Actor

1946-07-17 · United Kingdom · Male

54 series in the catalog

Alan Armstrong (born 17 July 1946), known professionally as Alun Armstrong, is an English character actor. He grew up in County Durham, in North East England, and became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of characters from the grotesque to musicals... I always play very colourful characters, often a bit crazy, despotic, psychotic."

His credits include several Charles Dickens adaptations and the eccentric ex-detective Brian Lane in New Tricks. He is also an accomplished stage actor and spent nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He originated the role of Monsieur Thénardier in the West End production of Les Misérables and won an Olivier Award in the title role of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Early life

He was born Alan Armstrong in Annfield Plain, County Durham. His father was a coal miner and both his parents were Methodist lay preachers. He attended Annfield Plain Junior School, then Consett Grammar School, where a teacher inspired him to try acting. In the lower sixth he played Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, a role he later played with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Armstrong took part in the National Youth Theatre summer school in 1964, but his background and northern accent made him feel out of place. He studied fine art at Newcastle University. He found the course pretentious and felt that he did not fit in, and he was sent down after two years when he stopped attending classes.

Armstrong had jobs with a bricklayer and as a gravedigger before he decided to try acting again. He started out as an assistant stage manager at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, then went on to a Theatre in Education company affiliated with the Sheffield Repertory Theatre. He also performed in several Radio 4 dramas.

Film

Armstrong made his screen debut in Get Carter (1971). On learning that the film was being made in Newcastle, Armstrong wrote a letter to MGM, the studio making the film, and was invited to meet director Mike Hodges, who was keen to cast local actors.

Armstrong has appeared in a number of films, although usually in supporting roles. In A Bridge Too Far (1977) he had a small role as one of the British troops at the Battle of Arnhem. He played a French soldier, Lieutenant Lecourbe, in Ridley Scott's 1977 film The Duellists. He had a supporting role as the bandit leader Torquil in the 1983 fantasy film Krull.

His first cinematic lead role was as Maxwell Randall, the titular vampire in Alan Clarke's snooker musical Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1987). Armstrong sang I Bite Back.

In Patriot Games (1992) Armstrong played an SO-13 officer. In Braveheart (1995), he played the Scottish noble Mornay who betrayed William Wallace. He was the villainous Egyptian cult leader Baltus Hafez in The Mummy Returns (2001), and he portrayed Saint Peter with a Geordie accent in Millions (2004). He also had small roles as the High Constable in Sleepy Hollow (1999), Cardinal Jinette in Van Helsing (2004), Magistrate Fang in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist (2005) and Uncle Garrow in Eragon (2006).

Television

Armstrong has had more than 80 roles in television productions. During the 1970s he appeared in various TV series, including episodes of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Public Eye and The Sweeney.

He was cast in two mini-series dealing with coal miners in North East England. He played Joe Gowlan in The Stars Look Down (1974) based on the novel by A. J. Cronin and he appeared in Ken Loach's Days of Hope (1975) set in his native County Durham. In a 2007 interview, Armstrong singled out Days of Hope as a favourite: "I loved that because it was my own history and background that was being dramatised and, in a way, nothing gets better than that."

In the comedy series A Sharp Intake of Breath he played a variety of characters who complicate the life of the main character played by David Jason. In 1977 he was the strict Deputy Headmaster in Willy Russell's Our Day Out, a television play about a group of working-class schoolchildren on a day trip. He also starred in the 1981 Yorkshire Television drama Get Lost!

Armstrong has portrayed characters from the works of Charles Dickens. He played Wackford Squeers and Mr Wagstaff in the eight-hour Royal Shakespeare Company stage adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby that was filmed for television in 1982. He has appeared in two versions of Oliver Twist: the 1999 ITV mini-series as Agnes Fleming's father Captain Fleming and the 2005 Roman Polanski film as Magistrate Fang. He has had roles in four BBC Dickens adaptations, as Daniel Peggotty in David Copperfield (1999); as Inspector Bucket in Bleak House (2005); as Jeremiah and Ephraim Flintwinch in Little Dorrit (2008); and as Hiram Grewgious in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012). Armstrong has been a fan of Dickens since reading David Copperfield aloud in school. He particularly remembered Dan Peggotty's houseboat on the beach, and in order to play the role he turned down an offer from Clint Eastwood, with whom he had worked on White Hunter Black Heart.

In the BBC drama series Our Friends in the North (1996) he played Austin Donohue, a character based on the politician T. Dan Smith. Armstrong portrayed 18th century politician Henry Fox in the BBC serial Aristocrats (1999). In the 2000 TV film This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, he portrayed George Oldfield, the Assistant Chief Constable for Crime at West Yorkshire Police whose health deteriorated during the investigation as he received messages purportedly from the killer. He was nominated for a Royal Television Society award for his role in This Is Personal.

In the second series of Bedtime (2002) he played a widower concerned about his son's suspicious behaviour. He and Brenda Blethyn co-starred in Between the Sheets (2003) as a frustrated married couple in sex therapy. In an adaptation of Carrie's War, he played a strict man who reluctantly takes in two children evacuated to Wales during World War II.

Armstrong is known for his role as Brian Lane in the BBC One series New Tricks about a group of former police detectives who help investigate unsolved and open cases for London's Metropolitan Police. The character of Brian Lane is an obsessive and socially inept recovering alcoholic who has a great capacity for remembering details of old cases and colleagues. In August 2012 Armstrong announced he would leave the show after the tenth series. The announcement followed comments by the cast in an interview with the Radio Times that criticised some of the series' writing and which drew an angry rebuttal from the show's writer-director, Julian Simpson.

During the run of New Tricks Armstrong continued to take on other projects. He starred in the 2004 TV film When I'm 64 about a lonely retired schoolteacher who starts a relationship with another man. He chose the role despite his apprehension about filming a love scene with co-star Paul Freeman, because he thought it was a lovely and thought-provoking story. He also starred in The Girls Who Came to Stay (2006), about a British couple who take in two girls exposed to the effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and Filth (2008), as the husband of "Clean-Up TV" activist Mary Whitehouse.

For three series from 2009 to 2011 he played William Garrow's mentor John Southouse in the BBC period legal drama Garrow's Law. In 2012, he played the Earl of Northumberland in the BBC2 adaptations of Henry IV, Parts I and II. His son Joe Armstrong played Northumberland's son Hotspur. In the 2014 Showtime horror series Penny Dreadful, Armstrong played Vincent Brand, an actor who gives Frankenstein's monster a job at the Grand Guignol. He guest starred in the 2014 Christmas special of Downton Abbey, and took the role of Clifford Bentley in ITV police drama Prime Suspect…