Timothy Ackroyd
Encyclopedia
Sir Timothy John Robert Whyte Ackroyd, 3rd Baronet (born 7 October 1958), known as Timothy Ackroyd, is an English
actor
.
Ackroyd was born on 7 October 1958 to Sir John Robert Whyte Ackroyd, 2nd Baronet, and Jennifer Eileen McLeod Bishop.
Ackroyd's career began in 1976 when he was nominated as Most Promising Newcomer in the West End Theatre Awards for his performance as Clytemnestra
in Aeschylus
's Agamemnon. After writing and playing William Hogarth
in The Compassionate Satirist in collaboration with Brian Sewell
and varnished by Peter O'Toole
, he decided to take a break from the stage in 2007.
He has also served as a National Theatre
player and appeared in weekly repertory at Southwold
, Chichester
, Harrogate
, Farnham
, Newbury
, Glasgow
and Leatherhead
.
His London début was in Brian Forbes' controversial and hugely successful Macbeth
at The Old Vic
; his West End debut was starring opposite Peter O'Toole and Joyce Carey
as Ricki-Ticki-Tavy in George Bernard Shaw
's Man and Superman
. Other appearances in the West End include closing down the long-running farce No Sex Please, We're British
, Pygmalion
with John Thaw
, The Rivals
playing Sir Anthony Absolute and Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell
appearing beside Peter O'Toole and Tom Conti
.
He has directed three plays in London, Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides
and Red Lanterns by Alecos Galanos, both adapted and Produced by Costas Charalambos Costa. Timothy directed Cocteau's Les Parents terribles
designed by Tracey Emin
.
He established the African wildlife charity Tusk Trust
in 1989. Tusk is now recognized as one of the leading conservation Trusts in the UK and America
, with Prince William as its royal patron. In 2004, Ackroyd's Ark, a book of animal drawings by friends and personalities from all walks of life was published and launched at Christie's
and has to this date made £85,000 for Tusk.
Other charities supported are as the Chairman of the Ackroyd Trust which helps drama students entering their final year of training and the establishing of The John Ackroyd Scholarship at the Royal College of Music
.
Ackroyd has performed his one man show A Step Out of Time to both public and private audiences internationally. An advocate for the spoken word, he gives readings of Saki
, Dickens
and M. R. James
.
In November 2008 Ackroyd performed in Charles Dickens's Ghost story, "The Signalman." with Rodney Bewes.
In 2009 a volume of his poetry titled "Tripe" was published and he narrated Gogol's "Diary of a madman" to the Gogol suite by Schnitke, conducted by Vladimir jurowski, he also played the role of Jolly in the BBC3 production of "Beau Geste" by P..C.Wren
He returns to the stage in the autumn of 2010 playing Brian Donald Hume in "The fuse on the Hume banger" written by Dame Beryl Bainbridge and Ackroyd.
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...
.
Ackroyd was born on 7 October 1958 to Sir John Robert Whyte Ackroyd, 2nd Baronet, and Jennifer Eileen McLeod Bishop.
Ackroyd's career began in 1976 when he was nominated as Most Promising Newcomer in the West End Theatre Awards for his performance as Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
in Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
's Agamemnon. After writing and playing William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
in The Compassionate Satirist in collaboration with Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...
and varnished by Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
, he decided to take a break from the stage in 2007.
He has also served as a 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...
player and appeared in weekly repertory at Southwold
Southwold
Southwold is a town on the North Sea coast, in the Waveney district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is around south of Lowestoft and north-east...
, Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
, Harrogate
Harrogate
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...
, Farnham
Farnham
Farnham is a town in Surrey, England, within the Borough of Waverley. The town is situated some 42 miles southwest of London in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire...
, Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
.
His London début was in Brian Forbes' controversial and hugely successful Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
at The Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
; his West End debut was starring opposite Peter O'Toole and Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey, OBE was a British actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1984, and she was performing on television in her nineties. Though never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen...
as Ricki-Ticki-Tavy in George 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 Man and Superman
Man and Superman
Man and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...
. Other appearances in the West End include closing down the long-running farce No Sex Please, We're British
No Sex Please, We're British
No Sex Please, We're British is a British comedic play written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott, first staged in London's West End in 1971. It was unanimously panned by critics, but still ran for nearly a decade to packed audiences...
, 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...
with John Thaw
John Thaw
John Edward Thaw, CBE was an English actor, who appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles, his most popular being police and legal dramas such as Redcap, The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC.-Early life:Thaw came from a working class background, having been born in Gorton,...
, The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
playing Sir Anthony Absolute and Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell
Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell is a play by Keith Waterhouse about real-life journalist Jeffrey Bernard. Bernard was still alive at the time the play was first performed in the West End in 1989.Bernard wrote the "Low Life" column in The Spectator...
appearing beside Peter O'Toole and Tom Conti
Tom Conti
Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...
.
He has directed three plays in London, Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
and Red Lanterns by Alecos Galanos, both adapted and Produced by Costas Charalambos Costa. Timothy directed Cocteau's Les Parents terribles
Les parents terribles
Les Parents terribles is a 1938 French play written by Jean Cocteau. Despite initial problems with censorship, it was revived on the French stage several times after its original production, and in 1948 a film adaptation directed by Cocteau himself was released...
designed by Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
.
He established the African wildlife charity Tusk Trust
Tusk Trust
The Tusk Trust is an organization set up in 1990 to help to protect African wildlife including African elephants.Tusk Trust was set up by Charles Mayhew, MBE, who is the Chief Executive...
in 1989. Tusk is now recognized as one of the leading conservation Trusts in the UK and America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with Prince William as its royal patron. In 2004, Ackroyd's Ark, a book of animal drawings by friends and personalities from all walks of life was published and launched at Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
and has to this date made £85,000 for Tusk.
Other charities supported are as the Chairman of the Ackroyd Trust which helps drama students entering their final year of training and the establishing of The John Ackroyd Scholarship at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
.
Ackroyd has performed his one man show A Step Out of Time to both public and private audiences internationally. An advocate for the spoken word, he gives readings of Saki
Saki
Hector Hugh Munro , better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy...
, Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
and M. R. James
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, , who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge and of Eton College . He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre...
.
In November 2008 Ackroyd performed in Charles Dickens's Ghost story, "The Signalman." with Rodney Bewes.
In 2009 a volume of his poetry titled "Tripe" was published and he narrated Gogol's "Diary of a madman" to the Gogol suite by Schnitke, conducted by Vladimir jurowski, he also played the role of Jolly in the BBC3 production of "Beau Geste" by P..C.Wren
He returns to the stage in the autumn of 2010 playing Brian Donald Hume in "The fuse on the Hume banger" written by Dame Beryl Bainbridge and Ackroyd.