Martin Jarvis

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Martin Jarvis OBE (born August 4, 1941 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England) is an English actor. He has made many recordings of audio books. As a result of this and other work he is often heard on BBC Radio 4, a fact satirised by the radio show Dead Ringers.

Jarvis first became a familiar face on television when he played Jon in the BBC's landmark 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga. Shortly afterwards, he played the lead in a BBC serialisation of Nicholas Nickleby. He was the male lead in the short-lived British sitcom, Rings on their Fingers during the 1970s, but has more often appeared in dramas.

He has made several guest appearances in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who including the serial Vengeance on Varos (1985), as the beleaguered governor of the planet Varos. He has also appeared in Jubilee, a Doctor Who spin off audio drama by Big Finish Productions alongside his wife, Rosalind Ayres.

An associate of RADA, he has also published a book of memoirs titled Acting Strangely.

Jarvis has two children with Ayres; they also run their own radio production company, Jarvis & Ayres Productions. In 2000, he was honoured with an OBE. In 2002, he played the voice of Nergal in Son of Nergal / Sister Grim / Go Kart 3000!, the 20th episode of Billy and Mandy. In 2005, he guest voiced as William, Monroe's father on The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and in August started filming Framed in Oxford.

He recently starred alongside Diana Rigg and Natascha McElhone in Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour at London's Wyndham's Theatre until May 2006.