UK — Beth Portman, Stunt Performer on “Brookside” and Founder of the Masquerade Theatre School, Has Died

• Beth Portman, a stunt performer on UK television including “Brookside,” has died in her early sixties after living with cancer.
• She trained at the Hammond School in Chester before working in stunts, then founded the Masquerade Theatre School in Haslington.
• From 2016 she choreographed and company-managed the annual Northwich pantomime.

Posted: November 2, 2026

Portman came up the route a lot of British stunt women of her generation did — a conservatoire movement training first, stunt work after. She trained at the Hammond School in Chester, worked as a stunt performer on a run of television productions including Channel 4’s “Brookside,” and then turned the same skills outward, founding the Masquerade Theatre School in Haslington, near Crewe, with her husband David.

Producer Anton Benson, who worked with her for more than fifteen years, says she began supplying dancers for the Northwich pantomime in 2013, took over choreographing it in 2016, and ended up as company manager. His description of her working style will sound familiar to anyone who has been run through a rehearsal by someone who came off a stunt floor: “very demanding professionally… strict, but everybody absolutely adored her.” He also recalls her assembling a group of dancers at a day’s notice for a photo shoot in Llandudno.

She lost her husband to cancer in 2018. She is survived by her son Tom and stepchildren Scott and Sally.

Source: Warrington Guardian — Tributes to Brookside stuntwoman and Northwich panto doyen

Learn more on IMDb: Brookside (1982–2003)