Mark Benton as Francis, the Director of the play. In July 2012, it was announced that Benton would star as Edna Turnblad in the 2013 UK tour of "Hairspray the Musical", starting in February 2013 and finishing in September 2013. In 2015 Benton appeared as Police Constable Walt Everett in the BBC daytime series "Father Brown", episode 3.12 "The Standing Stones". He also appeared as Les in the "La Couchette", the first episode of the second series of anthology series "Inside No. 9". In 2015, Benton presented the BBC One daytime game show "The Edge" for its first series, being replaced by
Swan Turnblad community of Swedish immigrants. He attended local schools and after graduating high school he worked as a teacher and helped with the family's farm for several years. In 1878 he moved to Minneapolis, where he worked as a typesetter at several Swedish-language newspapers. Soon after arriving in the city he met another Swedish immigrant, Christina Nilsson (1861-1929). The couple married in 1883 and the following year Christina gave birth to her only child, Lillian Zenobia Turnblad (1884-1943). In 1887, Turnblad became the manager of the Swedish-language newspaper "Svenska Amerikanska Posten". His brother, Magnus Turnblad, joined him as the editor in