of films and TV programmes, including The Governor, The Bill, Lovejoy, Casualty and Doctors.

He did briefly return to the announcer’s booth in the mid-1990s, for Westcountry TV in Plymouth.

He has written and directed for the stage and continued to provide voiceovers for DVD and video releases.

In 2006, he provided the narration for Mordant Music’s album Dead Air. The blurb for the album explains how Philip became involved:

“‘Dead air’ is what broadcasters are supposed to avoid at all costs, what continuity personnel are employed to plug up with pleasantries.

“Mordant’s fascination with that lost figure, the TV announcer, led them to track down Philip Elsmore, whose warm, soothing tones will be recogniseable to anyone who grew up in the UK in the 1970s from his work for ITV regional franchises like Tyne Tees and Thames.

“The duo persuaded Elsmore to come out of retirement and provide continuity for Dead Air, his reassuring voice applied to an increasingly bizarre series of utterances, from ‘apologies for the sundry glitches…in the meantime, keep your nerve’ to ‘the following contains graphic scenes of a strobing magpie’s wing’ to ‘keep sporing in the nessst’.

“Near the end, Elsmore declares that ‘Mordant Music will be back once the dust has settled with more vague unpleasantness’.”

Philip is married to actress Joan Scott.

Personal information

Clips of Philip on The TV Room

Philip may be featured in video/audio clips on our other websites. Click the links below to display a listing (a 404 error will appear if no clips are found):

Rewind | Clean Feed

Online presence

Acknowledgements