Alexander Armstrong

Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong (born 2 March 1970) is an English actor, comedian, radio personality, television presenter, singer and farmer. He is the host of the BBC One game show ''Pointless'', and is a weekday morning-show presenter on Classic FM.

Armstrong is a member of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller, with Ben Miller. His television credits include ''Armstrong and Miller'', '' Beast'', '' Life Begins'', ''Hunderby'' and '' Danger Mouse''. He is also known as the voice of Mr Smith, Sarah Jane Smith's alien supercomputer in '' The Sarah Jane Adventures'' and the series 4 two-part finale of ''Doctor Who''. He is also the narrator for the hit CBeebies show "Hey Duggee".

Armstrong is a bass-baritone singer and has released three studio albums.

Ancestry and early life

Ancestry

Descended from a North East landowning family, a distant ancestral relation William Armstrong was created Baron Armstrong in 1887. Alexander's paternal grandfather was the rugby player and physician Rex Armstrong and his maternal grandparents were economist Lucius Thompson-McCausland, High Sheriff of Hertfordshire, and Helen Laura McCausland (6 April 1903 – February 2000), granddaughter of Captain Conolly Thomas McCausland (13 May 1828 – 25 June 1902), High Sheriff of County Londonderry, by his wife the Hon. Laura St John (12 June 1842 – 21 October 1919), daughter of the 15th Baron St John of Bletso. His McCausland ancestors held land at Drenagh in Limavady, County Londonderry from the 18c.

Early life

Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong was born at Rothbury Community Hospital in Rothbury, Northumberland, on 2 March 1970, and grew up in Longframlington, the youngest of three children, to physician Henry Angus Armstrong and Emma Virginia Peronnet (née Thompson-McCausland). He was educated at Mowden Hall School in Stocksfield, and St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, where he was a chorister at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral from the age of 11 to 13. He attended Durham School and Trinity College, Cambridge, on music scholarships. He played the piano – which has been seen in several '' The Armstrong & Miller Show'' sketches – and the cello, the latter which he dropped in favour of the "much more masculine" oboe.

At Cambridge Armstrong read English, graduating with a BA degree, and sang bass baritone as a choral scholar with the college choir. Armstrong joined the Footlights in his final year as part of the writing team for the 1992 revue and was '' Spooks'' creator David Wolstencroft's comedy partner.

Career

After graduating in 1992, Armstrong moved to London with friends to pursue a career in acting and comedy. While waiting for acting roles, he worked in several north London bars and restaurants. He was eventually introduced to Ben Miller, who had also moved to London, through Jez Butterworth. In 1996, Armstrong and Miller performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and were nominated for the Perrier Award.

Comedy

Armstrong and Miller co-starred in four series of ''Armstrong and Miller'' from 1997 to 2001, while also performing sketches in '' The Sunday Format''. The duo decided to take a break and split for several years to forge their own solo careers. Armstrong renewed his partnership with Ben Miller for the award-winning '' The Armstrong and Miller Show'' in 2007. ''The Armstrong and Miller Book'' was released in October 2010.

Armstrong appeared in BBC Radio 4's '' The Very World of Milton Jones'', broadcast between 1998 and 2001. He narrated the animated cartoon series '' The Big Knights'' in 1999; it first appeared on BBC1 that Christmas. That same year he also starred as Prince Charming in ITV's Christmas pantomime, alongside Ben Miller, Samantha Janus, Paul Merton, Harry Hill, Frank Skinner and Ronnie Corbett. Between early 2000 and early 2001, Armstrong starred as a misanthropic, animal-hating vet in the BBC One sitcom '' Beast'', and he has also been the star of a series of TV commercials for Pimm's.

On BBC Radio 4, Armstrong played John Weak in the office sitcom '' Weak at the Top''. He also played Martin Baine-Jones for the Times Online's ''Timeghost'' podcast. Between September and November 2010, Armstrong took ''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' on tour in the UK, completing 62 dates. This was the second time ''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' had toured, the first tour being in autumn 2001.

Television presenting

On 1 September 2006, Armstrong was chairman of the short-lived Channel 4 panel show '' Best of the Worst'' which featured team captains David Mitchell and Johnny Vaughan. Armstrong presented the short-lived ITV1 quiz series ''Don't Call Me Stupid'', in which mismatched celebrities taught each other a subject they are passionate about before facing a studio quiz on their new topic. He has been a frequent guest host on the BBC's satirical '' Have I Got News for You'', having appeared 32 times; he has, to date, made the most appearances of any guest, whether as host or panellist. In 2008, he was the presenter and narrator for '' When Were We Funniest?'' and was the only person to feature in all 12 episodes. Armstrong in ''The Independent'' was reported to not want to be " pigeonholed" as a presenter, preferring to focus on acting and comedy.

Armstrong has been the presenter of the BBC One game show ''Pointless'', initially with former Cambridge University friend Richard Osman, since it began in 2009. He also presented a documentary, ''Alexander Armstrong's Very British Holiday'', for the BBC on 8 November 2009 about the history of the "great British summer holiday" and his attempts to explore its modern version. On 30 May 2011, Armstrong hosted the pilot for a new panel show, '' Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask'' for Dave with Dave Lamb, Katy Brand, Griff Rhys Jones and Robert Webb. After a positive response to the pilot, Dave commissioned the first series, which first aired on 6 February 2012. In July 2011, Armstrong became a co-presenter on BBC One's ''The Great British Weather''. In August 2011, he began presenting '' Epic Win'' on BBC One.

In 2012–2013, Armstrong co-hosted ITV series '' Prize Island'' with Emma Willis. On 3 January 2015, Armstrong and Rochelle Humes co-hosted entertainment special ''Frank Sinatra: Our Way'' on BBC One.

On 1 June 2015, Armstrong presented a documentary, ''Rome's Invisible City'', which used 3D scanning technology to discover the underground spaces below the city. Subsequently, it was announced he would be making a three-part series exploring the lost and hidden sites of Florence, Naples, and Venice.

In 2015, Armstrong presented a three-part factual series for ITV, called ''Alexander Armstrong in the Land of the Midnight Sun'', in which he travelled half-way round the Arctic Circle meeting its inhabitants and exploring their ways of life. In January 2016, he guest-presented ''Bruce's Hall of Fame'' on BBC One.

In 2017, Armstrong presented ''Don't Ask Me Ask Britain'' and ''Teach My Pet to Do That'', both on ITV.

Singing and music

After over a decade in television and comedy, Armstrong returned to his musical roots and put together his own cover band, which plays a wide range of music from jazz to rock to pop classics. A classically trained bass baritone, he is the vocalist and is backed up by Harry the Piano on keyboards, Simon Bates on woodwind, Jeff Lardner on drums and Dave Swift on bass. The band's first tour ran from 19 September to 6 November 2013.

Armstrong mainly sang at his local parish church services or at weddings, away from the public eye. Armstrong impersonated Susan Boyle's '' Britain's Got Talent'' rendition of " I Dreamed a Dream" in the show '' Your Face Sounds Familiar'' and surprised the judges by singing in falsetto. He sang "Winter Wonderland" during the celebrities Christmas special of ''Pointless'' and "No Rhyme for Richard" from '' Blondel'' in BBC Two's ''Tim Rice: A Life in Song'' and collaborated with the Sixteen to record the single " Good King Wenceslas" to raise funds for the charity Crisis.

Since September 2014, Armstrong has presented the Saturday afternoon programme on the classical radio station Classic FM. He now also presents the mid-morning show on weekdays between 10 am and 1 pm.

Armstrong participated in '' VE Day 70: A Party to Remember'' on 9 May 2015, a televised commemorative concert from Horse Guards Parade in London, where he sang "We Must All Stick Together" by Ralph Butler and Raymond Wallace, and " London Pride", a patriotic song by Noël Coward. He sang in ''Songs of Praise: The Big Sing'', broadcast on 20 September 2015, a special programme from the Royal Albert Hall to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II becoming the world's longest-serving monarch, singing "I Would Be True".

On 6 November 2015, Armstrong released his debut solo vocal album, '' A Year of Songs'', on Warner Music Group's East West Records label. It reached number six on the UK Albums Chart in its first week and topped the UK Classical Chart, the first time a comedian/actor has reached number 1 in that chart. In January and February 2016 he carried out a 9-date UK tour with his band.

In June 2016 he began recording his second album, '' Upon a Different Shore'', which was released on 28 October. It reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart.

In December 2017, he narrated Prokofiev's ''Peter and the Wolf'' for children. Armstrong's version was recorded under the Warner Classics label with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

A third studio album, '' In a Winter Light'', was released in November 2017.

Other work

In 1997, Armstrong and Ben Miller provided the voices for lead characters for the PC game ''Wings of Destiny'', published by Psygnosis in 2000, as British airmen and Nazi officers covering the two comic-book plots in the game. From 2002 to 2009, Armstrong appeared in a series of British television adverts for the drink Pimm's. With Miller, he has formed a production company called ''Toff Media''.
In 2002, Armstrong provided the voice for the character Horse in the English dub of the series '' A Town Called Panic''.

In 2009, Armstrong portrayed the British microcomputer innovator Clive Sinclair in the BBC docu-drama '' Micro Men''. Set in the early 1980s, the film focused on the semi-broken friendship and rivalry between Clive Sinclair and Acorn Computers head Chris Curry when both companies were angling for the lucrative BBC computer literacy deal. ''Micro Men'' was directed by Saul Metzstein, and starred Armstrong opposite Martin Freeman as Chris Curry.

A book based on Armstrong's show ''Pointless'', titled ''The 100 Most Pointless Things in the World'', was published in the UK in October 2012 by Coronet, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton. It was written by Armstrong and his ''Pointless'' co-host, Richard Osman.

Also, in 2012, Armstrong was the voice of Professor M for the animation breaks for the McLaren F1 team, with the animations called '' Tooned'' (also featuring the voices of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button) broadcast on Sky Sports F1.

In 2013, Armstrong and Miller appeared in the television advertising campaign for Spitfire Ale.

In 2014, Armstrong provided the narrator's voice for CBeebies animation ''Hey Duggee''. In September 2014, it was announced that Armstrong would succeed David Jason as the voice of Danger Mouse in the 2015 revival of the 1980s animated series. Armstrong has done other voiceover work, including Mr Wolf and Captain Dog in ''Peppa Pig''.

In 2019, Armstrong also cameoed in '' Horrible Histories: The Movie'' as Procurator Catus Decianus.

In January 2024, Armstrong participated in the fifth series of '' The Masked Singer UK'' as the character "Chicken Caesar". He was eliminated and unmasked in the second episode.

Honours

In December 2015, Armstrong was awarded an honorary doctorate from Northumbria University.

In 2017, he was made president of the P. G. Wodehouse Society (UK).

Personal life

On 27 August 2003, Armstrong married Hannah Bronwen Snow; they have four sons.

In July 2014 they moved from North Kensington, west London, to a farm in Bledington in Gloucestershire near the Oxfordshire border.

In February 2011, Armstrong became President of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, launching a million-pound appeal at a special gala event. He is a patron of several charities, including Family Links, the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust and Just A Drop.

Political views

In an interview with ''The Independent'' in March 2012, Armstrong spoke of his support for the rural campaigning organisation the Countryside Alliance, saying: "I'd like people to be honest about what they don't like about country sports because if it's actually the people you don't like, then I'd much rather they would actually just say that." He has appeared in their advertisements and magazine to promote countryside shooting. He said that his family had traditionally voted for the Liberal Democrats. Armstrong described himself as a " floating voter", stating "I'm not greatly impressed by party politics, but I am by individual people. I'm a centrist, and very suspicious of any tribalism."

In August 2014, Armstrong was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''The Guardian'' expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

In 2017, Armstrong urged the UK Government to do more to support music education and therapy, saying "in the weft and weave of politics I think these sorts of human stories get shoved to one side, but we have to make sure they are right up front and centre. It's not all about Brexit."

In 2020, Armstrong signed a letter in support of the LGB Alliance, to "stand in solidarity" with JK Rowling.

In 2024, Armstrong voiced his opposition to tax being placed on private schools, reporting that he wants the best for his children. In the same interview, he voiced opposition to inheritance tax being placed on farmers, reporting "We're farmers, of farming stock. We're very much affected y the changes"

Filmography

Television

Non-presenting roles

Presenting roles

Film

Radio

*December 1998 – ''Children's Hour with Armstrong and Miller'' (BBC Radio 4)
*2005–2006 – '' Weak at the Top'' (BBC Radio 4)
*July 2006 – '' Private Passions'' (BBC Radio 3)
*June 2020 – ''Hall of Fame'' (Classic FM)

Video games

*2000 – Team Buddies
*2003 – Hidden & Dangerous 2

Discography

Studio albums

Bibliography

As author

Fiction
*

References

External links

*
*

Alexander Armstrong
at the British Film Institute
*

Alexander Armstrong: A Year Of Songs – Live


Alexander Armstrong on Classic FM

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Alexander
1970 births
Living people
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Armstrong and Miller
BBC television presenters
Comedians from Northumberland
English sketch comedians
English baritones
English game show hosts
English impressionists (entertainers)
English male comedians
English male television actors
English male voice actors
English people of Irish descent
English television presenters
Male actors from Northumberland
People educated at Durham School
People educated at St Mary's Music School
People from Rothbury