[2] He specialized in playing friendly or exasperated uniformed policemen, but also appeared in other comic and straight roles in British and Australian productions.

He first visited Australia as part of a touring company presenting Agatha Christie’s play Witness for the Prosecution.

Stainton and his actress wife immigrated to Australia in the late 1950s to appear in a series of live television plays as the medium was beginning in that country.

He also adapted and produced a version of the gaslight melodrama East Lynne which became a hit around the circuit of surviving music hall venues in the early 1960s and was subsequently revived.

During a centenary performance at impresario George Miller's Bowl Music Hall (basement of The Capitol, Melbourne), he succumbed to a heart attack on 1 August 1961.