Blake Ritson | |
|---|---|
 Blake Ritson at New York Comic-Con (2014) | |
| Born | Blake Adam Ritson 14 January 1978 London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, director |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Partner | Hattie Morahan |
| Children | 2 |
Blake Adam Ritson (born 14 January 1978) [1] is an English actor.
Ritson was born on 14 January 1978 in London and attended the Dolphin School in Reading, Berkshire until 1993, before going to St Paul's School in West London on an academic scholarship. He then attended Jesus College, Cambridge, [2] where he studied English and Medieval Italian, graduating in 2000. [3] While a student he acted on both stage and screen, [4] playing Paul Etheridge in White Chameleon, Fleance in Macbeth, and Augustus in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (1996) at the National Theatre in productions directed by Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn. [3]
Ritson is best known in recent years for playing King Edward III in the TV miniseries World Without End (2012), the Duke of Kent in Upstairs Downstairs (2010–2012), Mr Elton in the 2009 BBC adaptation of Emma, Edmund Bertram in the 2007 ITV adaptation of Mansfield Park, [5] Giles Vicary in the BBC series Red Cap and for portraying sidekick Robert Presley in A Touch of Frost . [6] He also played the part of Justin in The League of Gentlemen , Idek in God on Trial , and the comic lead in For Elsie , which he also co-produced. He also portrayed the main antagonist in David Goyer’s Da Vinci’s Demons (2013).
In 2013, Ritson appeared as Colonel Brandon in Helen Edmundson's BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility . [7] in 2020, he starred in the Big Finish reboot of cult adventure series Adam Adamant Lives! . [8] He had lent his voice to several other productions for the company.
In 2022, Ritson starred as Oscar Van Rijn in The Gilded Age on HBO.
Ritson writes and directs with his brother, Dylan. [9] The brothers first directed the short film Out of Time . Starring Mark Heap and Raquel Cassidy, the film won the Global Audience Award at the first CON-CAN Movie Festival [10] and was runner up at Minimalen and the Berlin Film Festival. It also screened at the London, São Paulo and Dresden film festivals. Their second short film, More More More, starring The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, was a runner-up in the Turner Classic Movies Competition. Their third film, shot in 2009, was entitled Love Hate, and starred Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell. It was chosen for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, London BFI Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Foyle, Omaha, Encounters, Berkshire International Film Festival, Sofia Film Fest (Bulgaria), Tofifest International Film Festival (Poland), West Hollywood International, LA Shorts Fest and Short Shorts Film Festival (Japan). It won the Jury Award at Palm Springs International Shortsfest and won the Best International Short award at Cinema St. Louis Film Festival.
The Ritson brothers have also shot a fourth short film, Good Boy, starring Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson), Reece Shearsmith, Nicholas Burns, Joanna Page and Blake Ritson's fiancée Hattie Morahan. [11] The Ritson Brothers were selected for the front cover of Screen International's Stars of Tomorrow 2009.
Ritson is engaged to actress Hattie Morahan, whom he met at Cambridge University. They have a daughter, Amity, born in August 2016 and a son born in 2020, and are living in North London. Ritson is the brother of Dylan Ritson, with whom he directs and writes.
Ritson played the banjolele on Douglas Hodge's 2006 album Cowley Road Songs, [12] which was recorded in four days at the Blue Moon Studios in Banbury. He describes the banjolele as "a hybrid instrument between a ukulele and a banjo; teamed up with the gazoo it’s a winning combination." [3]
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Different for Girls | Young Prentice | |
| 1999 | Titus | Mutius | |
| 2001 | Me Without You | Tim | |
| 2002 | AKA | Alexander Gryffoyn | |
| 2008 | RocknRolla | Johnny Sloane | |
| 2009 | Dead Man Running | Jarvis | |
| 2011 | For Elsie | Glenn | Short film |
| 2012 | Hyde Park on Hudson | Butler | |
| 2014 | Serena | Lowenstein | |
| 2021 | Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard | Gunther | |
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | No Bananas | Pete | Episode: "Blitz" |
| Breaking the Code | Christopher Morcom | Television film | |
| 1997–1998 | Knight School | Sir Roger de Courcey | 3 episodes |
| 1999 | Shooting the Past | Nick | 3 episodes |
| 2000 | The League of Gentlemen | Justin Smart | 2 episodes |
| 2001 | London's Burning | Dermot | 2 episodes |
| Urban Gothic | Dave Matthews | Episode: "The End" | |
| Red Cap | Lt. Giles Vicary | Television film | |
| 2003 | Adventure Inc. | Byron Haycroft | Episode: "Angel of St. Edmunds" |
| 2003–2004 | Red Cap | Giles Vicary | 12 episodes |
| 2005 | If... | Ben Swales | Episode: "If...We Stopped Giving Aid to Africa" |
| Strauss: The Waltz King | Older Johann Strauss II | Television film | |
| The Bill | Gavin Murray | Episode: "Honour" | |
| 2006 | Casualty | Daniel Tasker | Episode: "Worlds Apart" |
| The Inspector Lynley Mysteries | Graham Marshall | Episode: "Chinese Walls" | |
| A Touch of Frost | D.C. Robert Presley | Episode: "Endangered Species" | |
| 2007 | Mansfield Park | Edmund Bertram | Television film |
| The Commander: The Devil You Know | John Littlewood | Television film | |
| 2008 | God on Trial | Idek | Television film |
| 2009 | Emma | Mr. Elton | 4 episodes |
| 2010–2012 | Upstairs Downstairs | The Duke of Kent | 8 episodes |
| 2011 | The Crimson Petal and the White | Bodley | 3 episodes |
| The Romantics | Percy Bysshe Shelley | Episode: "Eternity | |
| Doctor Who: The Lost Stories | Instructor Shibac (voice) | Episode: "The Foe from the Future" | |
| Garrow's Law | Charles Fox | Episode #3.4 | |
| 2012 | World Without End | King Edward III | 8 episodes |
| 2013–2015 | Da Vinci's Demons | Girolamo Riario | 26 episodes |
| 2015 | The Embrace | Dan | 5 episodes |
| 2016 | Indian Summers | Charlie Havistock | 10 episodes |
| Hooten & the Lady | Yannaras | Episode: "Egypt" | |
| 2018–2019 | Krypton | Brainiac | 20 episodes |
| 2019 | Endeavour | Gabriel Van Horne | Episode: "Apollo" |
| 2022–2023 | The Gilded Age | Oscar Van Rhijn | 17 episodes |
| The Crown | Andrew Gailey | 4 episodes | |
| 2024 | The Count of Monte Cristo | Danglars | Episode #1.1 |
| Interview with the Vampire | Morgan Ward | Episode: "What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned" | |
| Year | Association | Category | Project | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series | The Gilded Age | Pending | [13] |
Adam Adamant Lives! is a British adventure television series that ran from 1966 to 1967 on BBC 1, starring Gerald Harper in the title role. The series was created and produced by several alumni from Doctor Who. The titular character was an adventurer born in 1867, who had been revived from hibernation in 1966, thus offering a satirical look at life in the 1960s through the eyes of a Victorian. In 2020, Big Finish Productions reimagined the series as an audio drama.
Timothy Lancaster West CBE is an English actor and presenter. He has appeared frequently on stage and television, including stints in both Coronation Street and EastEnders, and Not Going Out, as the original Geoffrey Adams. He is married to the actress Prunella Scales; from 2014 to 2019, they travelled together on UK and overseas canals in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.
Glyn Maxwell is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer.
Iain Alan Sutherland Glen is a Scottish actor. He has appeared as Dr. Alexander Isaacs/Tyrant in three films of the Resident Evil film series (2004–2016) and as Jorah Mormont in the HBO fantasy television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). Other notable film and television roles include John Hanning Speke in Mountains of the Moon (1990), Larry Winters in Silent Scream (1990) for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival, Manfred Powell in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Brother John in Song for a Raggy Boy (2003), the title role in Jack Taylor (2010–2016), Sir Richard Carlisle in Downton Abbey (2011), James Willett in Eye in the Sky (2015), and Bruce Wayne in Titans (2019–2021).
Eddie Robson is a British writer and novelist best known for his sitcom Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully and his work on a variety of spin-offs from the BBC Television series Doctor Who. He has written books, comics, short stories, and for television and theatre, and has worked as a freelance journalist for various science fiction magazines. He is married and lives in Lancaster.
Jeffery Kissoon is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner. He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.
Dominic Muldowney is a British composer.
Anna Carteret is a British stage and screen actress.
Joanna McCallum is an English theatre, film and television actress.
Harriet Jane Morahan is an English actress. Her roles include Sister Clara in The Golden Compass (2007), Gale Benson in The Bank Job (2008), Alice in The Bletchley Circle (2012–2014), Ann in Mr. Holmes (2015), Rose Coyne in My Mother and Other Strangers (2016), Agathe/The Enchantress in Beauty and the Beast (2017), and as a voice actress, Doctor Who companion Helen Sinclair for Big Finish Productions.
Travis Oliver is a British actor. He is possibly best known for his role as Oliver Ryan in the ITV series Footballers' Wives: Extra Time between 2005 and 2006. He's also made appearances in BBC's Doctor Who (2007) and the film Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009).
Christopher Thomas Morahan CBE was a British stage and television director and production executive.
Isabelle Caroline van Randwyck Hall known as Issy van Randwyck is a Dutch singer and actress. She is a former member of British comedy singing group and satirical cabaret act Fascinating Aïda.
Mike Southon BSC is a British cinematographer. He is a past President of the British Society of Cinematographers. As well as films, he has shot more than 250 music videos and 200 television commercials.
Plantagenet is a three-series sequence of BBC Radio 4 radio plays by the British dramatist Mike Walker, broadcast in the Classic Serial strand, based on the account of the Plantagenet dynasty in Holinshed's Chronicles. Each series consisted of three weekly episodes, the first premiering from 14 February 2010, the second from 29 May 2011 and the third from 1 April 2012.
Anita Louise Combe is an Australian actress, singer, dancer who has worked extensively in the entertainment industry all around the world. Combe attended the Gwen Mackay School of Dancing and trained in the Cechetti method of ballet with Jennifer Pollard in Adelaide, South Australia before making her first professional appearance on stage as Sillabub in the Australian Premiere Production of Cats at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. She is one of the few people in the world to date who has played both roles of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly in the production of Chicago in the West End. Anita created the role of Stephanie Mangano in the World Premiere Production of Saturday Night Fever opposite fellow Australian, Adam Garcia and produced by Adelaide born, Robert Stigwood.
Robert Hudson is a British novelist and comedy writer who has written journalism, particularly on sport and digital media, for many UK newspapers.
Sense and Sensibility is a 2008 British television drama adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies, who revealed that the aim of the series was to make viewers forget Ang Lee's 1995 film Sense and Sensibility. The series was "more overtly sexual" than previous Austen adaptations, and Davies included scenes featuring a seduction and a duel that were absent from the feature film but are suggested in Austen's book. Sense and Sensibility was directed by John Alexander and produced by Anne Pivcevic. Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield starred as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two sisters who go on "a voyage of burgeoning sexual and romantic discovery".
David Hargreaves is an English actor, active on stage and screen, as well as radio drama, he is best known for his television drama roles in the 1970s and 1980s set in the north of England, and as a presenter on BBC children's television of the same period.
Emma Handy is a British actress best known for her West End stage work and her role as DC Paula McIntyre in the ITV1 award-winning drama series Wire in the Blood in which she appeared for five series.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
