Paul McGann
Encyclopedia
Paul McGann is an English actor who made his name on 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...

 serial The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer is a British television series made by the BBC in 1986, and shown on BBC1, the first episode being transmitted on 31 August 1986, intended to head BBC1's autumn season of drama...

, in which he played the lead role. He is also known for his role in Withnail and I
Withnail and I
Withnail and I is a British black comedy made in 1986 by HandMade Films. It was written and directed by Bruce Robinson and is based on his life in London in the late 1960s. The main plot follows two unemployed young actors, Withnail and “I” who live in a squalid flat in Camden in 1969 while...

, and for portraying the Eighth Doctor
Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor is the eighth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Paul McGann...

 in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie and subsequent tie-in media.

Childhood

Paul McGann was born in Kensington, Liverpool
Kensington, Liverpool
Kensington is an inner city area of Liverpool, England. It is located immediately to the east of Liverpool city centre, and is bordered by Everton to the north, Fairfield to the east and Edge Hill to the south....

, England in 1959 into a Roman Catholic family. His parents encouraged him and his siblings to develop their talents from an early age. McGann's talents were further developed when he attended grammar school in Liverpool. One of McGann's teachers advised him to enter the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and to pursue a career as an actor. Acting on his teacher's advice, McGann enrolled at the Royal Academy and went on to enjoy a successful acting career spanning over two decades.

Paul McGann is the third of six children in the McGann family. His mother, Clare McGann, had twin boys, Joseph
Joe McGann
Joseph 'Joe' McGann is an English actor. His most well known role is the lead role of Charlie Burrows, the "housekeeper" in the TV comedy series The Upper Hand . He is also known as a television reporter on the BBC's South Today programme, reporting on local events in the south of England...

 and John, who were born in 1958, but John died shortly after birth. Paul McGann has three younger siblings: Mark
Mark McGann
Mark McGann is an English actor, director and musician.- Acting career :McGann first appeared on stage in 1981 in the production Lennon at the Everyman Theatre and the London Astoria where he portrayed John Lennon, role which won him the first of his two Olivier Award nominations for best actor in...

 (born in 1961), Stephen
Stephen McGann
Stephen McGann is an English actor - one of a family of acting brothers including Joe, Paul and Mark. He began his professional career in 1982, starring in the West End musical Yakety Yak. He has since worked extensively in British theatre and on screen.In 1989 he starred as Mickey in the West End...

 (born in 1963) and Clare McGann (born in 1965). All three of his brothers are also actors and the four of them starred together (as four brothers) in the 1995 television TV serial The Hanging Gale about the Irish Famine. The same year he played the role as Grigori Potemkin in TV film Catherine The Great, with Mark and Stephen too. These brothers also formed the pop quartet The McGanns, releasing the single "Shame About the Boy". McGann's sister, Clare, is a programme finance manager for Five.

Personal life

In 1992, McGann married Annie Milner, with whom he has two sons, Joe McGann (born in 1988) and Jake McGann
Jake McGann
Jake McGann is an English actor. He is the second and younger son of actor Paul McGann and Annie Milner. He has an elder brother, Joseph , born in 1988...

 (born in 1990).

He had a relationship with the actress Susannah Harker
Susannah Harker
Susannah Harker is an English film, television, and theatre actor. She is the daughter of English actress Polly Adams and actor Richard Owens, and the great-niece of Gordon Adams. She was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 1990 for her role as Mattie Storin in House of Cards...

 beginning in 2006. They parted company at the end of 2008.

Give us a Break

McGann's breakthrough role was Give us a Break devised by Geoff McQueen who also created the long running ITV series, The Bill. McGann played a good snooker player who got into scrapes with Robert Lindsay, who played his wideboy manager. The series was a comedy drama in the vein of the popular ITV series of the time, Minder. The series only lasted one series and it was concluded by a one off special.

The Monocled Mutineer

McGann's first major dramatic role was the infamous British deserter and criminal Percy Toplis
Percy Toplis
Francis Percy Toplis was a British criminal and imposter active during the First World War. He is sometimes claimed to have taken a major part in the Étaples Mutiny, as "The Monocled Mutineer", during the war, although there is some dispute as to whether he was actually present.Toplis was born in...

 in the 1986 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...

 serial The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer is a British television series made by the BBC in 1986, and shown on BBC1, the first episode being transmitted on 31 August 1986, intended to head BBC1's autumn season of drama...

. The film was based on the 1978 book of the same name, which was written by William Alison and John Fairley.

Although McGann received praises for his dramatic performance, the drama was never re-broadcast on the BBC. This is because the BBC came under fire from the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 Government due to the sensitivity of the subject matter of the Étaples Mutiny
Étaples Mutiny
The Étaples Mutiny was a mutiny by British troops in France in 1917, during the First World War.-Background:Étaples, about south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was at the time a small town with a thriving fishing industry and a fleet of sail powered wooden trawlers, a few miles up the river Canche...

 in 1919 at "The Bull Ring", a harsh British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 training ground in Étaples
Étaples
Étaples or Étaples-sur-Mer is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche river.There is a separate commune named Staple, Nord.-History:...

, France. The events that transpired at the Bull Ring remain debated, and documents concerning the occurrences there will remain sealed until 2017. They claimed that the film was inaccurate and displayed a "Left-wing bias". Toplis was a mysterious figure and the film, as well as the book, depicted him as an active participant of the Etaples Mutiny, before he was tracked down and killed some years after the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. As a result, a minor political crisis in Britain was launched which prompted the BBC to remove all planned repeat screenings of the film. Despite the banning controversy, The Monocled Mutineer was released by the BBC on video in the early 1990s, and on DVD in 2007.

Film career

Following on from that part of Percy Toplis, McGann sought a less controversial and more comedic role for his next project. In 1986, he was cast as the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous "I" in Bruce Robinson's cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...

 comedy, Withnail and I
Withnail and I
Withnail and I is a British black comedy made in 1986 by HandMade Films. It was written and directed by Bruce Robinson and is based on his life in London in the late 1960s. The main plot follows two unemployed young actors, Withnail and “I” who live in a squalid flat in Camden in 1969 while...

. He also starred as Anton Skrebensky in Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...

's 1989 adaptation of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

's The Rainbow
The Rainbow
The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by British author D. H. Lawrence. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, particularly focusing on the sexual dynamics of, and relations between, the characters....

. McGann's other early film appearances include The Monk, Dealers
Dealers (film)
Dealers is a 1989 British film directed by Colin Bucksey. It stars Paul McGann and Rebecca De Mornay.-Cast:*Paul McGann as Daniel Pascoe*Rebecca De Mornay as Anna Schuman*Derek O'Connor as Robbie Barrell*John Castle as Frank Mallory...

, Tree of Hands
Tree of Hands
Tree of Hands is a 1989 British drama film directed by Giles Foster and starring Helen Shaver, Lauren Bacall and Peter Firth. A woman becomes desperate after he young son dies in hospital. It is based on a novel by Ruth Rendell.-Cast:...

and the epic war film Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun (film)
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...

. McGann and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Tim Roth
Tim Roth
Simon Timothy "Tim" Roth is an English film actor and director best known for his roles in the American films,Legend of 1900, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Skellig, Planet of the Apes, The Incredible Hulk and Rob Roy, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for...

, Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...

, Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...

 and Bruce Payne
Bruce Payne
Bruce Martyn Payne is an award winning English character actor and producer and was a member of the 1980's Brit Pack. Although he is best known for his villainous roles, Bruce Payne has played characters across the spectrum...

 were dubbed the 'Brit Pack
Brit Pack (actors)
The term Brit Pack is a moniker often used to described young British actors who are touted to achieve success in Hollywood. According to one article, 'every decade brings a new Brit Pack, another disparate group of actors backed by the media to achieve simultaneous Hollywood stardom...

'.

Since 1989, McGann has concentrated primarily on television work, including Nice Town and Nature Boy
Nature Boy
Nature Boy is a song written by eden ahbez and later popularised by Nat King Cole. It may also refer to:In music:* "Nature Boy", a song by Primus from their album 'Pork Soda'...

for the BBC, and The One That Got Away
The One That Got Away (1996 film)
The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book of the same name by 'Chris Ryan' telling the "true" story of a Special Air Service patrolduring the Gulf War in 1991....

and the second series of Hornblower
Hornblower (TV series)
Hornblower is the umbrella title of a series of television drama programmes based on C. S. Forester's novels about the fictional character Horatio Hornblower, a Royal Naval officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars....

for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

. However, he has had small roles in a number of high-profile American films like The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers (1993 film)
The Three Musketeers is a 1993 film from Walt Disney Pictures and Caravan Pictures, directed by Stephen Herek from a screenplay by David Loughery and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry and Rebecca De Mornay....

and Alien 3. His role in Alien 3 was originally larger, but much of it was edited out of the final print. The cut footage can be seen in the extended version of the film.

In 1993, he was cast as Richard Sharpe
Richard Sharpe (fictional character)
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....

, the lead character in the Sharpe
Sharpe (TV series)
Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...

 series of made-for-tv movies based on Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...

's novels, however he injured his knee while playing football just days into filming Sharpe's Rifles
Sharpe's Rifles (TV programme)
Sharpe's Rifles is the first of the Sharpe television dramas, based on the Bernard Cornwell novel of the same name. Shown on ITV in 1993, the adaptation stars Sean Bean, Daragh O'Malley and Assumpta Serna...

in the Ukraine. He was replaced by Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...

 and the role effectively kick-started Bean's career and is the one that he is most closely identified with. McGann's injury led to what was at the time the largest insurance settlement in British television history, a sum of £2,128,172.

Doctor Who (television movie)

Paul McGann played the eighth incarnation
Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor is the eighth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Paul McGann...

 of the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....

 in the Doctor Who 1996 television movie. The television movie also starred Eric Roberts
Eric Roberts
Eric Anthony Roberts is an American actor. His career began with King of the Gypsies , earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist in the 1980 dramatisation of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, Paul's Case...

, Daphne Ashbrook
Daphne Ashbrook
Daphne Lee Ashbrook is an American actress.-Personal life:Daphne Ashbrook was raised in the San Diego, CA area. Her parents are San Diego theatre actress D'Ann Paton and late actor/Director Buddy Ashbrook...

, and the outgoing Seventh Doctor
Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor is the seventh incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy....

, Sylvester McCoy
Sylvester McCoy
Sylvester McCoy is a Scottish actor. As a comic act and busker he appeared regularly on stage and on BBC Children's television in the 1970s and 80s, but is best known for playing the seventh incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1987 to...

. McGann's brother, Mark McGann
Mark McGann
Mark McGann is an English actor, director and musician.- Acting career :McGann first appeared on stage in 1981 in the production Lennon at the Everyman Theatre and the London Astoria where he portrayed John Lennon, role which won him the first of his two Olivier Award nominations for best actor in...

, also auditioned for the title role.

The Doctor Who television movie was a joint venture between the BBC, Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 and the Fox Broadcasting Network. McGann had signed a contract to appear as the Eighth Doctor in a new Doctor Who series, if Fox or Universal exercised their option. Thus, the television movie was supposed to be a "back door pilot" in that, if it obtained respectable ratings, the new series would continue to be produced. The movie aired on 14 May 1996 in the US and on 27 May 1996 in the UK. Although it earned 9.08 million viewers and was very successful in the UK, ratings were very low in the United States. As a consequence, Fox did not exercise its option to pick up the series and Universal could not find another network interested in airing a new Doctor Who series. Thus no new series was produced until 2005, after all the contractual rights had returned to the BBC, and the movie became McGann's only televised appearance as the Eighth Doctor.

Although McGann played the Doctor on television only once, he gave permission for his likeness to be used on the covers of the BBC's Eighth Doctor novels
Eighth Doctor Adventures
The Eighth Doctor Adventures are a series of spin off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. 73 books were published overall...

 and he has reprised the role of the Eighth Doctor in an extensive series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...

.

Rumours abounded that Paul McGann would reprise the role of the eighth Doctor in a new series of television films, alongside the current television series. McGann has denied these rumours on the grounds of not having been asked back to play the part but if he were to be asked would be interested as long as he "didn't have to wear a wig". McGann has appeared again as the eighth Doctor in the BBC Radio 7 series Doctor Who in 2007 - 2010.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009szrh/series.

After Doctor Who

In the years following his appearance as the Doctor, Paul McGann continued to diversify his acting portfolio with the television and movie roles he accepted. In 1997 he appeared as a concerned father in the film FairyTale: A True Story
FairyTale: A True Story
FairyTale: A True Story is a 1997 film from Paramount Pictures, loosely based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies.-Plot:Early 20th Century England was a time and place ripe for believing, both in scientific advancements such as electric light and photography, and in anomalous phenomena of all...

and later that same year as Rob in Downtime
Downtime (film)
Downtime is a 1998 British film directed by Bharat Nalluri and produced by Richard L. Johns. It stars Paul McGann and Susan Lynch.-Production:Originally Downtime was marketed as the British Action Film, Ken Loach meets Die Hard....

, then in 1998 he appeared as Capt. Greville in The Dance of Shiva.

In the 2000s McGann's film appearances began to increase with films like My Kingdom
My Kingdom (film)
My Kingdom is a 2001 British crime film directed by Don Boyd and starring Richard Harris, Lynn Redgrave and Jimi Mistry.It premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival but failed to make an impression The following year My Kingdom grossed $2,607 on its opening weekend in Los Angeles...

(2001), Listening (2003) and Gypo (2005). Perhaps his most iconic role, since Doctor Who, came in 2002, when McGann appeared in the film adaptation of the third story from Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...

's The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles is a series of novels by Anne Rice that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century....

, Queen of the Damned
Queen of the Damned (film)
Queen of the Damned is a 2002 film adaptation of the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series, The Queen of the Damned, although the film contains many plot elements from the latter novel's predecessor, The Vampire Lestat. It stars Aaliyah as the vampire queen Akasha, and Stuart...

. McGann played the part of David Talbot, a member of the secret organisation The Talamasca
Talamasca Caste
The Talamasca Caste is a fictional secret society described in the works of Anne Rice.- Background :The Talamasca Caste is described as a secret society set up to watch over and keep track of the paranormal, in particular, witches, spirits, werewolves and vampires...

, which researches and investigates the supernatural. Talbot has appeared in many of Rice's novels and has become a central character over the years. The film also starred Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend is an Irish actor and director. His most notable portrayals are of the characters Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 film adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, and Dorian Gray in the 2003 film adaptation of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.-Early life and...

, Marguerite Moreau
Marguerite Moreau
Marguerite Moreau is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles on the television series Blossom, her role as Katie in the comedy cult film Wet Hot American Summer, and her role in The Mighty Ducks series of films...

 and pop star Aaliyah
Aaliyah
Aaliyah Dana Haughton , who performed under the mononym Aaliyah , was an American R&B recording artist, actress and model. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of 10, she appeared on the television show Star Search and performed in concert alongside...

, in her final role before her death. McGann has also been in demand for voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...

 work in Britain in recent years, particularly on television documentaries and commercials.

In 2006, he appeared in the television drama Tripping Over
Tripping Over
Tripping Over is a British/Australian six-part drama series. Its first episode aired on Network Ten in Australia on 25 October 2006, and in the United Kingdom on Five on 30 October 2006. In the UK Tripping Over is repeated on Five Life....

. In 2007, McGann starred alongside Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish actress famous for roles in British television shows such as Ballykissangel and Goodnight Sweetheart...

, Lorraine Ashbourne
Lorraine Ashbourne
Lorraine Ashbourne is an English stage, film and television actress.-Career:She has appeared on British television series and television movies, including: The Street,True Dare Kiss, Thin Ice, In a Land of Plenty,...

 and David Bradley
David Bradley (actor)
David Bradley is an English character actor. He has recently become known for playing the caretaker of Hogwarts, Argus Filch, in the Harry Potter film franchise.-Life and career :...

 in BBC One drama True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss is a British television drama produced for BBC One. It is written by Debbie Horsfield and produced by Marcus Wilson and features Dervla Kirwan, David Bradley and Lorraine Ashbourne...

, written by Debbie Horsfield. In 2010, McGann played a major role in a feature-length episode of long-running BBC mystery series Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...

, as well as appearing as a regular in the crime drama Luther
Luther (TV series)
Luther is a British psychological crime drama television series starring Idris Elba as the title character Detective Chief Inspector John Luther. A first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC One from 4 May to 8 June 2010. The second series of four episodes was shown on BBC One in summer 2011...

. In 2011, McGann played a major role as an Assistant Commissioner with something to hide in the final episode of Waking The Dead
Waking the Dead (TV series)
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...

. It was also announced that he will be featured in 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 Butley alongside Dominic West
Dominic West
Dominic Gerard Fe West is an English actor best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.-Film and TV:...

 at the Duchess Theatre
Duchess Theatre
The Duchess Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, London, located in Catherine Street, near Aldwych.The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 and is one of the smallest 'proscenium arched' West End theatres. It has 479 seats on two levels....

.

Audio books and voice work

McGann is also known for audio book
Audio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...

 narration having read several Pat Barker
Pat Barker
Pat Barker CBE, FRSL is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres around themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken.-Personal life:...

 and Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...

 novels. He narrated the abridged audiobook of Jeff Noon
Jeff Noon
Jeff Noon is a novelist, short story writer and playwright whose works make extensive use of word play and fantasy. Noon's speculative fiction books have ties to the works of writers such as Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges...

's 1993 cyberpunk classic Vurt
Vurt
Vurt is a 1993 science fiction novel written by British author Jeff Noon. Both Noon and small publishing house Ringpull's debut novel, it went on to win the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke Award and was later listed in The Best Novels of the Nineties....

.

McGann continues to play the Eighth Doctor on audio. McGann's first Big Finish audio play appearance was in 2001 in the story Storm Warning which featured Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...

leading man, Gareth Thomas
Gareth Thomas (actor)
Gareth Thomas is a Welsh actor.Thomas is best known for the part of Roj Blake in the dystopian science fiction television series Blake's 7, but has taken roles in many other films and television programmes, including Adam Brake in Children of the Stones.Thomas trained at RADA and is now an...

. McGann's main companions in the audio plays are Charley Pollard
Charley Pollard
Charlotte Elspeth Pollard, or simply Charley, is a fictional character played by India Fisher in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, many of which were broadcast on BBC Radio 7, based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A young woman...

 (played by India Fisher
India Fisher
India Fisher is a British actress born in 1974. Her father is the ex-MP Mark Fisher. She is also the stepsister of musician Crispin Hunt and of actress Francesca Hunt, who appears with her in the play Other Lives....

) and C'rizz
C'rizz
C'rizz is a fictional character played by Conrad Westmaas in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A Eutermesan from the planet Bortresoye, which exists in a parallel universe, he is a companion of...

 (played by Conrad Westmaas
Conrad Westmaas
Conrad Westmaas is a British actor who trained at The Poor School, London from 1998-2000.Westmaas has appeared mainly in theatre, including Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare's Globe in 2008 and also played Paul McGann's companion C'rizz in a range of audio dramas by Big Finish Productions based on...

). It was through the Big Finish audio plays that McGann's Doctor finally got a chance to face many of the classic Doctor Who villains like the Daleks (The Time of the Daleks
The Time of the Daleks
The Time of the Daleks is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

) and the Cybermen (Sword of Orion
Sword of Orion
Sword of Orion is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio drama was broadcast on BBC 7 in four weekly parts starting from 3 September 2005, and was repeated in 2006...

).

Five Eighth Doctor dramas were broadcast in BBC 7
BBC 7
BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment...

's The 7th Dimension
The 7th Dimension
Seventh Dimension is the BBC's regular radio slot for science fiction, fantasy and horror. It is broadcast on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra at 6 p.m. , seven days a week and then repeated each day at midnight with host Nick Briggs. Most of the programs are full cast dramatizations and...

slot between August 2005 and January 2006. They were in release order, starting with Storm Warning, although Minuet in Hell
Minuet in Hell
Minuet in Hell is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Unlike the other Eighth Doctor audio plays from this "season", Minuet in Hell was not broadcast on BBC 7 in 2005, primarily due to story references that were...

was judged unsuitable for the timeslot, and skipped. Two more Eighth Doctor audios, Shada
Shada
Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season , but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming...

and The Chimes of Midnight
The Chimes of Midnight
The Chimes of Midnight is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

were broadcast in December 2005 and January 2006; all six of these stories were rebroadcast on BBC7 beginning in July 2006. As of January 2007, a series of all-new plays starring McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith is an English actress and singer who is best known for her contributions to the British sitcoms Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin & Stacey and Benidorm. She has also become a recognised face in West End theatre, where she has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors,...

 as companion Lucie Miller
Lucie Miller
Lucie Miller is a character in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions for BBC7 based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

 is being broadcast on BBC7.

His voice also featured in the 1997 video game Ceremony of Innocence
Ceremony of Innocence
Ceremony of Innocence was a Windows CD ROM based game created in 1997. It used a mystery narrative based on the Griffin and Sabine novel by Nick Bantock...

together with those of Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

 and Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

.

After hearing him sing in The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer is a British television series made by the BBC in 1986, and shown on BBC1, the first episode being transmitted on 31 August 1986, intended to head BBC1's autumn season of drama...

,
composer Bernard J. Taylor
Bernard J. Taylor
Bernard J. Taylor is the writer and composer of ten stage musicals and two stage plays. His musicals have been produced around the world and translated into German, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Spanish and Italian. He is also the writer of 14 novels and three non-fiction books.Taylor was born and...

 invited McGann to create the role of Benedict in the concept studio recording of Much Ado, a musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 based on of Shakespeare's 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....

. The recording also included top West End singers Claire Moore
Claire Moore (singer)
Claire Moore is an English soprano singer and actress, best known for her leading role as Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and as Ellen in "Miss Saigon"....

 and Peter Karrie
Peter Karrie
Peter Karrie , is a Welsh singer, best known for his portrayal of the lead role in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera. He played the part in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Singapore, Hong Kong and on the UK Tour in Bradford, and Manchester...

.

Filmography

Year Title Role Other notes
1987 Withnail & I Marwood / "... and I"
1987 Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun (film)
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...

Lt. Price
1989 Tree of Hands
Tree of Hands
Tree of Hands is a 1989 British drama film directed by Giles Foster and starring Helen Shaver, Lauren Bacall and Peter Firth. A woman becomes desperate after he young son dies in hospital. It is based on a novel by Ruth Rendell.-Cast:...

Barry
1989 The Rainbow Anton Skrebensky
1989 Dealers
Dealers (film)
Dealers is a 1989 British film directed by Colin Bucksey. It stars Paul McGann and Rebecca De Mornay.-Cast:*Paul McGann as Daniel Pascoe*Rebecca De Mornay as Anna Schuman*Derek O'Connor as Robbie Barrell*John Castle as Frank Mallory...

Daniel Pascoe
1990 The Monk Father Lorenzo Rojas
1990 Paper Mask
Paper Mask
Paper Mask is a 1990 British drama film directed by Christopher Morahan and starring Paul McGann, Amanda Donohoe and Tom Wilkinson. A hospital porter decides to impersonate a doctor in a busy hospital. It was based on a novel by John Collee.-Cast:...

Matthew Harris
1991 Afraid of the Dark
Afraid of the Dark
Afraid of the Dark is a 1991 French-British drama film directed by Mark Peploe and starring James Fox, Fanny Ardant and Paul McGann. A boy becomes convinced there is a murderer about as his mind begins to confuse reality and delusion.-Cast:...

Tony Dalton
1992 Alien 3 Golic
1993 The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers (1993 film)
The Three Musketeers is a 1993 film from Walt Disney Pictures and Caravan Pictures, directed by Stephen Herek from a screenplay by David Loughery and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry and Rebecca De Mornay....

Girard/Jussac
1997 FairyTale: A True Story
FairyTale: A True Story
FairyTale: A True Story is a 1997 film from Paramount Pictures, loosely based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies.-Plot:Early 20th Century England was a time and place ripe for believing, both in scientific advancements such as electric light and photography, and in anomalous phenomena of all...

Arthur Wright
1997 Downtime
Downtime (film)
Downtime is a 1998 British film directed by Bharat Nalluri and produced by Richard L. Johns. It stars Paul McGann and Susan Lynch.-Production:Originally Downtime was marketed as the British Action Film, Ken Loach meets Die Hard....

Rob
1998 The Dance of Shiva Capt. Greville
1998 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge/Ancient Mariner
2001 My Kingdom
My Kingdom (film)
My Kingdom is a 2001 British crime film directed by Don Boyd and starring Richard Harris, Lynn Redgrave and Jimi Mistry.It premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival but failed to make an impression The following year My Kingdom grossed $2,607 on its opening weekend in Los Angeles...

Dean
2002 Queen of the Damned
Queen of the Damned (film)
Queen of the Damned is a 2002 film adaptation of the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series, The Queen of the Damned, although the film contains many plot elements from the latter novel's predecessor, The Vampire Lestat. It stars Aaliyah as the vampire queen Akasha, and Stuart...

David Talbot 
2003 Listening
2005 Gypo
Gypo (film)
Gypo, is a 2005 independent film written and directed by Jan Dunn. Its story details the breakdown of a family in a small town in Britain, told in three narratives....

Paul
2005 Naked in London Mr Johnson
2006 Poppies Tony
2006 Always Crashing in the Same Car Bill
2009 Lesbian Vampire Killers
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Lesbian Vampire Killers is a 2009 British comedy horror film written by Stewart Williams and Paul Hupfield, produced by Steve Clark-Hall and directed by Phil Claydon.- Plot :...

The Vicar

Television

Year Title Role Other notes
1983 Give Us a Break Mo Morris
1986 The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...

John Worthing
1986 The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer
The Monocled Mutineer is a British television series made by the BBC in 1986, and shown on BBC1, the first episode being transmitted on 31 August 1986, intended to head BBC1's autumn season of drama...

Percy Toplis
Percy Toplis
Francis Percy Toplis was a British criminal and imposter active during the First World War. He is sometimes claimed to have taken a major part in the Étaples Mutiny, as "The Monocled Mutineer", during the war, although there is some dispute as to whether he was actually present.Toplis was born in...

 
1990 Drowning in the Shallow End Colin
1992 Nice Town Joe Thompson
1995 Catherine the Great Potemkin 
1995 The Hanging Gale Liam Phelan
1995 The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...

Bassanio
1995 The One That Got Away
The One That Got Away (1996 film)
The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book of the same name by 'Chris Ryan' telling the "true" story of a Special Air Service patrolduring the Gulf War in 1991....

Chris Ryan
Chris Ryan
Sergeant ‘Chris Ryan’ MM is the pseudonym of a former British Special Forces operative and soldier turned novelist...

 
1996 Doctor Who The Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....

 (8th Doctor)
1998 Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life" but is also about human...

Eugene Wrayburn
1999 Forgotten Ben Turner
2000 Nature Boy Steve Witton
2000 Fish
Fish (BBC TV series)
Fish was a BBC drama series of 2000, starring Paul McGann as an idealistic lawyer who specialised in industrial tribunals. In court, he often came up against a female lawyer, played by Jemma Redgrave. Fish's wife had mysteriously disappeared, leaving him to look after his young son, and he began...

Jonathan Vishnevski
2001 Hotel! Ben Carter
2001 Sweet Revenge
Sweet Revenge (2001 TV film)
Sweet Revenge is a 2001 British television film that aired in two parts on BBC One on 15 and 16 October 2001. It stars Sophie Okonedo, Paul McGann and Pam Ferris....

Patrick Vine
2002 Blood Strangers DC David Ingram
2002 The Biographer Andrew Morton
Andrew Morton (writer)
Andrew David Morton is a former British Fleet Street journalist, a notable writer and biographer.Before moving into a career in journalism, he attended grammar school, then studied history at the University of Sussex....

 
2001–2003 Hornblower
Hornblower (TV series)
Hornblower is the umbrella title of a series of television drama programmes based on C. S. Forester's novels about the fictional character Horatio Hornblower, a Royal Naval officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars....

Lieutenant Bush
William Bush (Hornblower)
Captain William Bush RN is a fictional character in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series. He is Hornblower's best friend, and serves with Hornblower in the Royal Navy prior to the Peace of Amiens and again during the Napoleonic Wars.-Character sketch:...

 
2003 Sad Cypress
Sad Cypress
Sad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...

Dr. Peter Lord
2004 Lie With Me Gerry Henson
2005 Kidnapped
Kidnapped (2005 mini series)
Kidnapped is a two-part BBC television adaptation of the 1893 novel of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson. The show is directed by Brendan Maher and stars James Anthony Pearson as Davie Balfour and Iain Glen as Alan Breck....

Colonel MacNab
2005 Fables of Forgotten Things
Fables of Forgotten Things
Fables of Forgotten Things is a British television drama series that stars Doctor Who actor Paul McGann. In 2008 a pilot episode was made available on the BBC Website, and later broadcast on BBC HD in the Winter of 2009/10. However, no further episodes have yet been announced.- References :* *...

Clarence
2005 Marple
Marple (TV series)
Marple is a British television series based on the Miss Marple and other murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie. It is also known as Agatha Christie's Marple. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to third series, until her retirement from the role. She was replaced...

"Sleeping Murder"
Dickie Erskine
2006 If I Had You Philip Andrews
2006 Tripping Over
Tripping Over
Tripping Over is a British/Australian six-part drama series. Its first episode aired on Network Ten in Australia on 25 October 2006, and in the United Kingdom on Five on 30 October 2006. In the UK Tripping Over is repeated on Five Life....

Jeremy
2006 Sea of Souls
Sea of Souls
Sea of Souls is a BBC paranormal drama series, based around the fictional activities of a group of investigators into psychic and other paranormal events. Produced in-house by BBC Scotland, initially in association with Sony Pictures Television International, the series debuted on BBC One in the UK...

Christopher Chambers 1 Episode
2007 True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss is a British television drama produced for BBC One. It is written by Debbie Horsfield and produced by Marcus Wilson and features Dervla Kirwan, David Bradley and Lorraine Ashbourne...

Nash
2009 Collision
Collision (TV series)
Collision is a five-part television drama miniseries, which debuted on ITV in November 2009. In the same month, it was also on PBS as a series in two parts. It tells the story of a group of strangers whose lives intertwine following a devastating car crash...

Richard Reeves
2010 Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...

Hugo Doré
2010-2011 Luther
Luther (TV series)
Luther is a British psychological crime drama television series starring Idris Elba as the title character Detective Chief Inspector John Luther. A first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC One from 4 May to 8 June 2010. The second series of four episodes was shown on BBC One in summer 2011...

Mark North
2011 Waking the Dead
Waking the Dead (TV series)
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...

"Waterloo"
ACC Tony Nicholson
2011 New Tricks  DCI James Larson 1 Episode

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK