Robert Guy Bathurst (born February 1957) is a Ghanaian-born British actor.
Early life Robert Guy Bathurst was born in Accra, Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), in February 1957 to Philip Charles Metcalfe Bathurst, a descendant of politician Charles Bathurst and kinsman of the Earls Bathurst and Viscounts Bledisloe,Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage 2003, vol. 1, p. 398Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage 1931, p. 534 and his wife Gillian ( Debenham). His father was a major in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was working in West Africa as a management consultant. His mother was a physiotherapist.Hagan, Angela (2 December 2000). "Why I'd never let my girls watch Cold Feet", The Mirror (MGN): pp. 4–5.Dalglish, Darren (7 March 2011). "Questions and Answers with... Robert Bathurst". London Theatre Guide. Retrieved 19 March 2011. They had two other children, Nicholas and Charlotte. The family lived in Ghana until 1959, when they moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland. Bathurst and his brother attended two schools in Dublin – the Holy Child School in Killiney and a school in Ballsbridge – before being sent to Headfort, a preparatory school in Kells, County Meath. He compared the time he and his brother, who were Catholics, spent at the Anglican boarding school to Lord of the Flies; "we were incarcerated in a huge, stinking, Georgian house, where we were treated very brutally".
In 1966, the family moved to England and Bathurst was sent to board at Worth School in Sussex. At the age of 13, he began acting in minor skits and revues and read old copies of Plays and Players magazine, "studying floor plans of theatres and reading about new theatres being built". He had first become interested in acting when his family saw a pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and he watched actors waiting for their cues in the wings.Smurthwaite, Nick (11 October 2006). "Filling in the blanks", The Stage: p. 35.
Aged 18, Bathurst left school to read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge."Register of Alumni/ae: Surnames beginning with BA". Pembroke College website. Retrieved 3 August 2009. He spent much of his time there performing in the Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie, Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson. From 1977 to 1978, he was the secretary of the group and, from 1978 to 1979, he was the president. Among the Footlights Revues in which he participated were Stage Fright in 1978, which he also co-wrote and Nightcap in 1979."1970 ". Footlights website. Retrieved 29 June 2009. He also directed and appeared in the Footlights pantomime Aladdin as Widow Twankey during the 1978–79 season.Staff (18 January 1979). "Aladdin". The Stage and Television Today: p. 15. He took the Bar Vocational Course at the University of Law, in London, which allowed him to go on to become a practising barrister, but stuck to acting instead.
Acting career Early career After leaving Cambridge, Bathurst spent a year touring Australia in the Footlights Revue Botham, The Musical, which he described as "a bunch of callow youths flying round doing press conferences and chat shows".Selway, Jennifer (28 March 2003). "The Jennifer Selway Interview: Robert Bathurst". The Express (Express Newspapers): pp. 30–31. Although he enjoyed his work with Footlights, he did not continue performing with the group, worrying that he would be "washed up at 35 having coat-tailed on their success through the early part of [his] career". After leaving, he found that he was considered a dilettante, which resulted in it taking him longer than expected to be accepted as a serious actor. His first professional role out of university was in the BBC Radio 4 series Injury Time, alongside fellow Footlights performers Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson.Robins, Craig (October 2004). "In conversation with Robert Bathurst: Part 1, 2, 3, 4". JokingApart.co.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2007. His first role for television came in 1982, when he appeared as Prince Henry in the pilot episode of Blackadder. He had already appeared in a training video by director Geoff Posner and got the role of Henry by way of thanks. The character was recast and downgraded when the series was commissioned as The Black Adder.
Bathurst's professional stage debut came the next year when he joined the second cast of Michael Frayn's Noises Off at the Savoy Theatre. He replaced Roger Lloyd-Pack as Tim Allgood and stayed at the Savoy for a year. Between roles, he worked as a television presenter for BBC East. After declining an offer to be a presenter of That's Life! he joined the National Theatre in 1984, where he appeared as a background actor in Saint Joan.Sturges, Fiona (30 November 2001). "Robert Bathurst: Thingy out of Cold Feet". The Independent (Independent News & Media). He regards it as "the most demoralising" job he has ever had but was grateful for the theatre experience it gave him.Multiple contributors (3 November 2003). "Our chat with Cold Feet ". This is London (Associated Newspapers). Retrieved 16 September 2007. "Bathurst's cure for cold feet". Edinburgh Evening News (The Scotsman Publications): p. 18. The following year, he appeared at The Man in the Moon, a pub theatre in Chelsea, in Judgement, a two-hour monologue on cannibalism. The opening night audience was made up of three people but after good reviews in the national press the audience grew to an average of fifteen.
A casting director for the James Bond film The Living Daylights persuaded Bathurst to audition for Bond. Bathurst believes that his "ludicrous audition" was only "an arm-twisting exercise" because the producers wanted to pressure Timothy Dalton to take the role by telling him they were still auditioning other actors. Bathurst noted "I could never have done it – Bond actors are always very different from me".
He continued to make minor appearances in television throughout the 1980s; in 1987, he auditioned for the role of Dave Lister in the BBC North science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. The part eventually went to Craig Charles but Bathurst was given a role in the first episode of the first series as Frank Todhunter, second officer on the ship, who is killed in the first ten minutes. Ten years later, Bathurst was invited to reprise the role when a storyline in the series allowed former characters to return, but filming commitments prevented him from appearing.Ellard, Andrew (25 June 2001). "Talented Todhunter ". reddwarf.co.uk. Retrieved 30 March 2008. In 1989, he appeared in Malcolm Bradbury's Anything More Would Be Greedy for Anglia Television, playing Dennis Medlam, MP. The programme was broadcast in 1990 to little fanfare. In 1990, he performed on Up Yer News, a live topical programme broadcast on BSB.
Joking Apart While working on Up Yer News, Bathurst auditioned for a one-off television comedy called Joking Apart. Earlier in the day, he noticed a fellow Up Yer News performer reading the script to prepare for his own audition. As Bathurst went into the audition room, his colleague was leaving and told Bathurst he would "break his legs" if he got the part, a threat that seemed not to be "entirely jocular". Bathurst got the part and the pilot of Joking Apart was broadcast as an installment of the BBC Two Comic Asides strand. It returned for two series in 1993 and 1995. Bathurst appeared as sitcom writer Mark Taylor in the series. After the first series was broadcast, a critic called Bathurst the "Best Comedy Newcomer of 1993".
The show was punctuated by fantasy sequences in which his character performed his thoughts as a stand-up routine in a small club. In the commentary and the interview on the DVD, Bathurst says that he was told that they would be re-shot after filming everything else, an idea abandoned because of the expense. He has an idea of re-filming the sequences 'now', as his older self, to give them a more retrospective feeling.Bathurst, Robert; Steven Moffat. (2008). Joking Apart DVD commentary for Series 2, Episode 4. [DVD]. Replay DVD. He has also said that he believes Mark was too "designery" and wishes that he had "roughened him up a bit".Rai, Bindu (4 October 2008). "Bathurst toons in to finance ". Emirates Business 24/7 (Arab Media Group). Retrieved 4 October 2008. The role is his favourite of his whole career; he has described it as "the most enjoyable job I will ever do" and considers several episodes of the series to be "timeless, beautifully constructed farces which will endure". Bathurst is often recognised for his appearance in this series, mentioning that "Drunks stop me on public transport and tell me details of the plot of their favourite episode".Keal, Graham (30 January 2005). "New role suits Cold Feet star ". The Sunday Sun (ncjMedia). As punishment for arriving late for the series one press launch at the Café Royal in Regent Street, London, writer Steven Moffat pledged to write an episode in which Mark is naked throughout. To a large extent, this vow is realised in the second series.
Between 1991 and 1995, Bathurst also appeared on television in No Job for a Lady, The House of Eliott and The Detectives and on stage in The Choice, George Bernard Shaw's Getting Married at Chichester with Dorothy Tutin and Gogol's The Nose adapted by Alastair Beaton, which played in Nottingham and Bucharest. He also filmed a role in The Wind in the Willows (Terry Jones, 1996) as St John Weasel.
Wider recognition In 1996, while appearing in The Rover at the Salisbury Playhouse, Bathurst got an audition for the Granada Television comedy pilot Cold Feet. He arrived for the audition "bearded and shaggy", on account of his role in the play, and did not expect to win the role of upper-middle class management consultant David Marsden.Smith, Rupert (2003). Cold Feet: The Complete Companion. London: Granada Media. pp. 115–116. . The role in the pilot was only minor and created at the last minute to support characters played by James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale; the only character note in the script about David related to his high salary. Bathurst identified the character as merely a "post-Thatcherite whipping boy".
Bathurst reprised the role in the Cold Feet series, which ran for five years from 1998 to 2003. He described the character of David as an "emotional cripple", originally with little depth.McCaffrey, Julie (22 February 2003). "Bathurst's cure for cold feet". Edinburgh Evening News (The Scotsman Publications): p. 18. The third series features an affair between David and a political activist played by Yasmin Bannerman. Bathurst appreciated the opportunity to bring some depth to a previously one-dimensional character, but was more impressed with the storylines that came out of the affair, rather than the affair itself: "It was the deception, the guilt and the recrimination rather than the actual affair, which was neither interesting nor remarkable". Like other cast members, Bathurst was able to suggest storylines as the series went on; one episode features David celebrating his fortieth birthday and Bathurst suggested the character could get a Harley-Davidson motorbike. Granada paid for him to take motorcycle lessons and a test. On the day before taking his test, the filming of a scene where David takes off on his new bike was scheduled. Bathurst "wobbled, missed the camera and crashed into the pavement", leading director Simon Delaney to exclaim it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. In another episode, David buys a racehorse – ostensibly as a birthday present for his wife – in a plot born out of Bathurst's own love of horseracing. The role made him more widely recognisable and he often received prospective scripts that were "obvious rewrites of the character". He turned them down, preferring to play a "good person", which would be more interesting from a dramatic point of view.