My friend Saul Reichlin, who has died aged 81, worked for six decades as an actor, writer, producer and director, but was most in demand for his rich, warm vocal tones, which he lent to many video games and audiobooks. He narrated more than 245 books, including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, voted best audiobook of the year in 2009.
Saul was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where he attended Wynberg boys’ high school and afterwards did various jobs until his antipathy towards apartheid prompted him to move to the UK in the late 1960s. Graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1972, he soon found work in theatre and television.
His TV career included appearances in Space: 1999, Crossroads and This Life, while on the stage he acted with the National Theatre in various roles. Later, he began writing for the stage, including the comedy Who’s the Daddy? in 2005. His theatrical adaptations of the tales of the Yiddish author and playwright Sholem Aleichem became very popular, and his first adaptation, Roots … Shmoots!, toured globally, clocking up 35 cities along the way.
Throughout his career he continued with his narrations and voiceovers, and when ill health interrupted his most recent run of one-man Sholem Aleichem performances, he fell back on his audiobook work, continuing determinedly.
To the end, he could often be seen in the cafes of Hornsey and Crouch End in north London, where he lived – working on his next narration and whiling away happy hours in idle chitchat with friends who popped in. A self-sufficient, warm and supportive man for whom nothing was too much trouble, he leaves behind an impressively diverse body of work, and a lot of happy memories for those who were fortunate to know him.
