Nigel Lindsay

Nigel Lindsay is an English actor. He was nominated for Best British Comedy Performance in Film at the 2011 British Comedy Awards ^[1] for his performance as Barry, the Muslim convert in Chris Morris's BAFTA winning Four Lions and won the 2011 Whatsonstage Award for Best Supporting Actor as Dr Harry Hyman in Arthur Miller's Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre ^[2]. He is currently playing the title role in the West End production of Shrek the Musical, which began performances at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in May 2011.^[3][4][5]

Early life and education

Lindsay was born in St. John’s Wood in London. He attended Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood and the University of Birmingham, where he read English and French. After university, he worked for three years as a financial analyst specialising in French and Belgian equities at stockbrokers Savory Milln and Swiss Bank SBC. After performing in a friend’s charity production of Robert Bolt’s The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, he gave up the City to take a two-year course at the Webber Douglas Academy, where he won the Amherst Webber scholarship. His finals show, Charley’s Aunt, was directed by Michael Fry, who gave him his first professional job with his Lincolnshire touring company Great Eastern Stage.

Career

Lindsay's early work was mainly in theatre. One of his first London stage roles saw him play the King of France in King Lear at the Royal Court Theatre, with Tom Wilkinson as Lear and Andy Serkis as the Fool. At a weekly Monday night poker game organised by the actor Samuel West, Lindsay was asked by Patrick Marber to attend a week’s improvisational workshop of a play he was devising about poker. This became Dealer's Choice, which premiered at the National Theatre in February 1995 with Lindsay as Mugsy and Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels among the original cast. The play transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre, and won that year’s Evening Standard award for Best Comedy and Writers' Guild Award for Best Play. Other theatre work includes: Max in The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard which won three Tonys on Broadway in 2000; Ariel in the 2004 Olivier award-winning National Theatre production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, with Jim Broadbent and David Tennant; Nathan Detroit in Michael Grandage’s Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre in 2005, and Charlie Maggs in Sucker Punch by Roy Williams at the Royal Court in 2010. Lindsay has appeared in five plays at the Almeida Theatre, including as Lenny in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming with Ken Cranham and Danny Dyer in 2009 and as Moe Axelrod alongside Stockard Channing and Jodie Whittaker in Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the 2008 Whatsonstage Awards ^[6].

In film and television. Nigel has appeared in many regular series including: Spooks, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks and Between the Lines. He played Ewan McGregor’s boss Ron Baker in the film Rogue Trader; the Jewish terrorist Levi in [Rome]]; Sherrif Johnny Behan in the BBC’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; Lt Col Mervyn Gonin in the BAFTA nominated Relief of Belsen with Iain Glen; and opposite Jack Dee in Simon Nye’s fairground comedy Tunnel of Love. He has worked with some of the UK’s best loved comedy stars, including twice with Steve Coogan on Alan Partridge, with Armando Iannucci on the Armando Iannucci Shows, Jennifer Saunders in two series of Jam and Jerusalem, and again with Chris Morris on Brass Eye.

References

1. ^ Darvill, Josh. "In Full: British Comedy Awards 2010/2011 winners announced". http://tellymix.co.uk/news-articles/25439-in-full-british-comedy-awards-20102011-winners-announced.html. 
2. ^ "Whatsonstage Awards 2011 - Your Winners for 2011". http://awards.whatsonstage.com/1209. 
3. ^ Shenton, Mark (3 September 2010). "Nigel Lindsay and Nigel Harman Join West End Company of Shrek the Musical". playbill.com. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/142649-Nigel-Lindsay-and-Nigel-Harman-Join-West-End-Company-of-Shrek-the-Musical. Retrieved 14 August 2011. 
4. ^ Rees, Jasper (4 May 2011). "Nigel Lindsay: Into the limelight, wearing a mask - Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph (London: TMG). ISSN 0307-1235. OCLC 49632006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-features/8490398/Nigel-Lindsay-Into-the-limelight-wearing-a-mask.html. Retrieved 14 August 2011. 
5. ^ CB (22 December 2005). "The Big Interview: Nigel Lindsay". officiallondontheatre.co.uk. http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/interviews/view/item71391/The-Big-Interview:-Nigel-Lindsay/. Retrieved 14 August 2011. 
6. ^ "The 2008 Theatregoers' Choice Award Winners". http://awards.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=493. 

External links

• Nigel Lindsay at the Internet Movie Database

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