Name	Roger Allam
Height
Naionality	British
Date of Birth	26 October 1953
Place of Birth	London, England, UK
Famous for

Roger was born on 26th October 1953 in North London, son of a vicar in Muswell Hill. He has brown hair, brown eyes and is approximately 6' tall. He attended Christ's Hospital school in Sussex where he was rated by his friends as a good actor. He then went on to train at Manchester University and has a BA in Drama. He was drawn to the stage after going to see Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Old Vic (which was then the National Theatre), he enjoyed the play so much he decided then that he wanted to be part of it. He worked at Contact Theatre in Manchester, two of his early roles there were Angelo and Macbeth. He then joined the Monstrous Regiment as one of only two men in a feminist company. He went on to work at the Birmingham Rep and Glasgow Citizens Theatre and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1981.

His career has seen him working for many seasons with the RSC along with several appearances at other London theatres and in the West End and the National Theatre Company. He has made many television appearances in series such as Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders, Between the Lines, Heartbeat, The Bill, Waking The Dead, Foyles War, Manchild and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. He has played the part of Charlie in BBC2 comedy series The Creatives for two seasons. So far he has made five films including Stranded, filmed in Thailand during the summer of 2001, in which he plays Captain Blunt; The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone with Helen Mirren; A Cock and Bull Story as Adrian; and V for Vendetta an action drama starring Natalie Portman. Roger also has quite a repertoire of Radio plays for the BBC.

In 1993 Roger appeared in a new musical, City of Angels, in the West End but unfortunately, despite good reviews, this closed early. However, he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. In 1994 he worked with Trevor Nunn in Arcadia in the West End and then followed this with a Terry Hands production of The Importance of Being Earnest at The Old Vic in the summer of 1995, returning to the National Theatre later that year to play Mirabell in The Way of the World. He gave two performances in the extremely successful play Art during 1997 and 1998 playing two different parts, Serge and Marc. He then rejoined The National Theatre in 1999 as part of Trevor Nunn's Ensemble playing Ulysses in Troilus and Cressidsa, Bassov in Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk and his award winning role in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Money for which he received an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in February 2000. He was also nominated for the Best Actor award for Summerfolk, which returned to the National for a second run until 2nd May 2000. In the summer of 2000 Roger took on the role of Adolf Hitler in David Edgar's Albert Speer and then went on to play Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard alongside Vanessa and Corin Redgrave.

In December 2001 Roger played Captain Terri Dennis in the Peter Nichols' play Privates on Parade, for which I am pleased to say he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor - congratulations to Roger on his wonderful performance. In this role he proved just how versatile he is with his excellent impersonations of Vera Lynn, Marlene Dietrich, Carmen Miranda and Noel Coward. In November 2002 appeared once more in the West End with Gillian Anderson in What The Night is For at the Comedy Theatre. This play, which has a limited run until February 2003, unfortunately opened to mixed reviews.

Over Christmas 2004 Roger turned his hand to pantomime when he played Abbanazar in Bille Brown's pantomime of Aladdin in which Ian McKellan played Widow Twankey, the ultimate pantomime dame. This role was revived during Christmas 2005 once more at The Old Vic. In between this fun diversion Roger took on the role of Ray in David Harower's darkly intense play Blackbird which was performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2005. His co-star in this play was actress Jodhi May. This play has now trasferred to the West End at The Albery Theatre where it is running until 13th May 2006.

My first encounter with Roger was at the RSC when he was playing Javert in the original (pre-West End) production of Les Misérables. Up until recently I had seen almost every single one of Roger's performances with the RSC and have met him quite a few times. He gave a talk one Christmas to "The Friends of the RSC", a group of people who have formed a club to show their appreciation of the work that this excellent company do, and who hold functions to meet with the actors, actresses and directors to discuss the seasons plays.

I frequently wait at the stage door for him to appear after one of his terrific performances, when he very graciously signs programmes and has a chat with his fans.


Photo ©Linda Green 2002
Roger and his wife, actress Rebecca Saire, became proud parents in the summer of 2000 when their son William was born. In 2005 he became a father for the second time when son Thomas was born.