Quilley sang in two complete BBC Gilbert and Sullivan radio broadcasts in 1966; Strephon in Iolanthe, and Florian in Princess Ida. In 1965, Quilley appeared in the science-fiction TV series Undermind playing Professor Val Randolph - a scientist who after four episodes is revealed to be an alien traitor. The same year he made his first cinema film, playing Ben in Life at the Top. His only other film of the 1960s was Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), in which he appeared as Weston. In the later 1960s he worked extensively in Australia; he toured with June Bronhill in the musical Robert and Elizabeth, and became known for his role as Customs Inspector Ted Hallam in ABC Television's drama series, Contrabandits. Returning to Britain in 1969 Quilley joined the company of the Nottingham Playhouse, which was among the leading repertory theatres of the time. Among his roles there was Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer, a part created in the original London production by Laurence Olivier. By this time Olivier was in charge of the National Theatre; the director Michael Blakemore, one of his team, saw the new production and recommended Quilley to Olivier. 1970s In the 1970s and again towards the end of his career Quilley was a member of the National company, first at the Old Vic and then at the new building on the South Bank. Under Olivier's directorship he played Tullus Aufidius in Coriolanus, with Anthony Hopkins in the title role (1971); Jamie in Long Day's Journey Into Night with Olivier (1971, filmed for television in 1973); Banquo in Macbeth (with Hopkins); Bolingbroke in Richard II; Crabtree in The School for Scandal; Hildy Johnson in The Front Page (all 1972) and Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (1973). In The Times, the critic Barry Norman said that Quilley was "the only Banquo I have ever seen act Macbeth off the stage". When Peter Hall succeeded Olivier in 1975, Quilley was the only member of the old company to be invited to appear in the opening production of the new regime, playing Caliban to Gielgud's Prospero in The Tempest. When the National moved to the new building in 1976, Quilley disliked acting there; he found it "like going to work in a factory", and he declined to return during the next 14 seasons. Quilley made two cinema films in the 1970s, playing Antonio Foscarelli in Murder