He and his wife, actress Prunella Scales, are to read extracts from the Bard's works at a sold-out Shakespeare-themed concert entitled Measure for Measure at the arts centre on Sunday, October 18.

Orchestra of Square Chapel will perform music inspired by Shakespeare – composed by Weber, Mendelssohn, Quilter, Nicolai and Walton – in between readings by Prunella and Timothy.

"I have performed there two or three times and it is a wonderful building," says Timothy, who will celebrate his 75th birthday two days after the concert.

The connection be-tween the star of TV's 1980s satirical northern soap Brass and the Square Chapel goes back a long way. In the 1960s, a couple called Barbara and Charles Barber were heavily involved in a campaign to build a new theatre in Leeds.

The theatre opened as Leeds Playhouse in 1970 and as well as serving on the board of governors, Barbara was chairwoman of the Friends of the Playhouse. This involved, among other things, running a stall in the Green Room where the actors congregated during performances, when they were not actually on stage, and afterwards.

Barbara's chocolate cakes became legendary and many actors joked that they only went back to the Playhouse to enjoy another chocolate cake.
As Leeds Playhouse evolved to become the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Barbara, now a widow, kept up her contacts with many of the actors, including Timothy and Prunella, and is fondly remembered by many of them.

Her son Nick Barber is involved in classical music-making in and around Calderdale. He plays in – and helps to run – Orchestra of Square Chapel.
So when a Shakespeare-themed concert was planned, he invited Timothy and Prunella to travel to Yorkshire and join in the concert – as well as paying a visit to his mum.

Timothy is also a patron of Square Chapel, so the visit is perfectly timed to celebrate the venue's 21st anniversary this year.

He says he is looking forward to seeing Barbara again and hopes she will be in the audience for the concert.

"I have not seen Barbara for a long time – since I last worked in West Yorkshire," he says. "It used to be quite a common thing, either at the West Yorkshire Playhouse or in Huddersfield or the Alhambra at Bradford.

"I don't remember the chocolate cakes – but Barbara is a wonderful woman."

He was born in Bradford – but this was because his father, actor Lockwood West, was appearing on stage in the city. "I only lived there for five weeks because my father was playing at the Prince's Theatre – a month later and I would have been born in Eastbourne.

"We have strong connections with West Yorkshire. My sister is a social worker in the Bradford area and I was involved with the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now the National Media Museum) in Bradford."

Timothy played the title role in a major 1975 TV series, Edward The Seventh, and had major roles in films including The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978) and Cry Freedom (1987). But he turned to comedy as patriarch Bradley Hardacre in the Granada series Brass, which ran for three seasons between 1982 and 1990.

The programme has never been repeated, unlike the BBC series for which Prunella is remembered as long-suffering Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil (John Cleese) in Fawlty Towers.

"I think it is a bit of a shame that Brass was never repeated," says Timothy, who became a CBE in 1984 for his services to drama. "Whereas everybody loved it in the north, people were a bit dubious in the south because they didn't realise it was meant to be a joke."

The Halifax concert is a one-off event although the couple have worked together previously in a show that Timothy devised called Battle of the Sexes.

"We still do this occasionally but we have to fit it in around other jobs – I have been involved in a Terry Pratchett epic in Hungary and also an episode of Lewis, with Kevin Whatley," he says. "But I love working with orchestras and musicians."

The Measure for Measure programme includes:
Weber – overture: Oberon
Mendelssohn – Nocturne from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Quilter – suite: As You Like It
Nicolai – overture: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Walton – suite: Henry V

Nick Barber says: "The event promises to be a highlight both for the orchestra and for Square Chapel."