He worked in repertory theatre in Melbourne and appeared in Australian radio dramas, as well as television productions including Shell Presents and Three's A Crowd.

Bluthal moved to the United Kingdom permanently in 1960[1] and appeared in Citizen James in 1960 for BBC television, and the long-running ITV comedy series Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (1967–71) in which he played Manny Cohen, a Jewish London tailor in business with an Irish Catholic tailor, Patrick Kelly, played by Joe Lynch.

On relocating to Britain, he appeared as several characters in Milligan and John Antrobus' stage play The Bedsitting Room, which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963.

(1984), Minder (1985), Bergerac (1990), One Foot in the Grave (1990), Rumpole of the Bailey (1991), Inspector Morse (1993), Lovejoy (1994), Last of the Summer Wine (1995), and Jonathan Creek (1997), as well as appearing as Major Cheeseburger in The Goodies' episode "Clown Virus".

Bluthal also appeared as Leonid Krasin in episodes of the Thames TV series Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983).

[10] He portrayed an Egyptologist in the year 1914 for the first part of the film The Fifth Element (1997) and Uncle Karl in Dark City (1998).

His later television appearances have been in the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley as the fastidious minutes-taker Frank Pickle and as the caretaker Rocko in Spirited.

[13] Following his death, fellow The Vicar of Dibley actor Dawn French said "Tons of happy laughs remembered today.

Similarly the final episode of the lockdown edition of The Vicar of Dibley ended with a tribute just before the closing credits reading, "In loving memory of Liz, John, Emma and Roger", paying tribute to him and also three other deceased Dibley cast members (Liz Smith, Emma Chambers and Roger Lloyd-Pack).