Geoffrey Whitehead Biography

Geoffrey Whitehead (born 1 October 1939, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire) is an English actor. He has appeared in a range of television, film and radio roles. In the theatre, he has played at the Shakespeare Globe, St. Martin's Theatre and Bristol Old Vic.

Career

His film appearances have included The Raging Moon (1971), Kidnapped (1971), the vengeful woodsman in And Now the Screaming Starts! (1972), S.O.S. Titanic (1979) as shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, Inside the Third Reich (1982), Shooting Fish (1997), and Love/Loss (2010).

His television appearances include Z-Cars (1964-1965 and 1972-1975), playing two different regular characters, as Sherlock Holmes in the television series Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979-1980), Prince Vasily Golitsyn in Peter the Great (1986), Viatorus in Chelmsford 123 (1988-1990), Albert Speer in War and Remembrance (1988), Richard Smith in Second Thoughts (1991-1994), and other parts in The House of Eliott (1991), Executive Stress, Little Britain, The Worst Week of My Life and Not Going Out. He is seen regularly on British television as well as filling many roles on radio, where he featured in the 3rd and 4th episodes of the fifth series of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series Old Harry's Game in the role of Roland Kingworthy, as "Prior Robert" in the 1980s BBC radio dramatisations of Cadfael, as John Barsad in the radio dramatisation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and most recently as Justice Wargrave in the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None on 13 November 2010. He has also starred in Little Britain. He has starred on BBC radio in many comic roles, including Bleak Expectations, featuring as five entire families between 2007 and 2012. He was appearing in two series of the BBC remake of Reggie Perrin as Reggie's Father-in-Law, William.

In 2011, he joined the cast of Not Going Out as Geoffrey Adams, the father of Lucy and Tim. This character had been recurring since 2007, but had previously been played by Timothy West. Whitehead returned as Geoffrey in the fifth series of Not Going Out.

In 2013 he appeared on Comic Relief playing the vicar in the Simon Cowell wedding sketch.

In 2015, Whitehead appeared as Mr Newbold in the second series of Still Open All Hours, which was broadcast on 27 December 2015.

Radio roles

His regular radio roles include:

• Cabin Pressure - Mr. Birling
• Weak at the Top - Sir Marcus.
• Rigor Mortis - Professor Donaldson
• Ed Reardon's Week - Stan
• Potting On - Gordon Grant, radio husband of comedian & poet Pam Ayres.
• Bleak Expectations - the Hardthrasher, Sternbeater, Whackwallop, Grimpunch and Clampvulture families
• Cadfael - Prior Robert
• Troy - Nikanor
• The Genuine Particle - Shale
• Hair in the Gate - Brian Melvyn
• The Architects - Sir Lucien