Nigel Lindsay

Nigel Lindsay is an English actor born on 17 January 1969 in St John's Wood, who grew up in North West London. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, before studying English and French at the University of Birmingham. Following graduation, Lindsay spent three years working as a financial analyst specializing in French and Belgian equities at London stockbrokers Savory Milln and Swiss Bank Corporation. He subsequently won places at both bar school and drama school on the same day, choosing instead to pursue the two-year drama course at the Webber Douglas Academy, where he was awarded the Amherst Webber Scholarship. His finals production, in which he played the title role in Charley's Aunt, was directed by Michael Fry, who then cast him in his first professional engagement with the Lincolnshire touring company Great Eastern Stage.

Lindsay's early professional work was concentrated in theatre. Among his first London stage roles was the King of France in King Lear at the Royal Court Theatre, a production featuring Tom Wilkinson as Lear and Andy Serkis as the Fool. A Monday night poker game led to an invitation from Patrick Marber to participate in an improvisational workshop for a play Marber was developing about poker. That play became Dealer's Choice, which premiered at the National Theatre in February 1995 with Lindsay as Mugsy, alongside Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels. The production subsequently transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre and received the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild Award for Best Play.

Lindsay made his Broadway debut in 2000, appearing in The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard's play, which won three Tony Awards during its run. His stage work continued to accumulate significant credits in London and beyond. In 2004 he appeared as Ariel in the National Theatre production of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, directed alongside Jim Broadbent and David Tennant, a production that received an Olivier Award. He played Nathan Detroit twice in Michael Grandage's production of Guys and Dolls, first at the Piccadilly Theatre in 2005 and again at the Phoenix Theatre in 2015. At the Royal Court in 2010, he appeared as Charlie Maggs in Sucker Punch alongside Daniel Kaluuya.

Lindsay has appeared in five productions at the Almeida Theatre, including Lenny in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming in 2009, with Ken Cranham and Danny Dyer, and Moe Axelrod in Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing, opposite Stockard Channing and Jodie Whittaker, for which he received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 2008 Whatsonstage Awards. He won the Whatsonstage Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 2011 production of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre. In 2012, Lindsay received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance in the title role of Shrek the Musical during its original West End run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Later stage work includes playing Bolingbroke opposite David Tennant in the RSC production of Richard II at Stratford and the Barbican, and Jack McCracken in the National Theatre revival of Alan Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business in the Olivier theatre. He appeared as Charlie Fox opposite Lindsay Lohan and Richard Schiff in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. In 2021, Lindsay made his debut at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, appearing in Brian Friel's Faith Healer alongside Niamh Cusack and Aidan Gillen. In 2023, he played Henry Lehman in a seventeen-week, sold-out revival of The Lehman Trilogy at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London's West End, directed by Sam Mendes.

On screen, Lindsay is recognized for playing Sir Robert Peel in the first two seasons of the television series Victoria, Jo Jo Marshall in the Netflix series Safe, and Barry in Chris Morris's film Four Lions, for which he received a nomination for Best British Comedy Performance in Film at the 2011 British Comedy Awards. His television credits include appearances in Unforgotten, Spooks, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, Poirot, New Tricks, and Inspector George Gently. He played Odo Stevens in the 1997 Channel 4 adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time and appeared as the Jewish terrorist Levi in Rome and as Lt Col Mervyn Gonin in the BAFTA-nominated The Relief of Belsen. Film credits include the role of Ewan McGregor's boss Ron Baker in Rogue Trader. Lindsay has collaborated with Steve Coogan across several projects, including I'm Alan Partridge, Mid-Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, and with Armando Iannucci on The Armando Iannucci Shows. He appeared in two series of Jennifer Saunders's Jam and Jerusalem and worked again with Chris Morris on Brass Eye. More recently, he played Tony Walsh across two series of the BBC comedy White Gold.