Jay Simon (actor)
Encyclopedia
Jay Simon is an English stage, film, television, and voice actor best known for playing TV and Film roles including: the Flight Attendant in The Wedding Date
, Billy in Jack Higgins
' Midnight Man and Lionel Symon in Stephen Poliakoff
's Perfect Strangers.
including:Carmen
, Tosca
and Jonathan Miller
's The Magic Flute
, in 1979.
Jay went on to study Drama at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
(1988–1991) After graduatiion was offered a post as Assistant Director to Marina Caldarone, in Nothing Sacred
at Theatre Clwydd .
playing Lysander, in a production of A Midsummer-Night's Dream and toured a one man show, Merely Players
. Whilst there Jay studied film acting at Gastown Actors Centre Vancouver
.
Also in British Columbia
Jay was invited to teach Acting and Improvisation to Canada's Native actors (through the Spirit Songtheatre Company ). His most famous pupils included Chief Dan George's grandchildren. He later enjoyed teaching Method Acting
at the Tibetan Llamo Theatre Institute, Dharamsala
, India
.
Returning to England he starred as Celadon
, in Mike Westbrook
's 'Good Friday 1663' ( directed by the late Frank Cvitanovitch). He was subsequently offered many stage roles; including Orin Scrivello, in Jersey Opera's Little Shop of Horrors
and Sky Masterson, in Pimlico Opera's Guys and Dolls
. He went on to star as Mark Trelawny in A Dangerous obsession in Hamburg
and as Captain Lombard, in Vienna
's English Theatre production of 'And then there were none
..' He was subsequently invited back to play Freddy, in Bernard Shaw
's Pygmalion
. Shakespearean roles include Orsino in Twelfth night and Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing
(British Shakespeare Co).
Jay's television credits include: Eastenders
, Highlander, The Knock
, Goodnight Sweetheart
, Bernard's Watch
, Genie in the House
, The Bill
, Casualty
, Holby City
, Agony
, Murder in Suburbia
, Perfect Strangers, Comic Relief
, Barbara
, Fur TV
and My Family.
Films include: 'This Charming Man', 'The Night and the Templar' and Daybreak. He has written, directed and starred in a short film, 'The Wheel of Fortune'.
Jay Simon is also a Voice Artiste/Impressionist. He has contributed to numerous Current Affairs programmes including: Despatches, Panorama
and Newsnight
. He was one of the Gerry Adams
' soundalikes during the ban and voiced Tony Blair
for the BBC during the Hutton inquiry
. Worked in documentaries: 'Super Human Body', 'World War 2 in Colour', 'Britain at War','The Meadow', and 'Diana; the witnesses in the tunnel'.
He has narrated the popular television series 'Future Car' and films: 'The Meadow', 'le Pied' and 'Death Leap'.
Jay has voiced many characters for many popular Children's television programmes including: 'Finley The Fire-engine' (Dex and Suds), 'It's a Big Big world
' (Oko and Wartz), 'Molly Monster' (Papa and Edison) and the Bafta nominated 'Just so Darwin' (Various animals). He can be heard on many Radio and Television commercials and has provided numerous characters for video games including: 'Haze', 'Jericho' and 'Spartan total Warrior'.
Jay's A.D.R work is very extensive too: from The Tudors
and Foyles War on TV, to Ridley Scot's Robin Hood
, Defiance
, Spygame and The Bourne Identity
, in films.
Jay now spends his free time teaching screen acting and commercial technique, writing, and performing comedy.
He lives in London with his wife and three children.
The Wedding Date
The Wedding Date is a 2005 romantic comedy directed by Clare Kilner, who also directed How to Deal . The release was successful achieving $47 million worldwide at the box office against a budget of $15 million...
, Billy in Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
' Midnight Man and Lionel Symon in Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff, CBE, FRSL is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britain's foremost television dramatists.-Early life and career:...
's Perfect Strangers.
Early years
As a boy Jay appeared as a solo singer in various productions for the English National OperaEnglish National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
including:Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
and Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, in 1979.
Jay went on to study Drama at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
(1988–1991) After graduatiion was offered a post as Assistant Director to Marina Caldarone, in Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred may refer to:* Nothing Sacred , a 1937 screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March* Nothing Sacred , a controversial 1997 ABC television show starring Kevin Anderson...
at Theatre Clwydd .
Career
He then travelled to CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
playing Lysander, in a production of A Midsummer-Night's Dream and toured a one man show, Merely Players
Merely Players
Merely Players was a one man stage show written and performed by Barry Morse. It examined the lives of a series of actors and others from Elizabethan times up to present day...
. Whilst there Jay studied film acting at Gastown Actors Centre Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
.
Also in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
Jay was invited to teach Acting and Improvisation to Canada's Native actors (through the Spirit Songtheatre Company ). His most famous pupils included Chief Dan George's grandchildren. He later enjoyed teaching Method Acting
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
at the Tibetan Llamo Theatre Institute, Dharamsala
Dharamsala
Dharamshala or Dharamsala is a city in northern India. It was formerly known as Bhagsu; it is the winter seat of government of the state of Himachal Pradesh and the district headquarters of the Kangra district....
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Returning to England he starred as Celadon
Celadon
Celadon is a term for ceramics denoting both a type of glaze and a ware of a specific color, also called celadon. This type of ware was invented in ancient China, such as in the Zhejiang province...
, in Mike Westbrook
Mike Westbrook
Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...
's 'Good Friday 1663' ( directed by the late Frank Cvitanovitch). He was subsequently offered many stage roles; including Orin Scrivello, in Jersey Opera's Little Shop of Horrors
Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...
and Sky Masterson, in Pimlico Opera's Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
. He went on to star as Mark Trelawny in A Dangerous obsession in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and as Captain Lombard, in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
's English Theatre production of 'And then there were none
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers which was changed by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 because of the presence of a racial...
..' He was subsequently invited back to play Freddy, in Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
. Shakespearean roles include Orsino in Twelfth night and Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
(British Shakespeare Co).
Jay's television credits include: Eastenders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, Highlander, The Knock
The Knock
The Knock was a primetime UK drama series, created by Anita Bronson and broadcast on ITV from 1994 to 2000, which portrayed the activities of customs officers from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise....
, Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart is a sitcom that ran for six series on BBC1 from 1993 to 1999. It stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller who leads a double life after discovering a time portal allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the...
, Bernard's Watch
Bernard's Watch
Bernard's Watch is a British television programme filmed and created by amateur director Eleanor Casson primarily at South Wilford CofE Primary School, Nottingham, about a young boy who can stop time with a magical pocket watch. Five original series aired from 14 November 1997 to mid-2001 which...
, Genie in the House
Genie In The House
Genie in the House is a British situation comedy broadcast on Nickelodeon about a widowed father with two teenage daughters who find a dusty old golden lamp while exploring the loft of their new home. A quick rub of the lamp releases Adil, a trainee genie from Balamkadaar who has been confined to...
, The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
, Casualty
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...
, Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
, Agony
Agony (TV series)
Agony is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1979 to 1981. Starring Maureen Lipman, it was written by Len Richmond, Anna Raeburn, Stan Hey and Andrew Nickolds. It was made for the ITV network by LWT...
, Murder in Suburbia
Murder in Suburbia
Murder in Suburbia was a British detective drama that ran for two series in 2004 and 2005.-Plot summary:The series focused on various murders in the fictional suburban England town of Middleford; filming took place in North West London, including Northwood.-Regular cast and characters:-Episode...
, Perfect Strangers, Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
, Barbara
Barbara (TV series)
Barbara is a British sitcom starring Gwen Taylor in the title role. A pilot aired in 1995, and three series then aired from 1999 to 2003. It was made by Central Television, and filmed at their Lenton Lane studios in Nottingham in front of a live studio audience...
, Fur TV
Fur TV
Fur TV is a comedy puppet show produced by MTV Networks Europe and airs on MTV channels throughout Europe. The show uses Muppets style puppetry, but in a more adult setting. The characters are shown to undertake human activities such as drinking and having sex.-Cast:The main characters are Fat Ed...
and My Family.
Films include: 'This Charming Man', 'The Night and the Templar' and Daybreak. He has written, directed and starred in a short film, 'The Wheel of Fortune'.
Jay Simon is also a Voice Artiste/Impressionist. He has contributed to numerous Current Affairs programmes including: Despatches, Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
and Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
. He was one of the Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
' soundalikes during the ban and voiced Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
for the BBC during the Hutton inquiry
Hutton Inquiry
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee...
. Worked in documentaries: 'Super Human Body', 'World War 2 in Colour', 'Britain at War','The Meadow', and 'Diana; the witnesses in the tunnel'.
He has narrated the popular television series 'Future Car' and films: 'The Meadow', 'le Pied' and 'Death Leap'.
Jay has voiced many characters for many popular Children's television programmes including: 'Finley The Fire-engine' (Dex and Suds), 'It's a Big Big world
It's a Big Big World
It's A Big Big World is an American children's television show on PBS Kids, that debuted January 2, 2006. It was originally part of Miss Lori and Hooper's schedule block, but it was replaced in that block on September 3, 2007, though ran for a few years that followed...
' (Oko and Wartz), 'Molly Monster' (Papa and Edison) and the Bafta nominated 'Just so Darwin' (Various animals). He can be heard on many Radio and Television commercials and has provided numerous characters for video games including: 'Haze', 'Jericho' and 'Spartan total Warrior'.
Jay's A.D.R work is very extensive too: from The Tudors
The Tudors
The Tudors is a Canadian produced historical fiction television series filmed in Ireland, created by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime...
and Foyles War on TV, to Ridley Scot's Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
, Defiance
Defiance (2008 film)
Defiance is a 2008 World War II era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland during the Second World War...
, Spygame and The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity (2002 film)
The Bourne Identity is a 2002 American spy film loosely based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. It stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency . The film also stars Franka...
, in films.
Jay now spends his free time teaching screen acting and commercial technique, writing, and performing comedy.
He lives in London with his wife and three children.