Nigel Harris (''born'' 1949) is a British actor.
Harris was born in
Grahamstown
Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Loc ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...
. He is the son of the philosopher,
Errol Harris, and grandson of Samuel Harris, who with
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his B ...
was one of the defenders of Kimberly when the town was besieged during the
Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
. He obtained a B.A. in Philosophy at the
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
in 1971, where he was the External Affairs Chairman of the Students’ Union. He trained as a drama teacher at Alsager College of Education (where he acted with and became close friends with
Joe Leeway, who later became one of the
Thompson Twins
Thompson Twins were a British pop band formed in 1977 in Sheffield. Initially a new wave group, they switched to a more mainstream pop sound and achieved considerable popularity during the mid-1980s, scoring a string of hits in the United Ki ...
) in 1973 and as an actor at the
Birmingham Theatre School
The Birmingham Theatre School is a drama school, located in Birmingham, England.
The school was founded by Sir Barry Jackson in the theatre that he built, namely the Old Rep Theatre, which was also the first repertory theatre in the world. The s ...
(where he was a contemporary of
Toyah Willcox
Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English musician, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Willcox has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays an ...
) in 1976.
In film, he has worked with directors
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most ...
(playing Guianin Micheluzzi in ''
La voce della luna''),
Anton Corbijn
Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard (; born 20 May 1955) is a Dutch photographer, film director and music video director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2,Pitman, Joanna"The silent partner"' ...
, and
Asif Kapadia
Asif Kapadia (born 1972) is a British filmmaker.
Academy Award, BAFTA and Grammy winning director Asif Kapadia has made his name directing visually striking films exploring ‘outsiders’, characters living in extreme circumstances, fighting ...
. His theatre credits include working with the English fringe theatre company Foco Novo (which was set up by director Roland Rees and playwright Bernard Pomerance so as to produce Pomerance’s plays ''Foco Novo'' and ''The Elephant Man''). For ''Foco Novo'', Harris created the role of The Journeyman (a conflation of the fairground barker, the knife-supplying Jew, and various other characters) in Peter Hulton's translation of ''Woyzeck''. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked at the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre ...
, creating the role of Abb in
David Rudkin
James David Rudkin (born 29 June 1936) is an English playwright .
Early life
Rudkin was born in London. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, he was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St C ...
’s ''The Triumph of Death''. His performance in an episode of ''The Bill'' was shown on the 1990
BAFTA Awards program.
He lives in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
, England, and from 2005 to 2007, was the chairman of the Midlands Area Committee of
Equity, the British live arts trade union. In 2011, Harris starred in the one off
BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
Christmas show, ''
Lapland''.
He is a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and is the editor of 'Bound in Shallows, Autobiographical Reminiscences, Memoirs of a Philosopher.'
He has also been a successful theatrical agent, when he was a member of the co-operative actors agency The Central Line.
References
Bound in Shallows (Marquette University Press 2015
1949 births
Living people
South African male stage actors
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Actors from Nottingham
South African male television actors
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