Richard McCabe

Richard McCabe, born William McCabe on 18 August 1960 in Glasgow, Scotland, is a Scottish actor whose career has centered on classical theatre. He is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom he has built an extensive body of work spanning comic and dramatic roles alike.

McCabe first drew significant attention at the RSC in 1989, when he played Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that featured punk fairies and a scrapyard set. He continued with the company in a range of distinctive roles, including Autolycus in the 1992–93 production of The Winter's Tale, in which he made his Act III entrance suspended from a cluster of large balloons; that performance earned him an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1994. In 1993–94, he originated the role of Christopher Marlowe in Peter Whelan's School of Night, a new play commissioned by the RSC to mark the 400th anniversary of Marlowe's death. Further major RSC credits included Iago opposite Ray Fearon in Michael Attenborough's 1999–2000 production of Othello at the RST and Barbican, Flamineo in Gale Edwards's 1996–97 production of John Webster's The White Devil at the Swan and The Pit, and the title role in Josie O'Rourke's 2006 production of King John at the Swan. McCabe also played Hamlet across three years from 1999 to 2001 in Birmingham Rep's production directed by Bill Alexander, which included a performance at the Hamlet Festival at Elsinore Castle in Denmark in 2001. He returned to the RSC in 2017–18 to play Cicero in the Imperium cycle of plays.

McCabe has maintained a long association with Chichester Festival Theatre, where his credits have included the title role in Molière's Scapino or The Trickster, directed by Silviu Purcarete in 2005. In 2010, he appeared in a double bill at the Minerva Theatre comprising Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, in which he played Moon, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Critic, in which he played Mr. Puff. That same year he played Jonson in Edward Bond's Bingo, a production that subsequently transferred to the Young Vic. In 2011, McCabe took on the role of Jim Hacker in a nationwide tour of Yes, Prime Minister, which transferred to both the Apollo and Gielgud theatres in London. He also played Tropachov in Fortune's Fool by Turgenev at the Old Vic. In September and October 2012, he played an older Romeo opposite Kathryn Hunter's Juliet in Helena Kaut-Hausen's production of Ben Power's adaptation Romeo and Juliet, titled A Tender Thing. The 2022 English National Opera production of The Yeomen of the Guard at the London Coliseum featured McCabe as Jack Point.

The role that brought McCabe his widest recognition was Prime Minister Harold Wilson in Peter Morgan's The Audience. His performance in the original production at the Gielgud Theatre earned him the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2013 Olivier Awards. When the production transferred to Broadway in 2015, starring Dame Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, McCabe repeated his performance and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play at the 69th Tony Awards on 7 June 2015. He additionally received the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for the same role.

On screen, McCabe has appeared in a range of film and television productions. His film credits include Notting Hill, Persuasion, Master and Commander, The Constant Gardener, The Duchess, Vanity Fair, The Invisible Woman, Eye in the Sky, Mindhorn, Cinderella, Nightwatching, and the 2017 Bollywood film Rangoon, in which he played Major General David Harding. His television work includes all four series of Wallander, Poldark, Peaky Blinders, Indian Summers, The Best of Men, and Julian Fellowes's ITV adaptation of Anthony Trollope's Doctor Thorne, in which he played Frank Gresham Senior, owner of Greshamsbury Park.