Mark McGann
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (November 2007) |
Mark McGann (born 12 July 1961 in Liverpool) is an English actor, director and musician.
His three brothers — Paul, Joe and Stephen — are all professional actors.
Mark was the first of his family to become a professional actor in 1981 portraying John on stage in Lennon, Everyman Theatre Liverpool/Astoria London a role which won him the first of his two Olivier Award nominations for best actor in a West End show. He was later to reprise this role in two other productions Imagine and the film John and Yoko - A love Story for NBC in the US.
His first TV appearance was as 'Mad Dog' in Scully by Alan Bleasdale in 1983 with Cathy Tyson and Elvis Costello. A long career in TV followed seeing him play a wide variety of characters including 'Marcus Bannerman' in the successful World War I era drama series by Russell T. Davies The Grand in 1999; 'Joseph Bazalgette' the great Victorian Industrial Engineer in the award winning factual drama/doc 'Seven Great Industrial Wonders of the World' in 2002; and 'Tom Crean' the Irish companion of Earnest Shackleton in Shackleton opposite Kenneth Branagh; and 'Niven Craig' in Peter Medak's Let Him Have It.
He also received acclaim for his role as 'Conor Phelan' in The Hanging Gale a BBC drama set against the backdrop of the Irish Potato Famine of 1846 in which he appeared with his 3 brothers. This production was conceived and co-produced by Mark and his brothers and based loosely on his own family history.
Mark has appeared in many successful Theatre productions including Blood Brothers by Willy Russell in 1984 in which he played 'Mickey', An Inspector Calls by J.B.Priestley for the National Theatre in which he played 'Inspector Goole', and also at the National Theatre in Alan Bleasdale's 'On The Ledge' for which he played 'Upright'; other theatre appearances include Macbeth in 'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare and Mosca in Volpone by Ben Jonson.
He was musical director and principal actor, (along with Gary Olsen and Felicity Montagu) in the highly acclaimed musical Up On The Roof, which started out at The Donmar Warehouse before transferring in to the West End and for which he received his second Olivier Award nomination. He went on to star as 'Gethin Price' in The Comedians by Trevor Griffiths at the Young Vic; Killers at the Royal Court and Don Giovanni in 'Don Giovanni' at Greenwich.
Mark is also a songwriter who has written many original compositions including the original song for the show 'Up On The Roof' and all the original songs on the album The McGanns which he made in 1999 with his two brothers Joe and Steve for Coalition/Warner Bros.
He has recently directed versions of new plays by South African writer Peter Krummeck and English writers Colin Swash and Neil A.Edwards for the Oval Theatre London, Andover Lights Theatre Hampshire and Greenwich Theatre respectively. Mark also runs two businesses Drama Direct [1] and Screen Direct [2] offering professional Insets, Projects and Workshops to the Education Sector specifically aimed at developing new methods of teaching all Key Stages across the curriculum using Drama strategies. He has recently designed an educational project called 'Gadfly' based on the life, trial and execution of the Greek philosopher, Socrates.
He now lives in Frome, Somerset with his wife Caroline.
He auditioned for role of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie which ultimately went to his elder brother, Paul.
