As a junior clerk in a prewar accountant’s office Howard Goorney saw in the Manchester Guardian that auditions were being held for Hasek’s The Good Soldier Schweik. Having dabbled briefly in amateur dramatics, he landed the part of the old shepherd. He was 17. Thus began a working relationship with Joan Littlewood that would last for more than 30 years.

Goorney, a co-founder of Theatre Workshop, was among the longest serving from that northern touring troupe, which eventually — though far from unanimously — settled at the old Theatre Royal, in Stratford, East London. There it made a name for itself in the 1950s and 1960s by taking into central London such productions as The Quare Fellow, The Hostage, and Oh! What a Lovely War. This led to the break-up of the company since moving from east to west meant forming a new troupe at headquarters.

Goorney continued to work as an actor for another 30 years but the difference between working without subsidy for Littlewood’s troupe and for conventional companies made it clear which Goorney preferred. Despite the feeble wages and insecurity, Theatre Workshop had a purpose. And in Goorney’s manner of acting, which had always been downright, emphatic and to the point, the tradition survived.

To make ends meet with Theatre Workshop Goorney often resorted to part-time work as an accountant, insurance agent or hospital administrator. There were no grants from public funds until the troupe was about to fold but he later recalled that “the atmosphere was very optimistic. It seemed that everything would turn out fine in the end. We’d conquer the world because we knew what we were doing and the working class would rise up and support us. We were naive . . . gradually we painfully realised that without resources, without any money, it was not going to be easy.”

When Theatre Workshop closed in 1970 Goorney grieved, although as he made plain in The Theatre Workshop Story (1981), the work was somewhat penurious, unpredictable, insecure and the conditions mentally and physically demanding. Acting took place in all kinds of venues, often on a once-nightly basis, with the company travelling by lorry and carrying in crates their own lighting and scenery, curtains and costumes. Audiences were usually sparse.

But because the plays were sound and often classics and the acting expressive, the life was stimulating. The communal existence and the mutual readiness to help brought a sense of fulfilment. The company had a purpose, a style and a director who worked all hours to achieve it. Whether Littlewood was ruthless or demanding, no one doubted her integrity, imagination and loyalty.

Often appointed artistic director on overseas trips, Goorney noticed how the troupe was more appreciated abroad than at home in the 1940s and 1950s, and it was repeatedly invited to the Paris festival. He was also aware of how often Gerry Raffles as general manager counted on his relatively well-to-do father to get the company out of debt.

Among the numerous classical and modern plays in the repertoire when Goorney joined the troupe at Kendal in 1938 were Lorca’s The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in His Garden (with Goorney in the title part), Moliãre’s The Flying Doctor (with Goorney as Sganarelle, the valet), and Ewan MacColl’s Uranium 235.

Later they added Twelfth Night, As You Like It and Arms and the Man. Goorney played Stockmann in An Enemy of the People(1954), Corbaccio in Volpone, the Mayor in The Government Inspector, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, and John of Gaunt in Richard II (1955), “a very Isaiah of rebuke”, according to Kenneth Tynan.

In Brendan Behan’s The Hostage (Stratford and Wynd-ham’s 1958) Goorney played “a morose braggart who feels that all the gaiety departed from the cause of Irish liberty when the IRA became temperate, dedicated and holy”, (Tynan again). In 1960 he was the grandfather in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey (Royal Court) and in 1966 played Henry IV in both parts of Henry IV at the Edinburgh Festival. He was also very funny as a holy con man in Mrs Wilson’s Diary (Stratford and Criterion, 1967-68).

When Goorney fell back on character roles in non-Theatre Workshop shows, such as Gielgud’s otherwise stylish revival of The School for Scandal (Haymarket, 1962), the boldness of his style stood out, with one critic saying that “Goorney’s pace comes from . . . an explosive and down-to-earth technique — but style is something different”.

Later character stage roles at the Cottesloe Theatre came in The Passion (1977-79), The Long Voyage Home, Hughie (1980), The Mysteries (1985) and Don Quixote; and on the fringe in The Hamlet of Stepney Green (New End, Hampstead, 1987) and John Osborne’s The Entertainer (Salisbury, 1991).

Among television credits were Will Somers in The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Private Schultz in The Borgias, Sava Mordoch in Bramwell, Newman in Waking the Dead.

Film work included Bob the Turnkey in Little Dorritt, The Hill, Bedazzled, Fiddler on the Roofand Reg Boyt in Blackball. He adapted for radio five parts of Memoirs of a Victorian Stationmaster.

Howard Goorney, actor, was born on May 11, 1921. He died on March 29, 2007, aged 85