Alan Williams appeared on Coronation Street in two roles: firstly in April 1999 as the Caretaker who maintained the apartment complex where Julia Stone was said to have resided; and he returned to the programme as Brian Haverstock, caretaker at the Derbyshire campsite where the Croppers, Platts and Websters holidayed in July 2001.
From 1972 he spent nine years with the Hull Truck Theatre Company and emigrated to Canada in 1981, aged 27 after visiting the country with a one-man play he had written for Truck, The Cockroach Trilogy. Having performed it at the Toronto International Theatre Festival, he was invited to tour the show across Canada for six months and ended up living in the country for fifteen years - initially in Toronto and then in Winnipeg, as an actor, writer and artistic director. During this time, he also appeared in films including Places Not Our Own, The Darling Family and The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati.
Back in the UK, his credits include roles in Wycliffe, Touching Evil, Always and Everyone, Peak Practice, Wire in the Blood, The Bill, Heartbeat, Silent Witness, Doc Martin, Endeavour, The Guilty, SunTrap and the films Among Giants, All or Nothing, Heartlands, Bright Young Things, Vera Drake, Grow Your Own, London Boulevard and Run for Your Wife.
On stage he has appeared in productions of Urinetown: The Musical, The Crucible, The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, Krapp's Last Tape, Crave, Peter Pan, Stoning Mary, Decades of Pop, Twelfth Night, The Jew of Malta, War Horse and Angel Meadow.