Christopher Ryan is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

. Ryan is perhaps best known for his role as Mike "The Cool Person" in the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 comedy series The Young Ones

The Young Ones (TV series)

The Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers...

.

Early life

Ryan was born in Bayswater

Bayswater

Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the west . It is a built-up district located 3 miles west-north-west of Charing Cross, bordering the north of Hyde Park over Kensington Gardens and having a population density of...

, London and trained at East 15 Acting School

East 15 Acting School

East 15 is a British drama school in Debden, Loughton, Essex. At the main campus, Loughton, it occupies an 18th century mansion, Hatfields, and has its own theatre, the Corbett, which is adjacent. The Corbett Theatre is an adaptation of a 15th-century barn...

 from 1968 to 1971. He began his professional acting career with Glasgow Citizens' Theatre in 1971.

Acting

Ryan was the only Young Ones cast member who was not already well-known in British comedy circles; he was a last-minute replacement for Peter Richardson, for whom the role of "straight man" Mike was originally intended along with The Comic Strip

The Comic Strip

The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents.... The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and...

 members Rik Mayall

Rik Mayall

Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...

, Adrian Edmondson

Adrian Edmondson

Adrian Charles "Ade" Edmondson is an English comedian. He is probably best known for his comedic roles in the television series The Young Ones and Bottom , for which he also wrote together with his long-time collaboration partner Rik Mayall.-Early life:Edmondson, the second of four children, was...

, Nigel Planer

Nigel Planer

Nigel George Planer is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright.Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil Pye in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray...

 and Alexei Sayle

Alexei Sayle

Alexei David Sayle is a British stand-up comedian, actor and author. He was a central part of the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007...

.

He played Lucky in Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

's Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...

at the Queen's Theatre

Queen's Theatre

The Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...

 in the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 in 1991, alongside Mayall and Edmondson. Ryan later played Dave Hedgehog in Bottom

Bottom (TV series)

Bottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...

and Marshall Turtle, one of Edina's unloved ex-husbands on Absolutely Fabulous

Absolutely Fabulous

Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written by Saunders, who plays the leading character. It also stars Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks...

. He has also appeared in two major sitcoms: he played one of the Driscoll brothers in an episode of Only Fools And Horses

Only Fools and Horses

Only Fools and Horses is a British sitcom, created and written by John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1991, with sporadic Christmas specials until 2003...

and spin-off

Spin-off (media)

In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...

 The Green Green Grass

The Green Green Grass

The Green Green Grass is a British sitcom, created and initially written by John Sullivan, produced by Shazam Productions for the BBC. It is a spin-off of the long running sitcom Only Fools and Horses and stars John Challis, Sue Holderness and Jack Doolan...

, a pair of identical twin

Twin

A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic , meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm.In contrast, a fetus...

 builders in the One Foot in the Grave

One Foot in the Grave

One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series written by David Renwick. The show ran for six series, including seven Christmas specials, two Comic Relief specials, over an eleven year period, from early 1990 to late 2000...

episode "Hole In The Sky" and also a plumber in the episode "The Valley of Fear". He also appeared in Mr. Bean Goes Back To School

Mr. Bean

Mr. Bean is a British comedy television programme series of 14 half-hour episodes written by and starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character. Different episodes were also written by Robin Driscoll, Richard Curtis and one by Ben Elton. The pilot episode was broadcast on ITV on 1 January 1990,...

, in two episodes of My Family, in Saxondale

Saxondale

Saxondale is a British television situation comedy programme, starring Steve Coogan and co-written by Steve Coogan and Neil Maclennan. The series is directed by Matt Lipsey and produced by Ted Dowd. Coogan and Henry Normal served as executive producers...

. Ryan also joined up again with Jennifer Saunders in two episodes of The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle.

In 1986, he appeared in the science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 series Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

as the alien creature Lord Kiv in the serial The Trial of a Time Lord

The Trial of a Time Lord

The Trial of a Time Lord is a fourteen-part British science fiction serial of the long running BBC series Doctor Who. The serial, produced as the twenty-third season of the Doctor Who television series, aired in weekly episodes from 6 September to 6 December 1986...

: Mindwarp

Mindwarp

Mindwarp is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 4 October to 25 October 1986. It is part of the larger narrative known as The Trial of a Time Lord, encompassing the whole of the 23rd season...

. In 2008, he again guest starred in Doctor Who in the episodes "The Sontaran Stratagem

The Sontaran Stratagem

"The Sontaran Stratagem" is the fourth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 26 April 2008...

" and "The Poison Sky

The Poison Sky

"The Poison Sky" is the fifth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 3 May 2008. The episode features both former companion Martha Jones and the alien Sontarans...

", as the Sontaran

Sontaran

The Sontarans are a fictional extraterrestrial race of humanoids from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and also seen in spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. They were created by writer Robert Holmes.-Culture:...

 leader General Staal, and in the 2010 episode "The Pandorica Opens

The Pandorica Opens

"The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010. The Doctor's friends send him a warning; he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that...

", playing another Sontaran character, Commander Stark.

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