Jonathan Rigby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Rigby is an English film critic and actor who has written a regular page, "The Fright of Your Life", in Shivers magazine since 1999. He is also the author of the following books: English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema (2000, third edition 2004), Christopher Lee: The Authorised Screen History (2001, revised 2003), Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning (2005, revised 2008) and American Gothic: Sixty Years of Horror Cinema (2007). Rigby has been described in Video Watchdog magazine as occupying 'a proud place in the advance guard of film researchers, writers and critics,' and in the foreword to American Gothic he intimated that he is working on a sequel: American Gothic 2.
In his parallel career as an actor, Rigby appeared in the West End stage show Round the Horne... Revisited, playing Kenneth Horne throughout its eighteen-month run (2003-5); the production also led to a BBC Four film and an appearance at the 2004 Royal Variety Performance. Other roles include Rochester in Jane Eyre, Byron in Bloody Poetry, Judge Brack in Hedda Gabler and Higgins in Pygmalion. His work at the Edinburgh Festival is discussed, under the heading 'Jonathan Rigby, Shakespeare Liberator', in Owen Dudley Edwards' 1991 book City of a Thousand Worlds, and his stage adaptation of Dracula toured during 1997, the original novel's centenary year.
He has also contributed commentaries to the Region 2 DVD releases of The House that Dripped Blood (with its director Peter Duffell), Prey (with Norman J Warren), Death Ship (with Alvin Rakoff), plus The Comeback, House of Mortal Sin and Die Screaming, Marianne (all with Pete Walker). He has also appeared in person on the DVD releases of Night of the Demon, the League of Gentlemen's Christmas Special (in a featurette entitled 'Tales from Behind the Crypt'), two Doctor Who stories (The Green Death and The Stones of Blood) and in the BBC2 series British Film Forever.
