James Dreyfus
Encyclopedia

Early life and career

Born in London, Dreyfus was educated at Harrow School
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

 and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

. His parents divorced when he was very young. He is openly gay.

In 1998, Dreyfus won the Best Supporting Performance in a Musical Olivier Award for his work in The Lady In The Dark at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

. In the same year he was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award for his performance as Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at the Birmingham Rep.

Comedy

Dreyfus has created some memorable comedy characters, particularly on British television, including Constable Kevin Goody in Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....

's sitcom The Thin Blue Line
The Thin Blue Line (TV series)
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson set in a police station that ran for two series on the BBC from 1995 to 1996...

and Tom Farrell
Tom Farrell (Gimme Gimme Gimme)
Thomas Thessolonius "Tom" Farrell, played by James Dreyfus, is the gay flat mate of Linda La Hughes in Gimme Gimme Gimme. Unemployed actor Tom Farrell has a vague ambition to become the British Tom Cruise, but his career is going nowhere, and his love life isn't too hot either.Tom is a constantly...

, the gay flatmate of Linda (Kathy Burke
Kathy Burke
Katherine Lucy Bridget Burke is an English actress, comedienne, playwright and theatre director. She is best known for her portrayals of Perry in the Harry Enfield film Kevin and Perry Go Large, and of Linda La Hughes in the British sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme...

) in Gimme Gimme Gimme. Dreyfus played opposite Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...

 in the short-lived American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sitcom Bette.

In November 2004, Dreyfus played Carmen Ghia in the London premiere of Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

' musical The Producers
The Producers (musical)
The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich...

, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. He played the role for 10 months until August 2005.

He played as Thermoman in the BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 comedy My Hero, a role he took over in the sixth series from Ardal O'Hanlon
Ardal O'Hanlon
Ardal O'Hanlon is an Irish comedian and actor, best known for his roles in television sitcoms as Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted and George Sunday in My Hero.-Early life:...

. Although the same character, he used the name George Monday, as opposed to Ardal O'Hanlon's character's name, George Sunday. After disappointing ratings following his appointment, the show was axed from the BBC's schedule. Dreyfus also starred as Mr. Teasy-Weasy
Raymond Bessone
Raymond Bessone , was a British hairdresser of the 1950s and 1960s.-Personal life:...

 in the 2004 comedy film Churchill: The Hollywood Years
Churchill: The Hollywood Years
Churchill: The Hollywood Years is a 2004 film, directed by Peter Richardson. It stars Christian Slater as Winston Churchill, and Neve Campbell as Elizabeth II...

.

In March 2006, he returned to 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...

 stage in a revival of Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...

's comedy Donkeys' Years
Donkeys' Years
Donkeys' Years is a play by English playwright Michael Frayn that premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, in 1976.The play is a West End farce, a genre that Frayn parodied five years later in his play within a play "Nothing On" from Noises Off....

at the Comedy Theatre alongside Samantha Bond, David Haig
David Haig
David Haig is an Olivier Award-winning English actor and FIPA Award-winning writer. He is known for his versatility, having played dramatic, serio-comic and comedic roles, playing characters of varied social classes...

 and Mark Addy. He left in August of that year to prepare for his new lead role as the Emcee in a West End revival of Cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

. In 2008 he appeared in revival of Simon Gray
Simon Gray
Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...

's The Common Pursuit at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Menier Chocolate Factory
The Menier Chocolate Factory is an award-winning 180 seat fringe studio theatre, restaurant and gallery. It is located in a former 1870s Menier Chocolate Company factory in Southwark Street, a major street in the London Borough of Southwark, central south London, England. The theatre stages plays...

.

From September 2009 to January 2010 he appeared in Breakfast At Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 romantic comedy film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and featuring Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney. The film was directed by Blake Edwards and released by Paramount Pictures...

at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London.

Selected works

Year Title Role Notes
1995 Thin Ice Greg
1995–1996 The Thin Blue Line
The Thin Blue Line (TV series)
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson set in a police station that ran for two series on the BBC from 1995 to 1996...

Constable Kevin Goody TV
1995–1996 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...

Christopher TV
1996 Boyfriends Paul
1999 Notting Hill
Notting Hill (film)
Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...

Martin
1999–2001 Gimme Gimme Gimme Tom Farrell
Tom Farrell (Gimme Gimme Gimme)
Thomas Thessolonius "Tom" Farrell, played by James Dreyfus, is the gay flat mate of Linda La Hughes in Gimme Gimme Gimme. Unemployed actor Tom Farrell has a vague ambition to become the British Tom Cruise, but his career is going nowhere, and his love life isn't too hot either.Tom is a constantly...

TV
2000 Gormenghast Professor Fluke TV
2000 Bette Oscar TV
2004 Fat Slags Fidor TV
2004 Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London is an English-American action comedy film and the sequel to the 2003 film Agent Cody Banks, and was released in the United States on March 12, 2004. Frankie Muniz was the only major returning star, with Hannah Spearritt now playing the love interest and...

Gordon
2005 Willo the Wisp
Willo the Wisp
Willo the Wisp is a British cartoon series originally produced in 1981.-First series :In the first series, Kenneth Williams provided voices for all of the characters, which included these main characters:...

Voice
2006 My Hero George Sunday/Thermoman TV
2006 Colour Me Kubrick
Colour Me Kubrick
Colour Me Kubrick: A True...ish Story is a French/British Dramedy film directed by Brian W. Cook, released in 2006 . The film stars John Malkovich as Alan Conway, a man who had been impersonating director Stanley Kubrick since the early 1990s...

Melvyn Prescott
2007 Cabaret Emcee West End theatre production
2007 Double Time Lawrence Nixon/George McCabe
2007 Nina and the Neurons
Nina and the Neurons
Nina and the Neurons is a programme shown on the CBeebies channel aimed at four to six-year-olds to help them understand basic science. Nina is a neuroscientist who enlists the help of her Neurons in her brain to answer a scientific question.The show is produced by Lucille McLaughlin, who has also...

Felix (voice)
2009 Casualty (TV series)
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

Rory TV

External links

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