Ian Pepperell, best known for playing Roy Tucker in The Archers, has died aged 53, the BBC has announced.
The actor who played the hotel owner in the long run BBC Radio 4 drama for 22 years, died on Friday after a long illness.
He also appeared in numerous stage productions and appeared in BBC soap operas EastEnders a short stay in the career.
Archers editor Jeremy Howe said: “Ian was the perfect Archers actor – he loved being part of an ensemble, enjoyed the camaraderie and gossip of the Green Room and had a seemingly effortlessly fine-tuned vocal technique.
Ian Pepperell is best known for playing Roy Tucker in The Archers. Image: Gary Moyes/BBC
“Like all the very best radio actors, he could think on his feet and change the way he played a scene in an instant.
“Thanks to Ian’s brilliance, he created in Roy a character who managed to face two directions simultaneously in almost every scene he played.”
The character featured in a number of dramatic storylines on the show, including a New Year’s Eve episode where Roy asked Hayley Jordan, played by Lucy Davis, to marry him.
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Howe said: “He captured Roy as both brilliant and anxious, funny and sad, relaxed and permanently stressed – a man who could hold down a top job with ease but who always carried Hamlet’s sense of failure with him.
“It all made perfect sense because of Ian’s uncanny and laser-guided ability to find humor in the emotional scenes and pathos in the comedy, which he always played so unfailingly well.
“Ian had a lot more gas in the tank and was desperate to return to Ambridge when his health permitted.
“It is tragic that he died in his prime, we will miss him dearly and our hearts go out to his family and friends and all who knew him.
“Ambridge loved Roy – The Archers and our millions of listeners loved Ian’s Roy Tucker.”
In the theater world he played Hamlet for the Oxford Stage Company and Richard III at the Haymarket Theater in Leicester.
The actor also appeared in a number of episodes of EastEnders in 1993 and was in the police drama The Bill.
