His television work included Cadfael, The Bill, Where the Heart Is, Heartbeat, Midsomer Murders, EastEnders (as Derek Branning[2] in 1996), Casualty, Down to Earth, Plotlands, Agatha Christie's Poirot, She's Out and What Remains.

He starred in Peter Kosminsky's 15: The Life and Death of Phillip Knight, and played General Bennigsen in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace.

[3] His stage work included British theatre performances as the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III (1995) and as the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1994) for multi Barrymore award winner director Mark Clements and his own adaptation (with Colin Wakefield) of Nikolai Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" (as a one-man play) at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

He met actress Ashley Jensen in 1999 when they were appearing in a production of King Lear at the Manchester Royal Exchange, and they married in Big Sur, California in 2007.

Beesley died at the family home in Camerton, Somerset, on 30 November 2017, aged 60, having been found unconscious in a car in his garage.