Simon Treves
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Simon Treves | |
Simon Treves |
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Birth name | Frederick Simon Treves |
Born | June 19, 1957 Watford, London, England |
Spouse(s) | Mirela (née Kalicanin) |
Frederick Simon Treves MFA (born June 19, 1957 in Watford, England) is an English actor, director and writer. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
[edit] Biography
As an actor, he has played at many of the leading regional U.K. theatres, including Manchester Royal Exchange, Birmingham Rep, Edinburgh Royal Lyceum, Leicester Haymarket and Salisbury Playhouse. He made his debut with the RSC at Stratford in 1983, and returned in 1986 to play Joey Percival in Shaw's Misalliance at the Barbican, in a cast that included Brian Cox, Jane Lapotaire, Elizabeth Spriggs and Mick Ford. His association with Brian Cox continued in 1995 when Cox cast him as Buckingham in his production of Richard III at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. Another Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, cast him as Willy Nilly in his production of Under Milk Wood for the official opening of the AIR Studios at Lyndhurst Hall, Hampstead in 1992, in aid of The Prince's Trust. Hopkins then asked Simon to assist him on his film and theatre productions of August, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, relocated to North Wales. At the Orange Tree, Richmond he starred as schizophrenic Victorian artist Louis Wain in Jane Coles' Cat with Green Violin. He played De Brie in David Hirson's multi award-winning La Bête and Bassanes in John Ford's The Broken Heart, both at the Lyric Hammersmith. In 1999 Simon travelled to S.E. Asia to lead the Singapore Repertory Theatre company of M. Butterfly as Gallimard (a part originated in London ten years earlier by Anthony Hopkins).
On TV, Simon is probably best remembered as Harold 'Stinker' Pinker in three series of Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. His other TV appearances include Bodily Harm and Charles II: The Power and The Passion (both directed by Joe Wright), Soldier Soldier, The Lab, Boon and By the Sword Divided (as Charles II).
He has appeared in over one hundred radio productions for the BBC since his debut as Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim in 1985, and was a member of the Radio Drama Company from 1989 to 1991. In the early eighties he regularly voiced trails for one of the first UK breakfast TV channels, TV-am. Other voice-over work was for Channel 4's Right to Reply, BBC One and numerous radio, film and commercial companies. His is one of the voices on the computer game, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon.
His play Bitter with a Twist was produced by the Bristol Old Vic in 1999 and is published by Faber & Faber. Other commissions include two linked internet audio dramas - Ash and Gold, for totallyword.com; and an original short screenplay, Tweeny, commissioned by Brian Cox and Skreba Films, which was shortlisted by Channel 4 but ultimately failed to win funding. More recently he has adapted Jim Broadbent's A Sense of History for the stage and has devised and scripted Neither Here Nor There, a celebration of cult Scottish comic Chic Murray, for BBC Radio 2.
He was awarded an M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) in Theatre Directing from Birkbeck, University of London in 2005, and directed the stage premiere of the original one-act television version of Terry Johnson & Kate Lock's Tuesday's Child at Hampstead Theatre in 2005.
He married Mirela (née Kalicanin) in 2001 and lives in Buckinghamshire.
[edit] Trivia
His father is the actor Frederick Treves.
He is the great great nephew of Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet, the surgeon who treated Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.
As a child he appeared with his younger brother Patrick on the Christmas 1967 edition of children's TV favourite, Crackerjack.
He is a skilled cartoonist and his original desire was to go into animation.
He was in charge of Basil Brush's cabinet during the 1973/4 pantomime run of Cinderella at Wimbledon Theatre.