Lorcan Cranitch

Lorcan Cranitch (born 28 August 1959) is an Irish actor.

Born in Dublin, Cranitch became involved in drama while a student,^[1] and moved to London where he entered RADA in 1980. His first major role on British television was as Tim Healy in the 1991 BBC drama series, Parnell and the Englishwoman. However, it was as the troubled DS Jimmy Beck in Cracker (1993-1995)^[2]that he became a familiar face to viewers. After Cranitch informed the TV bosses of his intention to leave the show following the second season, his character was killed off in a spectacular suicide scene in October 1995.

Following Cracker, Cranitch returned to BBC in a part specially written for him, as Sean Dillon in Ballykissangel.^[3] In 2001, he starred in the short-lived drama series McCready and Daughter, taking on a role originally intended for his former Ballykissangel co-star, Tony Doyle, who died shortly before the series was due to be filmed.

Cranitch has appeared in several other British television dramas, including Deacon Brodie (with Billy Connolly), Shackleton (with Kenneth Branagh) and Hornblower (with Ioan Gruffudd), and in the film, Dancing at Lughnasa. He has appeared on stage with the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company, notably as John Hall in The Herbal Bed, and has played George Bernard Shaw on BBC radio. In 1997, Cranitch turned down the role of Irish third-class passenger Tommy Ryan in James Cameron's Titanic; instead he took on the role of rogue Danny Bradley in Dancing at Lughnasa, which starred Meryl Streep (and reunited him with his Cracker co-star Brid Brennan). In 1998 Lorcan also appeared in the TV series Close Relations.

In 2003 he appeared in the episodes "Loyalty" and "Duty" of the ITV series "Hornblower" as the antagonist "Wolfe".

In 2005, he again took a villainous role in the HBO/BBC production of Rome, as the underworld baron Erastes Fulmen, and starred in several episodes of the ITV police soap, The Bill. In the 2009 BBC drama Best: His Mother's Son, he played Dickie Best, the father of footballer George Best. In 2009, Cranitch also starred in The Clinic, alongside Alison Doody, as villain Diarmuid.

Cranitch is married to Susan Jackson, a journalist and newsreader with RTÉ.

Cranitch relates an amusing episode during his interview for the Citizen's theatre. After he had given both his modern and classical pieces, and having chatted at length to all three of the directorial triumvirate of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse, and Robert David McDonald, Havergal stood up and shook Lorcan's hand, and in doing so, swiftly bent down to scoop something from the floor. "Are these yours?" Havergal asked, presenting Cranitch with a pair of underpants, Lorcan's own, yesterday's, trapped in his jeans, which had made their way down his trouser leg and landed on the floor during his audition.

References

External links

• Lorcan Cranitch at the Internet Movie Database