Roger Allam
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| Roger Allam | |||||||
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| Born | October 26, 1953 London, England  |
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Roger Allam (born 26 October 1953) is an English actor, known primarily for his stage career, although he has performed in film and television. He played Inspector Javert in the original London production of Les Misérables.
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[edit] Biography
He has been nominated three times for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, winning once. He has also been nominated for, and won, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He has also appeared in many radio dramas for the BBC. In 2001, he starred in BBC Radio 4's adaptation of Les Misérables, as Jean Valjean. In 2000 he played Hitler at the Royal National Theatre in David Edgar's Speer. He won an Olivier Award as Best Actor 2001, for his role as Captain Terri Denis in a revival of Privates on Parade, opening in December 2001 at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden. In November 2002 at the Comedy Theatre he co-starred with Gillian Anderson in Michael Weller's romantic comedy What the Night Is For.
In 2003, he starred as former West German federal chancellor Willy Brandt in Michael Frayn's play Democracy which opened at the Cottesloe, in the Royal National Theatre. He stayed with the show for its transfer to the West End. In December 2004 and January 2005, Allam appeared as the villainous Abanazar in a pantomime of Aladdin at the Old Vic theatre, co-starring Ian McKellen, Maureen Lipman and Sam Kelly. He reprised this role at the Old Vic, once again with Ian McKellen and Frances Barber in 2006-7.
In August 2005, Allam appeared in Blackbird by David Harrower alongside Jodhi May at the Edinburgh Festival in a production by German star director Peter Stein. The play got a transfer to the Albery Theatre in London in February 2006. Blackbird subsequently won a best new play award.
He also found time in 2006 to appear in Stephen Frears' The Queen, starring Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren, as the Queen's private secretary.
His latest West End project in February 2007 was the 1960s farce Boeing Boeing at the Comedy Theatre, co-starring Mark Rylance, Frances de la Tour and Tamzin Outhwaite.
In 2008 Allam plays the role of Max Reinhardt, the Salzburg Festival impresario in Michael Frayn's play Afterlife, the production staged by Michael Blakemore on the National Theatre's Lyttelton stage.[1]
In the closing chapter of his Timebends autobiography (1987) Arthur Miller writes of Allam: "To play Adrian....in the 1986 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Archbishop's Ceiling, Roger Allam gave up the leading role as Javert in the monster hit Les Misérables because he had done it over sixty times and thought my play more challenging for him at that moment of his career. Nor did he consider his decision a particularly courageous one. This is part of what a theatre culture means and it is something few New York actors would have the sense of security even to dream of doing."
[edit] Filmography
- The Curse of Steptoe (special) (2008)
- Speed Racer (2008)
- The Thick of It (special) (2006)
- The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
- The Queen (2006)
- V for Vendetta (2006)
- A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
- The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: The Seed of Cunning (2005) (TV)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003) (TV)
- Strangers (2003/III)
- Foyles War (2002 in television)
- Stranded (2002) (TV)
- RKO 281 (1999) (TV)
- Heartbeat (1998)
- The Creatives (1998) TV Series
- Midsomer Murders (1998) TV Series
- Inspector Morse (1998)
- A Landing On the Sun (1994) (TV)
- Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992) (mini series) TV Series (voice)
- The Investigation: Inside a Terrorist Bombing (1990) (TV)
- Ending Up (1989) (TV)
- The fairy queen (La reine des fées) (1989) (TV)
- Wilt (1989)
