Mark Wing-Davey | |
---|---|
Born | [1] London, England | 30 November 1948
Education | Woolverstone Hall School |
Alma mater | Cambridge University |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1974–2013 |
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Mother | Anna Wing |
Mark Wing-Davey (born 30 November 1948) is a British actor and director. He portrayed Zaphod Beeblebrox in the radio and television versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy .
The son of actor Peter Davey and actress Anna Wing, [2] Wing-Davey attended Woolverstone Hall School in Suffolk before studying English at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Footlights between 1967 and 1970. [3] [4]
He had a featured role in the 1976 miniseries The Glittering Prizes . [5] This role was later cited by Geoffrey Perkins [6] as the likely reason for his being cast in arguably his most memorable role, that of the two-headed Galactic President, Zaphod Beeblebrox, in the radio and TV versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , written by Douglas Adams. He played a barrister in some episodes of the ITV television series Crown Court , King Henry V in Episode 3 of James Burke's Connections , [7] a record company executive in the film Breaking Glass (1980) and an accountant in Absolutely Fabulous . [8]
In the 1983 television production of Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad , Wing-Davey played Prince Hamlet in the re-enactment of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre's 1958 tour of Hamlet to Moscow. [9] His theatre credits include James Stock's Star-Gazy Pie and Sauerkraut (Royal Court Theatre, 1995) and Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest , for which he won an Obie award. [10] He was the first Artistic Director of The Actors Centre, London.[ citation needed ]
In 2003, he returned to the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox for the Above the Title production of the Hitchhiker's Guide Tertiary to Quintessential Phase radio dramas for BBC Radio 4. More recently he has provided the voice of Judge Ghis in the English version of Final Fantasy XII . [11] Wing-Davey directed the off-Broadway production of Unconditional by Brett C. Leonard at The Public Theater. It was put up by Philip Seymour Hoffman's theater group, LAByrinth Theater Company, of which he is a member. It opened in February 2008.[ citation needed ]
In May 2008, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts announced that Wing-Davey had been named Chairman of, and arts professor in, the School's Graduate Acting Program. [12] He reprised the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in 2012 for a live tour of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . Also in 2012, Wing-Davey directed the world premiere of Brett C. Leonard's "Ninth and Joanie" in a LAByrinth Theater Company production.[ citation needed ] In 2013, he directed William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.[ citation needed ]
In 1973, while working as a theatre company member in Sheffield, he met actress Anita Carey. The two began living together the following year after they appeared in a production together. They got married in 2002. The pair had two children together. Carey died in 2023. [13]
Slartibartfast is a character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy/science fiction series created by Douglas Adams. The character appears in the first and third novels, the first and third radio series, the 1981 television series, and the 2005 feature film. The character was modelled after actor John Le Mesurier.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was later adapted to other formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text adventure game, and 2005 feature film.
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. His role as Arthur Dent's friend – and rescuer, when the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass at the start of the story – is often expository, as Ford is an experienced galactic hitchhiker and explains that he is actually an alien journalist, a field researcher for the titular Guide itself, and not an out-of-work actor from Guildford as he had claimed.
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold. Originally built as one of many failed prototypes of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's GPP technology, Marvin is afflicted with severe depression and boredom, in part because he has a "brain the size of a planet" which he is seldom, if ever, given the chance to use. Instead, the crew request him merely to carry out mundane jobs such as "opening the door". Indeed, the true horror of Marvin's existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect. Marvin claims he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human, though this is, if anything, an underestimation. When kidnapped by the bellicose Krikkit robots and tied to the interfaces of their intelligent war computer, Marvin simultaneously manages to plan the entire planet's military strategy, solve "all of the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe, except his own, three times over", and compose several lullabies.
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Tricia Marie McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the movie version, her middle name is Marie. Physically, she is described as "a slim, darkish humanoid, with long waves of black hair, a full mouth, an odd little knob of a nose and ridiculously brown eyes," looking "vaguely Arabic."
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction comedy "trilogy" by Douglas Adams. It was originally published by Pan Books as a paperback in 1980. Like the preceding novel, it was adapted from Adams' radio series, and became a critically acclaimed cult classic.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction video game based on the comedic science fiction series of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and it was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Mac, Commodore 64, CP/M, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. It is Infocom's fourteenth game.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy of five books" by Douglas Adams, with a sixth book written by Eoin Colfer. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name, centering on the adventures of the only man to survive the destruction of Earth; while roaming outer space, he comes to learn the truth behind Earth's existence. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979. It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 science fiction comedy film directed by Garth Jennings, based upon the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series created by Douglas Adams. It stars Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Nighy, Anna Chancellor, John Malkovich, and the voices of Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren, Thomas Lennon, Richard Griffiths, Ian McNeice, Bill Bailey and Alan Rickman. Adams co-wrote the screenplay with Karey Kirkpatrick but died in 2001, before production began; the film is dedicated to Adams. The film received mainly positive reviews and grossed over $100 million worldwide.
Sam Rockwell is an American actor. He is known for playing distressed police officer Jason Dixon in Martin McDonagh’s crime drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated in the same category the following year for portraying George W. Bush in Adam McKay's political satire Vice (2018). In 2019, he portrayed Bob Fosse in the FX biographical miniseries Fosse/Verdon, earning a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award, and in 2022, he received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo.
Anna Wing was an English actress who had a long career in television and theatre, known for portraying the role of Beale family matriarch Lou Beale in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series primarily written by Douglas Adams. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the US and CBC Radio in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which aired between 5 January and 9 February 1981 on BBC2 in the United Kingdom. The adaptation follows the original radio series in 1978 and 1980, the first novel and double LP, in 1979, and the stage shows, in 1979 and 1980, making it the fifth iteration of the guide.
The terms Primary Phase and Secondary Phase describe the first two radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast in 1978. These were the first incarnations of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise. Both were written by Douglas Adams and consist of six episodes each.
The Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase, Quintessential Phase and Hexagonal Phase are respectively the third, fourth, fifth and sixth series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series. Produced in 2003, 2004 and 2018 by Above the Title Productions for BBC Radio 4, they are radio adaptations of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth books in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: Life, the Universe and Everything; So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish; Mostly Harmless and And Another Thing....
Anita Eileen Carey was an English actress. She appeared in British television programmes from the 1970s, with her first notable appearances including roles in Beryl's Lot, The History of Mr. Polly and The Spoils of War. She then played Joyce Smedley in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street from 1996 to 1997. After further appearances in various series, she joined the cast of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Vivien March in 2007. She stayed in the role for two years, during which her character was involved in a rape scene that won her the British Soap Award for Best Dramatic Performance in 2009.
Richard Percy Herbert Goolden, OBE was a British actor, most famous for his portrayal of Mole from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 children's book The Wind in the Willows in A A Milne's 1929 stage adaptation, Toad of Toad Hall.