Jonathan Rigby

Jonathan Rigby (born 1963) is an English actor and film historian who has written the following books - English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema (2000), Christopher Lee: The Authorised Screen History (2001), Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning (2005), American Gothic: Sixty Years of Horror Cinema (2007), Studies in Terror: Landmarks of Horror Cinema (2011) and Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema (2016). An expanded version of English Gothic was issued in 2015 with a different subtitle, Classic Horror Cinema 1897-2015. He has been described in Video Watchdog magazine as occupying 'a proud place in the advance guard of film researchers, writers and critics.'

In his parallel career as an actor, Rigby played Kenneth Horne throughout the eighteen-month run of the West End hit Round the Horne ... Revisited (2003-05); the production was adapted for BBC Four and featured in the 2004 Royal Variety Performance. In 2008-09 he reprised the role in a new stage show called Round the Horne - Unseen and Uncut and in the BBC Radio special Twice Ken is Plenty.

Rigby's stage adaptation of Dracula toured during 1997, the original novel's centenary year, and in 2013-14 he directed a successful revival of the forgotten Sylvia Rayman play Women of Twilight. He is also an Associate Research Fellow of the Cinema and Television History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester, and has contributed audio and/or video commentaries to the DVD/Blu-ray releases of a number of horror films. In 2010 he was series consultant on the three-part BBC Four documentary A History of Horror, also making a brief appearance as Dracula in the opening episode; two years later he was programme consultant on the feature-length follow-up, Horror Europa.