Bertie Carvel

Background

Carvel was born in Marylebone, London, the son of a psychologist mother and John Carvel, a journalist. Carvel was educated at University College School. He gained a first class honours degree in English at the University of Sussex, then won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (his acting training was paid for via scholarships from The Wall Trust and the Sir John Cass Foundation), graduating in 2003 after a three-year course.

Carvel is a Patron of the Globe Theatre's education department's 'Playing Shakespeare' programme, which provides free educational resources and free theatre tickets to secondary school students. In 2013 he ran for and was elected to Equity's 11-person Stage Committee. He was re-elected for a further two-year term in 2015.

Theatre

Carvel has appeared in Revelations at the Hampstead Theatre, Rose Bernd at the Arcola Theatre, as Alexander Ashbrook in the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 Royal National Theatre productions of Helen Edmundson's Coram Boy, in The Life of Galileo at the National Theatre, The Man of Mode at the National Theatre, Parade at the Donmar Warehouse and Matilda the Musical at the Cambridge Theatre, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Carvel was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in Parade in 2008. He won the award in 2012 for his performance as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical, a production that won six other Oliviers. Carvel also won the UK's TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical and was similarly nominated for the London's Evening Standard Award. He played Enrico in Damned By Despair at the National Theatre.

In March 2013, he reprised his role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre. This won him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and a nomination for Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, one of only a handful of nominations for an actor portraying a character of the opposite sex.

From August to October 2015, Carvel played both Pentheus and Agave in Bakkhai at the Almeida Theatre. Carvel also performed as Yank in the play The Hairy Ape at the Old Vic in November of the same year.

In February 2016, Carvel announced his directorial debut. He directed the play Strife at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, which opened in August 2016.

Roles in other media

Carvel has appeared in several other film, TV and theatre roles, including The Wrong Mans, Babylon, Doctor Who (episode "The Lazarus Experiment"), Sherlock (episode "The Blind Banker"), Bombshell, Hawking, The Crimson Petal and the White, Money and Midsomer Murders (episode "The Great and the Good"). He played Lord Carmarthen in John Adams. In the television film Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, he played Christie's second husband Max Mallowan. Carvel appeared as Bamatabois in the film Les Misérables, based on the musical of the same name. Carvel is also the voice of the male Imperial Agent in the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In 2015, Carvel starred as Jonathan Strange in the BBC One adaptation of Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, opposite Eddie Marsan as Gilbert Norrell. He played Nick Clegg in the Channel 4 drama Coalition and in September appeared as the unfaithful husband of Suranne Jones's title character in the BBC One thriller series Doctor Foster. The second series of Doctor Foster started filming in September 2016 and started broadcast in September 2017.

In 2016 Carvel narrated the BBC documentary Koko:The Gorilla Who Talks To People, which was directed and filmed by Jonathan Taylor.