Barlow was born 18 January 1936. Barlow left the
army in 1969 to pursue a career in
acting, receiving advice from
Trevor Nunn and Sir
Laurence Olivier. He wrote and performed a one-man show in which he described how he came to the decision to go into the acting profession. He previously had much success with another one man show entitled "My Army" in which he described his life in the British army in the 1960s. This toured for many years. One of his most notable roles was playing Mr. Morrow, a blind man allergic to his guide dog in
The Tall Guy alongside
Jeff Goldblum. He played Tyssan in the
Doctor Who serial
Destiny of the Daleks. He also appeared on stage with the
Royal Shakespeare Company and as the
BFG at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon, and on screen as Mr Treacher in
Hot Fuzz. In 2007 he played an Ancient Blind Oracle in the HBO series
Rome. Barlow lost his hearing in the 1950s when testing a high velocity Muzzle
Rifle, most likely an
L1A1 prototype known as the X-8 Self Loading Rifle (SLR), for the
British Army, until 2008, when surgery to fit a
cochlear implant allowed him to recover some of his hearing. His experience of having the cochlear implant fitted was detailed in an episode of BBC Radio 4 programme ''It's My Story'', called "Earfull - From Silence into Sound". In 2016 he performed in
Him, an autobiographical work about memory, ageing and the art of theatre, created by theatre-maker
Sheila Hill, with videographer Hugo Glendinning, and musician Sebastiano Dessanay. He died on 20 January 2023, aged 87. ==TV and films==