Michael Pennington

This article is about the actor Michael Pennington. For the comedian, see Johnny Vegas.

Michael Pennington
Born	7 June 1943 (1943-06-07) (age 68) Cambridge, England

Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington (born 7 June 1943) is a British director and actor who, together with director Michael Bogdanov, founded the English Shakespeare Company. Although primarily a stage actor, he is best known to wider audiences for his role as Moff Jerjerrod, ill-fated commanding officer of the Death Star in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Biography

Pennington was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Euphemia Willock (née Fyfe) and Vivian Maynard Cecil Pennington.^[1] Most of his career has been on stage in works such as Hamlet (RSC), Oedipus the King, The Entertainer, and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. In 1986, Pennington and director Michael Bogdanov together founded the English Shakespeare Company. As joint artistic director, he starred in the company's inaugural productions of The Henrys and, in 1987, the seven-play history cycle of The Wars of the Roses, which toured worldwide. He has directed plays including Twelfth Night at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in the United States. A notable TV appearance was on the television movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes in the late 1987. He appeared in the 2005 film Fragile, co-starring Calista Flockhart. He is the author of the book Are You There, Crocodile?^[2] which combines biographical material about the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov with a narration of Pennington's efforts to write a one-man play about Chekhov; the book also includes the full text of the play that resulted.

In April 2004 he became the second actor, after Harley Granville-Barker in 1925, to deliver the British Academy's annual Shakespeare lecture. The lecture was entitled Barnadine's Straw: The Devil in Shakespeare's Detail.^[3]

Selected stage credits

• Richard II (Earl of Salisbury), National Youth Theatre, Apollo Theatre, London, 9–19 August and 30 August - 2 September 1961
• Henry IV, Part 2 (Earl of Warwick), National Youth Theatre, Apollo Theatre, London, 22–29 August 1961
• Hamlet (title role), ADC Theatre, Cambridge, February 1964^[4]
• Love's Labour's Lost (Dumaine and understudying Berowne), Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1965
• Hamlet (Fortinbras), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1965
• The Judge by John Mortimer, Theatre Royal, Brighton and Cambridge Theatre, London, 1967
• Hamlet (Laertes), Round House, London, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York and Huntington Hartford Theatre, Los Angeles, 1969
• Three Sisters (Andrei), Cambridge Arts Theatre, 1971
• "Trelawny of the Wells (Ferdinand Gadd), Cambridge Arts Theatre, 1971
• "Savages" by Christopher Hampton (Crawshaw), Royal Court Theatre and Comedy Theatre, London, 1973
• Measure for Measure (Angelo), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974
• The Tempest (Ferdinand), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974
• Afore Night Come (Johnny Hobnails), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974
• Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio), RSC, Straford-upon-Avon, 1976 and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1977
• Troilus and Cressida (Hector), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1976 and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1977
• "King Lear" (Edgar), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon 1976 and Aldwych Theatre London 1977
• Destiny by David Edgar (Major Rolfe), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1976 and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1977
• The Way of the World (Mirabell), RSC, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1978
• Measure for Measure (the Duke), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1978 and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1979
• Love's Labour's Lost (Berowne), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1978 and Aldwych Theatre, London,
• Hippolytus (title role), RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon, 1978 and The Warehouse, London, 1979
• The White Guard (Shervinsky), RSC, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1979
• The Shadow of a Gunman (Donal Davoren), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1980 and The Warehouse, London, 1981
• Hamlet (title role), RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1980, Theatre Royal, Newcastle, 1981 and Aldwych Theatre, London, 1981
• Crime and Punishment (Raskolnikov), directed by Yuri Lyubimov, Lyric Hammersmith, London, 1983
• Strider, The Story of a Horse by Mark Rozovsky based on Kholstomer by Leo Tolstoy (title role), Cottesloe Theatre, London, 1984
• Venice Preserv'd (Jaffier), Lyttelton at the Royal National Theatre, London 1984
• Anton Chekhov, his one-man-play about Anton Chekhov (Anton Chekhov),^[5] Cottesloe Theatre, London, 1984
• Waste (Henry Trebell), directed by Peter Hall, Old Vic London 1997
• The Seagull (Trigorin), directed by Peter Hall, Old Vic London 1997
• The Provoked Wife (Sir John Brute), directed by Lindsay Posner, Old Vic London, 1997
• The Misanthrope (title role), directed by Peter Hall, Piccadilly Theatre London, 1998
• Filumena (Domenico), directed by Peter Hall, Piccadilly Theatre London 1998
• Gross Indecency (Oscar Wilde), directed by Moises Kaufman, Gielgud Theatre London 1999
• Timon of Athens (title role), directed by Gregory Doran, RSC Stratford and London 1999-2000
• John Gabriel Borkman (title role), English Touring Theatre, 2003
• The Madness of George III (title role) West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep 2003
• The Seagull (Dr Dorn), directed by Peter Stein, Edinburgh Festival 2003
• Sweet William (One man show about Shakespeare) London and international touring, 2007 on
• "Collaboration" by Ronald Harwood (Richard Strauss), Duchess Theatre London 2009
• "Taking Sides" by Ronald Harwood (Wilhelm Furtwangler), Duchess Theatre London 2009
• "The Master Builder" by Henrik Ibsen, (title role), Chichester Festival Theatre 2010
• "Love Is My Sin" directed by Peter Brook, International tour and Broadway 2010

Television

• War of the Roses (1965)
• Sat'day While Sunday (1967)
• Middlemarch (1968)
• The Witches of Pendle (1977)
• Cymbeline (1982)
• Freud (1984)
• Summer's Lease (1989)
• The Bill (2003)
• The Tudors (2008)

Films

• Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
• Degas and Pissarro Fall Out (1994)
• Fragile (2005)

Books

• Rossya: A Journey through Siberia (1977)
• Txèkhov - Un monòleg sobre la vida d'Anton Txèkhov (1989)(Catalan translation of Anton Chekhov) ISBN 84-297-2876-7
• Hamlet: A User's Guide (1996)
• Twelfth Night: A User's Guide (2000)
• Are You There Crocodile? Inventing Anton Chekhov (2003)
• A Pocket Guide to Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg (2004)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream: A User's Guide (2005)

References

1. ^ Michael Pennington Biography (1943-)
2. ^ Oberon Books, London, 2003
3. ^ Proceedings of the British Academy, vol 131, 2004 Lectures, pp 205-227
4. ^ Hamlet:A User's Guide, p 7
5. ^ Are You There Crocodile? Inventing Anton Chekhov

External links

• Michael Pennington at the Internet Movie Database
• Website dedicated to Michael Pennington

Persondata
Name	Pennington, Michael
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1943-06-07
Place of birth	Cambridge, England
Date of death
Place of death