- Douglas Hodge
-
Douglas Hodge Born 1960 (age 50–51)
Plymouth, Devon, England, UKYears active 1985–present Partner Tessa Peake-Jones Website http://www.doughodge.com Douglas Hodge (born 1960) is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[1]
Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida Theatre.[2][3]
Contents
Personal background and family life
Douglas Hodge was born in 1960, in Plymouth, Devon, England.[1] One of his grandmothers was visually impaired, and he is a celebrity supporter of the Royal National Institute of Blind People and its "Talking Books" project[4] and is a regular reader of BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.
He has an older brother who "manages a construction firm."[1]
Douglas and his family moved to Wigmore near Gillingham, Kent during the 1960s. He attended Fairview Primary School and from there The Howard School in Rainham, Kent.
His partner is actress Tessa Peake-Jones, and they have two children: a daughter (born 1991) and a son (born c.2001). They live near Oxford.[1]
Career
Theatre
- Harold Pinter
Hodge has achieved great success on stage in plays by Harold Pinter, including No Man's Land at the Comedy Theatre in February 1993; Moonlight at the Almeida Theatre in September 1993; A Kind of Alaska, The Lover and The Collection at the Donmar Warehouse in May 1998; as Jerry in Betrayal at the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, in November 1998; and as Aston in The Caretaker at the Comedy Theatre in November 2000, co-starring Michael Gambon (Davies) and Rupert Graves (Mick), directed by Patrick Marber.
Hodge admires Pinter and speaks and writes very highly of the man and his work, and offered himself as a "birthday present" on his 70th birthday, among many other things offering "My own complete friendship, loyalty and thanks. Manners, civility, celerity, precision, class and clarity."[5]
As his directorial debut at the Oxford Playhouse in 2004 Hodge chose a double bill of The Dumb Waiter and Other Pieces (the 1957 one-act play plus six of Pinter's sketches).
- Other work
For the National Theatre in May 1994 Hodge played the title role in Phyllida Lloyd's Olivier Theatre staging of Shakespeare's Pericles; and Al' in Stephen Poliakoff's Blinded by the Sun directed by Ron Daniels at the Cottesloe Theatre in May 1997.
He played Leontes in an RSC revival of The Winter's Tale at the Roundhouse in April 2002.[6] Directed by Matthew Warchus, it was relocated in a world of 'film noir' and Country music, a version of the Shakespeare play originally planned for American production. "Shaven-headed Hodge, a tyrannical Leontes chopping up the verse into tiny spiteful pieces, is a dead-ringer for Orson Welles, bald and fuming, in the penultimate reel of Citizen Kane — even when he comes on in flat cap and plus-fours as a Chicago heavy, dressed for a round of golf."[7]
In April 2003 he portrayed Andrei in Michael Blakemore's revival of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Playhouse Theatre. The following year he made his Royal Court debut as Barry in Joe Penhall's study of entrapment journalism Dumb Show, directed by Terry Johnson, which opened in September 2004 to positive reviews, particularly for Hodge's performance as a television comedian whose career is on the skids.[8]
Hodge appeared in the 2005 revival of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre playing Nathan Detroit opposite Ewan McGregor's Sky Masterson.[9]
During the summer of 2006, he took the title role in a bloodstained revival of Titus Andronicus, at Shakespeare's Globe.[10][11] Simultaneously he was also making his West End directorial debut with See How They Run, a 1940's wartime farce by Philip King, preceded by a successful UK tour.[12] When his production opened In the West End Nancy Carroll took over from Hattie Morahan in the role of the vicar’s young wife.[13]
In May 2007 he revealed a fine lyric tenor voice as Frank, the neurosurgeon in A Matter of Life and Death with the Kneehigh Theatre company at the National Theatre, a spectacular production with music, based on events in the movie of the same name.[14] Also in 2007 he guest starred in the Doctor Who audio dramas Urban Myths and Son of the Dragon.
In 2008, Hodge starred as Albin in the hugely acclaimed London revival of La Cage aux Folles which played originally at the Menier Chocolate Factory.[15] He later reprised this role at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End to great critical acclaim and won the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
As Maddy Costa noted in her Guardian profile of Hodge:
“ Before he became a bona fide actor, Douglas Hodge did impersonations of comedians and other famous people in working men's clubs, an act he once toured round Nato bases in Europe. There, he shared the stage with a troupe of dancing girls, the memory of which makes his blue eyes glitter. "The girls running off stage, with their fishnets and high heels and spidery eyelashes, chucking their clothes on the floor, the smell of them, the coarseness of it, was the sexiest thing." He pauses, frowns. "And now I'm backstage with the dancing girls doing all that." ” The London production transferred to Broadway, opening on April 18, 2010 at the Longacre Theatre, with Hodge and Kelsey Grammer as Albin and Georges, respectively. Hodge won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance.
A 2011 revival of John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Theatre, London, offered Hodge another challenging role, as Maitland, the lawyer in crisis. Critics were unanimous in praise of Hodge's portrayal, "a great actor doing complete justice to a dark masterpiece", but some found Osborne's characterisation overdrawn and unrealistic, a flaw that Hodge's "enormous" performance could not redeem.[16]
Hodge revealed on his website that he finished writing a musical with Aschlin Ditta, temporarily called Meantime. Josefina Gabrielle, Denis Lawson and several others participated in a cast recording, and actors including Rory Kinnear, Indira Varma and Cillian Murphy participated in a reading of the book.[17]
Television
With Peter Searles he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing and Forest People, about the Amazon Rainforest, performed by the National Youth Theatre on BBC Television in 1989.
Hodge received critical and popular acclaim in 1994 as Dr. Tertius Lydgate in the BBC's award-winning production Middlemarch, adapted by Andrew Davies from the novel by George Eliot and directed by Anthony Page. In the US it aired on Masterpiece Theatre in 1994.
His other TV appearances include leading roles in Behaving Badly (1989); Capital City (1989–1990); A Fatal Inversion (1992); Bliss (1995); Only Fools and Horses (1996) The Uninvited (1997); The Scold's Bridle (1998); Shockers: Dance (1999); The Law (2000); the BBC serial adaptation of Trollope's The Way We Live Now (2001), as Roger Carbury; The Russian Bride (2001); Red Cap (2003–2004); Spooks (2005); ITV's 2007 adaptation of Mansfield Park, as Sir Thomas Bertram; and the made-for-TV film Lift, directed by James Hawes, a 2007 Hartswood Films production for BBC Four, as Paul Sykes, "a constantly exasperated, highly-strung middle-aged businessman with commitments.".[18] In 2010, he appeared in the fifth episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Outnumbered.
Filmography
Feature films in which he has acted include:
- 1988 – Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance, in which he plays Lord Alfred Douglas;
- 1989 – Dealers;
- 1989 – Diamond Skulls;
- 1990 – Buddy's Song;
- 1993 – The Trial, directed by David Jones;
- 1995 – Saigon Baby;
- 1996 – Hollow Reed;
- 2004 – Vanity Fair;
- 2006 – Scenes of a Sexual Nature;[19]
- 2009 – The Descent Part 2;
- 2010 – Robin Hood - Sir Robert Loxley.
He made his cinematic directorial debut with a short film of Harold Pinter's dramatic sketch Victoria Station.
Music
As Doug Hodge, he recorded a debut music album Cowley Road Songs in 2005.
"I've been writing songs all my life but — apart from the occasional girlfriend late at night — I'd never sung them to anyone. Then last year 2006 I finally started playing at various venues in and around Oxford. Each time I wrote a new song I'd go down the Ex [on Cowley Road] and sing it… Then rightback records asked me to record them. We went into the Blue Moon Studios in Banbury for just four days. This [Cowley Road Songs] is what we came out with…" — Douglas Hodge[20]
References
- ^ a b c d Costa, Maddy, "One of the Girls" Guardian.co.uk, 16 January 2008; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ TheatreRecord.org
- ^ NYT website
- ^ RNIB Talking Books
- ^ Harold Pinter: A Celebration, ed. and introd. Richard Eyre Faber (2005) ISBN 0571206611
- ^ Fisher, Philip, "The Winter's Tale" BritishTheatreGuide.info, 2002; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Review by John Thaxter, What's On in London, 17 April 2002
- ^ Fisher, Philip,"Dumb Show" BritishTheatreGuide.info, 2004; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Fisher, Philip, "Guys and Dolls" BritishTheatreGuide.info, 2005; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Rees, Jasper, "Blood on his hands, a song in his heart" Telegraph.co.uk, 14 June 2006; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Thaxter, John, "Titus Andronicus" TheStage.co.uk, 8 June 2006; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Thaxter, John, "See How They Run" BritishTheatreGuide.info, 2006; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Austen, Jeremy, "See How They Run" TheStage.co.uk, 6 July 2006; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Thaxter, John, "A Matter of Life and Death" TheStage.co.uk, 11 May 2007; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ Vale, Paul, "La Cage Aux Folles" TheStage.co.uk, 10 January 2008; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ "Review Round-up: Hodge Receives Judgement at Donmar". Whatsonstage.com. 20 October 2011. http://www.whatsonstage.com/roundup/theatre/london/E8831319105522/Review+Round-up%3A+Hodge+Receives+Judgement+at+Donmar.html. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
- ^ http://www.doughodge.com/?q=node/6
- ^ "BBC Four finds itself in a Tight Spot" BBC.co.uk (BBC Press Office), 16 February 2007; Retrieved on 08-06-2009
- ^ "Douglas Hodge – Cast Biography". Scenes of a Sexual Nature. tinpanfilms.com. 2006. http://www.tinpanfilms.com/cast.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
- ^ Cowley Road songs
External links
- Douglas Hodge at the Internet Movie Database
- Douglas Hodge – Work Résumé at United Agents: The Literary & Talent Agency at unitedagents.co.uk.
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical (2001–2025) Nathan Lane (2001) · John Lithgow (2002) · Antonio Banderas / Harvey Fierstein (2003) · Hugh Jackman (2004) · Norbert Leo Butz (2005) · John Lloyd Young (2006) · Raúl Esparza (2007) · Paulo Szot (2008) · Brian d'Arcy James (2009) · Douglas Hodge (2010) · Norbert Leo Butz (2011)
Complete list · (1975–2000) · (2001–2025) Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical (2001–2025) Daniel Evans (2001) · Philip Quast (2002) · Alex Jennings (2003) · David Bedella (2004) · Nathan Lane (2005) · James Lomas / George Maguire / Liam Mower (2006) · Daniel Evans (2007) · Michael Ball (2008) · Douglas Hodge (2009) · Aneurin Barnard (2010) · David Thaxton (2011)
Complete list · (1979–2000) · (2001–2025) Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (2001–2025) Nathan Lane (2001) · John Lithgow (2002) · Harvey Fierstein (2003) · Hugh Jackman (2004) · Norbert Leo Butz (2005) · John Lloyd Young (2006) · David Hyde Pierce (2007) · Paulo Szot (2008) · David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish (2009) · Douglas Hodge (2010) · Norbert Leo Butz (2011)
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