Derek Benfield’s worried expression was a regular feature on British television drama for decades. He was the gruff haulage boss Bill Riley on The Brothers (1972-76), Leo McKern’s gloomy clerk Albert Handyside in Rumpole of the Bailey (1978-80) and Patricia Routledge’s disapproving husband in the detective series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996-98). He also won fans with an excursion into science-fiction, Timeslip (1970-71).

Benfield was born in Bradford in 1926. He attended Bingley Grammar School and was involved in drama from an early age. During the war he served in the Green Howards and then worked for the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Jerusalem.

After training at RADA he began his professional career in Brian Rix farces. He spent many years with repertory theatre companies in England. While in Preston he met his wife, the actress Susan Lyall Grant, and wrote his first play, The Young in Heart (1953).

He wrote more than 30 plays, many of them comedies and farces. They have proven popular with amateur and professional companies around the world. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Arthur Lowe starred in Benfield’s comedy Beyond a Joke in England, Australia and New Zealand.

By that time Benfield had finally landed a starring TV role. In the 1960s he had appeared in several TV staples and turned up repeatedly on Dixon of Dock Green, for which he wrote several scripts, and Z Cars. He also played a minor character on Coronation Street called Walter Greenhalgh.

Timeslip may have secured Benfield an enduring, if minor, cult following, but it was The Brothers that turned the bald, middle-aged supporting actor into a star.

He and Leo McKern were a memorable pairing in John Mortimer’s witty legal series Rumpole of the Bailey. He also appeared in numerous other hit series, including Minder (1980), Hi-De-Hi! (1981), Juliet Bravo (1984) and Only Fools and Horses (1989).

His writing career blossomed in parallel to his acting. His 1982 farce Touch and Go was translated into French and staged in Paris by Marc Camoletti, while John Inman starred in a British tour of Bedside Manners in 1988.

On TV Benfield secured another regular starring role as the shopkeeper Mr Scrimshaw in First of the Summer Wine (1988-89), the prequel spin-off from Last of the Summer Wine, which began in 1973 and is still going.

Benfield is survived by his wife, his daughter Kate Plantin, who is a casting director, and a son.

Derek Benfield, actor and playwright, was born on March 11, 1926. He died on March 10, 2009, aged 82