Madhav Sharma

Madhav Sharma is an Indian born British actor and theatre director. He was educated (amongst other places) at the St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, the Scottish Church College, Calcutta and Fergusson College, Poona, before winning a merit scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London.

Early life

He was born in Calcutta, India, where his father K. S. Sitaram Iyer lived for many years in Hastings, Calcutta 22. Since his mother died soon after he was born, Madhav was first brought up in Bangalore by his grandfather S.S. Iyer. Sharma is an Indian born British actor and theatre director. He was educated (amongst other places) at the St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, the Scottish Church College, Calcutta and Fergusson College.

Career

Work as an actor

Theatre

It all started with touring Shakespeare alongside Felicity Kendal and her parents, Geoffrey Kendal and Laura Liddell, followed by a merit scholarship to the RADA.

Work in theatre includes The Man of Mode (RNT Olivier), Tales from Ferozesha Baag (RNT Studio workshops and readings), Prince of Delhi Palace (RNT Studio), The Massacre (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds), The Great Theatre of the World (Arcola), Deadeye (Soho Theatre/UK tour/Birmingham Rep), The Accused (Haymarket/UK tour/Theatre Royal Windsor), Indian Ink (Aldwych), Last Dance at Dum Dum (New Ambassadors/UK tour), Behzti and Blithe Spirit (Birmingham Rep), Calcutta Kosher, Worlds Apart, House of the Sun (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Gulliver’s Travels (Arts), No One Was Saved (Royal Court Upstairs), Baby Love (Soho Poly), High Diplomacy (Westminster), Romeo and Juliet (Shaw/Edinburgh Festival/Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds/Hull Truck /USA), Not Just An Asian Babe (Watermans/Oxford Arms), Untold Secret of Aspi (Cockpit/Watermans), The Importance of Being Neutral (ICA), Romeo and Juliet (Albany Empire), Twelfth Night and The Hollow Crown (Theatre Royal Lincoln/tour), Thérèse Raquin (Nottingham Playhouse), Crazyhorse (Bristol New Vic/UK tour), Fiddler on the Roof (Theatre Royal Nottingham/UK tour), The King and I (Edinburgh Playhouse/UK tour)), Twelfth Night (Dundee Rep), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and The Proposal (UK schools tour), England Our England, Captain Carvalho, and Night Conspirators (Victoria Theatre, Salford), Hindle Wakes, How Are You Johnny?, A Murder Has Been Arranged, Alfie, Mr Kettle and Mrs Moon, and An Inspector Calls (Casino Theatre Southport), Othello, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V (tour to India, Singapore, Malaysia, Sarawak, Bruneii, North Borneo and Hong Kong), and the title role in Hamlet (The Howff), directed by Joseph O’Conor who had himself played the role in Sir Donald Wolfit’s Company.

Television

TV includes Going Postal, Coronation Street, Doctors, Casualty, Ashes to Ashes, Reverse Psychology, Grease Monkeys, Doctors and Nurses, Dalziel and Pascoe, Holby City, Dream Team, Amongst Barbarians, Doctor Who, Trial and Retribution, McCallum, Fighting Back, Inspector Alleyn, The Rector’s Wife, Tygo Road, Cardiac Arrest, Shalom Salaam, Black and Blue, Medics, Boon, This Office Life, The Bill, South of the Border, King and Castle, Tandoori Nights, Old Men at the Zoo, Maybury, Minder, Target, The Road To 1984, Blunt Instrument, Cold Warrior, Sarah, Looking For Clancy, The Regiment, Imperial Palace, Adam Smith, The Brahmin Widow, Crown Court, Escape, First Lady, Moonbase 3, Anything But the Woods, Rogues Rock, Kipling, Z-Cars, The Moonstone, Uncle Tulip and The Newcomers.

Films

Films include The Awakening (1980), Giro City (1982), Wild West (1992), Such a Long Journey (1998), Entrapment (1999), East Is East (1999), Dog Eat Dog (2001), The Gathering (2002), Spivs (2004), The Blue Tower (2008) and It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010).

Radio

Radio drama includes The Archers, An Enemy of the People (by Henrik Ibsen adapted by John Foley & Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti), The Curiosities of the Egyptian Hall – The Great Mephisto (by Tony Liddington), Midnight's Children (by Salman Rushdie adapted by Rukhsana Ahmed), A House for Mr Biswas (by V.S. Naipaul), The Painter of Signs by R.K. Narayan (adapted by William Ash), Stowaway, A Rain of Stones (by Wole Soyinka), The God at the Gate, The Banker’s Tale, The Black Rock, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, The Goondas of Gopinagar, Scorching Winds, The Great Sentinel and the Great Soul, Grave Affairs (by John Matthew), End of the Line (by Guy Roderick & Peter Cox), Tughlaq (by Girish Karnad), Captain Colenzo’s Last Voyage, My Enemy My Friend (by Margaret Bhatty), The Panacea (by Amina Osman), Race of the Dugout Canoes (by Richard Edmunds), My Beautiful Launderette Off License Cash and Carry, The Indian Gentleman (by Terry James), Hardly Touching (by Neil Biswas), Swine (by Diane Samuels), The Dolphinarium (by Steve Walker), Heer Ranjha (by Deepak Verma), Singing and Dancing in Kanpur (by David Mowat), The Bandit Queen (by Deepak Verma), Hanuman’s Child (by Nandita Ghose), Asha (by Tanika Gupta), Kahani Apni Apni, Chota (by Jean Binney), Nightrunners of Bengal ( by John Masters), Broomhouse Reach, Flimi Filmi Inspector Ghote (by H.R.F.Keating), Brides Are Not For Burning, Laura and the Angel, We the Accused, An Affair of Honour, Butterfly Hunt (by Mathew Solon) and Waggoner's Walk.

Talking books

Talking books include Kim (unabridged & abridged versions), The Jungle Books, Rikki Tikki Tavi & other Kipling stories and Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard.

Other work

Varied work by Madhav in Executive Management and Professionals’ Training Seminars and Workshops in such things as Effective Inter-Personal Skills, Negotiating Skills, Communication Skills, Telephone Consultations, Breaking Bad News, etc. for diverse organisations such as Allen & Overy (City Solicitors), Thomas Cook & Sons, Pearl Assurance, Sedgwick Insurance Group, the Rank Organisation, St Bartholomew’s, the Royal London and Addenbrooke’s Hospitals, the RSPCA and the Home Office.

Madhav has lectured on equal opportunities as part of a course in Arts Administration Studies, run by John Pick and Peter Stark, at the City University, London.

Madhav was Supervisor/Coordinator, Community Arts Programme – National Association for Asian Youth, Southall.

Voluntary work

Member and Chairman on occasion of the London Theatre Council
Member and Chairman on occasion of the Provincial Theatre Council
Member of the Community Arts Committee of the Greater London Council
Member of the Drama Panel of the Greater London Arts Association
Member(elected) of the Council and Executive of British Equity, as well as of several Negotiating Parties and Committees
Patron of the Playwrights Co-operative
Founding initiator of Jobs Grapevine
Member of the Ethnic Arts Steering Group of the GLAA
Patron of Theatre in Exile
First interviewer of Enoch Powell after his infamous speech
Representative of British Equity to the Trades Union Congress, attended by the then Prime Minister James Callaghan, when Madhav made a televised speech in support of the minimum wage
Home Office invited Madhav to be an advocate for the Asian community & organisations, at a meeting with the then PM Margaret Thatcher, also attended by Sir George Young, Michael Mates MP & Denis Thatcher
Chairman and/or keynote speaker at conferences organised by bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality on Ethnic Arts and Artists
Writer of several pamphlets for Equity members
Spokesperson on behalf of non-white artists at a meeting with the then Under Secretary at the Home Office
Organiser and Chairman of a meeting of Equity members with representatives of the Writers’ Guild, the Society of Authors, the Theatre Writers’ Union, the ACTT, BBC Enterprises, the Association of Directors & Producers, the Personal Managers’ Association, Literary Agents and the Video Copyright Protection Society to discuss the role of Public Service Broadcasting, video piracy and other matters allied to the technological revolution
Counsellor, after being trained by the Rev Chad Varah, of the suicidal and despairing
Attended a course in Fundraising and Sponsorship run by Luke Rittner and Mary Allen for the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts
Studied at maharstha for 5 years

Personal life

From a distinguished family (his three uncles, Professor K. Swaminathan, Dr. K. Venkataraman & Dr. K.S. Sanjivi have the unique distinction of being the only three brothers all to be awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India); his distinguished cousins include Venky Narayanamurti (Dean of his faculty at Harvard), Dr Dharma Kumar (née Venkataraman) the Economist,who whilst at Cambridge University, wrote an acclaimed thesis on the caste system, and Raghavan Iyer (Rhodes Scholar, President of the Oxford Union, Isis Idol, Oxford Fellow and Professor at the University of Santa Barbara). Madhav is the uncle of the academic, travel writer & novelist Pico Iyer and Ramachandra Guha (who writes on cricket, the environment and politics, and has also been awarded the Padma Bhushan). Madhav, who has always seen himself as the 'white sheep', so to speak, of the family, was formerly married to the British actress Jenny Seagrove. He was labelled by the judge presiding over their divorce case as her Svengali and accused him of "using his wife as his crutch".^[1] His frequent calls to her during their separation was "harrowing" to her then partner, Michael Winner.

References

↑ After Years of Fighting Her Own Demons, Jenny Seagrove Strikes Terror as the Guardian's Evil Nanny web, People Magazine (Vol. 33 No. 20), May 21, 1990