English actor and comedian
Mark Williams is an English comic actor, presenter and screenwriter. He first achieved widespread recognition as one of the central performers in the popular BBC sketch show "The Fast Show". His film roles include Horace in "101 Dalmatians" (1996) and Arthur Weasley in seven of the "Harry Potter" films. He appeared in "Doctor Who" and "Red Dwarf". Since 2013, Williams has portrayed the title character in the long-running BBC series loosely based on the "Father Brown" short stories by G. K. Chesterton.
Early life.
Williams was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, and grew up in Sidemoor. He was educated at North Bromsgrove High School and then Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated in English in 1978.
Career.
Williams' acting work began in small-scale touring theatre, and he worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre.
Williams came to wider public attention in the 1990s through the BBC sketch comedy programme "The Fast Show", in which he was one of the central performers. He has said that for a while "people seemed to assume I was a comedian, which I've never been".
His most famous cinema role is as Arthur Weasley in the "Harry Potter" film series, making his first appearance in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" in 2002. Other high-profile appearances include the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and Claire Danes in 2007 and a 2012 role in "Doctor Who" as Brian Williams, father of the Doctor's companion, Rory.
Since 2013, he has appeared in the lead role in the BBC costume drama "Father Brown". Williams also featured in the first series of "Blandings", the BBC TV adaptation of the P. G. Wodehouse Blandings Castle stories, broadcast in 2013, in which he played Beach, the Emsworths' tipsy butler. Interviewed in 2014 by the "Lancashire Evening Post", when asked if some people still saw him as a comedy actor, Williams replied, "Well, it's only a few people in the BBC. In America, they see me as a major British character actor, but unfortunately, the BBC is pretty parochial and people are institutionalised here."
In 2014 and 2015, he presented the BBC daytime game show "The Link". The show ran for two series. His other film roles include "101 Dalmatians" and "The Borrowers", both with Hugh Laurie.
Williams has also presented several documentary programmes exploring industrial history which is his passion; "Mark Williams' Big Bangs" on the history of explosives, a follow-up to the previous series "Mark Williams on the Rails", "Industrial Revelations" and "More Industrial Revelations".
References.
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