After leaving
Oxford University, he began his career as a film and stage actor, appearing with the
Birmingham Rep and the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre as well as in the
West End play
While Parents Sleep. His film appearances included
The Poisoned Diamond (1931), directed by
W.P. Kellino,
The Water Gipsies (1932), directed by
Maurice Elvey,
The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934), directed by
Walter Summers and ''
It's a Bet'' (1935), directed by
Alexander Esway. During
World War II, he worked as an announcer for the
BBC Forces Programme for two years and then joined the
Royal Signal Corps, with whom he served in North Africa, Italy, and London. After the war, he joined the BBC drama department, initially working on the production of the soap opera
The Robinson Family and then producing and directing the
Dick Barton - Special Agent series which regularly obtained 20,000,000 listeners daily. He went on to become a producer and director for the
BBC Third Programme, where his output included 17
Shakespeare plays, the
Oresteia trilogy by
Aeschylus;
The Wasps and
Lysistrata by
Aristophanes; and
The Bacchae,
Medea and
Hippolytus by
Euripides. Raikes also produced the first radio production of
Menander's Dyskolos, several year after a complete manuscript of the play was discovered in Egypt in 1952. He also introduced British radio audiences to less frequently performed
Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas,
Restoration comedies, and works by 20th century authors such as
Robert Graves and
Jean Anouilh. For many of the plays he directed, he would adapt the archaic English for modern audiences and he also adapted existing English translations of foreign works. At the 1965
Prix Italia, Raikes won the RAI Prize for literary or dramatic programmes with
The Anger of Achilles by
Robert Graves and the
Prix Italia for stereophonic musical and dramatic programmes with
A. R. Gurney's
The Foundling (music by
Humphrey Searle). Raikes' last production for the BBC was his own translation of Euripides'
Iphigeneia in Aulis in 1975. Following his retirement, he studied Egyptian
hieroglyphics and Russian as hobbies. He had a large personal library and for many years also served as chairman on the library committee of the
Garrick Club. Raikes died in his sleep at his home in
Bromley, Kent at the age of 88. He was survived by his widow. He was buried at
West Norwood Cemetery where his headstone which he shares with his father and grandfather features closing theatrical curtains. ==Personal life==