About

I started life in Ilford, Essex, where I quickly became involved, at the age of 7, in performing.  I was “North Wind”, because I was the only person in the class who could pretend to have a cold when I didn’t actually have one. But that’s not what acting is about.  To portray a character, you have to be that character.  And so it continued through my school career, being various characters, from Sophocles’ Antigone to Shakesperare’s King Polixenes. I also shared a stage with the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company actor Robert Demeger, when he was the Ghost of Bob Marley to my Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Sadly Bob (as we knew him at school) died in 2014 of an extremely rare brain cancer.

I attempted to continue drama through University, and managed to do one play with a well known, current Sky newsreader/journalist.  But my tutors weren’t too keen on me sharing my time between the Department of Architecture and my drama interests.

So an architectural career followed, when I worked on many varied project types, but ended up getting known for difficult refurb or remodelling jobs.  Difficult? Let’s give it to Tim.  As the building industry lurched into another crash, I moved away from my design/supervise role, and took up a position using my technical knowledge to develop supply, works and services frameworks for public sector customers.

At the same time, I developed my performance skills by playing fiddle in a couple of bands and joined a local drama group, portraying characters as diverse as English twit, Eugene Fodor in Crazy for You (twice), a drunken Chandler Tate in Comic Potential, the token ‘old person’ in many classic musicals, a “Captain Sparrow-like” Fagin in Oliver!, distraught madcap inventor, Father of Belle in Beauty and The Beast and, finally, onstage violin-playing badger and mad English twit driver in Wind in the Willows. The theme throughout my amateur career often returned to twit – I wonder why?

And now I play the role of ‘Grumpy Old Man’ in my own drama, and muse upon life events.