Sheila Mercier, as she became known, played Annie Sugden for more than 20 years in the Yorkshire TV soap opera Emmerdale Farm having worked regularly with her brother in the Whitehall farces in the 1950s and 1960s.

It was a happy choice, for Rix's productions ran there for the next 16 years, before he moved to the Garrick Theatre, breaking many West End records in the process.

Alongside the regulars from his theatre company, Rix appeared in these TV productions with such names as Dora Bryan, Joan Sims, Ian Carmichael, John Le Mesurier, Patrick Cargill, Fabia Drake, Sheila Hancock, Warren Mitchell, Thora Hird and Francis Matthews.

Rix himself played the gormless north-country recruit, Horace Gregory, in both film and throughout the four-year run at the Whitehall, where his reputation for losing his trousers began.

In the first two years at the Whitehall, Rix's understudy was John Chapman, who also played a small part in Act 3, which ensured a long wait in the dressing room.

When Dry Rot went on tour with John Slater in the lead, he was joined by two young actors, Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton.

In all, seven playwrights were spawned by the Whitehall farces – Colin Morris, John Chapman, Ray Cooney, Tony Hilton, Clive Exton, Raymond/Charles Dyer and Philip Levene.

Ronald Bryden (in the New Statesman) wrote of Rix and his company in 1964 after the opening of the fifth Whitehall farce, Chase Me Comrade: There they are: the most robust survivors of a great tradition, the most successful British theatrical enterprises of our time.

Everything, apparently, for which Joan Littlewood has struggled – the boisterous, extrovert playing, the integrated team-work, the Cockney irreverance of any unself-conscious, unacademic audience bent purely on pleasure – exists, patently and profitably at the Whitehall.

Yet how many devout pilgrims to Stratford East have hazarded the shorter journey to Trafalgar Square to worship at the effortless shrine at the thing itself?

[4]Despite being described by Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times as "The greatest master of farce in my theatre-going lifetime" and numerous other plaudits from critics and audiences alike, no theatrical awards were ever forthcoming.

Let Sleeping Wives Lie enjoyed a further two-year run with Leslie Crowther, Elspet Gray, Derek Farr, Andrew Sachs and Rix playing the lead roles.

After Let Sleeping Wives Lie finished at the Garrick, it went on a short tour before opening for a summer season at the newly restored Playhouse in Weston-super-Mare.

Meantime the cast of Rix's next West End production commuted by train every day to rehearse in London, returning in the late afternoon for their evening performance.

His favoured explanation was that the play, funny as it was, might have seemed somewhat old-fashioned, as it was adapted by Michael Pertwee from a pre-war farce, Nap Hand, by Vernon Sylvaine and based upon the birth of Dionne quintuplets.

Rix, who had never enjoyed touring, now hated the endless nights away from home, and was delighted when the play was turned first into a television series for HTV, Men of Affairs (with Warren Mitchell as the minister) and then into a film (starring himself, Leslie Phillips and Joanna Lumley).

Ably assisted by his former stage manager and now PA, Joanne Benjamin, Rix was responsible for obtaining productions for various West End theatres including the Shaftesbury, the Duke of York's, the Ambassadors and the re-built Astoria which opened with the award-winning Elvis, starring P. J. Proby, Shakin' Stevens and Tim Whitnall.

Rix and his partners were also responsible for re-opening the Billy Rose Theatre in New York City, renaming it the Trafalgar and opening with a big hit – Whose Life Is It Anyway?, starring Tom Conti.

Rix however boldly proposed that the biggest national companies were stood still,[clarification needed] so releasing money not only to fund Tara, but also allow fresh small-scale developments, and then saw that this was delivered through Panel and Council.

The only offering the state made was a place in a Victorian era, run-down hospital where patients were left to their own devices for hours at a time.

Among these roles, in the early 1960s, Rix became the first Chairman of the Special Functions Fundraising committee at the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults, later known as Mencap.

Both his personal experience and his leading position as a fundraiser in the field finally led to Rix applying for the job at Mencap and then when he retired in 1987 to him becoming chairman in 1988.

One example in 1994 was when Rix introduced a private member's bill ensuring that local authorities would provide short-term breaks for carers and cared-for alike, on a reasonably timed basis.

Amongst his many activities, he was the co-chairman (with Tom Clarke CBE MP) of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Learning Disability;[10] chairman of the Rix Thompson Rothenberg (RTR) Foundation which provides small grants for projects serving people with a learning disability;[9] and president of the grant making Normansfield and Richmond Foundation.

[9] He was also a constant supporter of the Rix Centre at the University of East London, which develops and disseminates tools and training for multi-media advocacy to enhance the lives of people with a learning disability.

Rix also served as the first chairman of the Arts Council Monitoring Committee on Arts and Disability as well as founding and chairing the charity Libertas (working alongside Sir John Cox and Rix's son, Jonathan) which produced dozens of audio guides for disabled people at museums, historical buildings and other places of interest.

[8] Shelley was born with Down syndrome, and her father began to use his public profile to promote awareness and understanding of learning disabilities.

[19][20] Rix was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1977 Birthday Honours,[21] and knighted in June 1986[22] for his services to charity.

; Brick Dropp'ing; Passes That Ship; Half a Dozen of the Other; Well I'm Burgled; Horseface; Near Miss; To Russia With...; Dash My Wig; Desirable Residence; Flagrant Memories; Arabian Knights; Silver Threads; A Fair Cop; ...As a New Born Babe; Dinner for One; It's a Bug!

He also edited, compiled and contributed to Gullible's Travails, an anthology of travel stories by famous people for the Mencap Blue Sky Appeal.