Jeffery Kissoon

Jeffery Kissoon (born 4 September 1947) is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner.^[1] He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.

A regular director of theatre, Kissoon is a member of the board of directors of the Shared Experience company and the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon, London. He has tutored younger actors, writers and directors, and values the rehearsal process.^[2] He played the lead role in the Mark Norfolk film Ham and the Piper (2012), and also directed Norfolk's theatre productions Knock Down Ginger, staged in 2003, Naked Soldiers, 2010 and Where The Flowers Grow, 2011, at the Warehouse Theatre.^[3] He reprised his role as Antony in Suzman's production of Antony and Cleopatra, appearing opposite Kim Cattrall as Cleopatra, at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2010.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Early life and career

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Kissoon emigrated to London with his parents at an early age. While attending the Christopher Wren School in Shepherd's Bush,^[9] he joined the student drama group. In 1970, under Robert Tanitch and Eric Rickman, he made his first appearance as an actor in the film Like You, Like Me,^[10] an inter-racial romance.

Although he trained as a drama teacher, Kissoon has worked as an actor since the early 1970s. In 1972, he joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre Company and, for two years thereafter, played leading roles in a number of productions, including Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine The Great and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera.^[11] During this period, he worked with director Keith Hack, who cast him as Tamburlaine for the 1972 Edinburgh Festival,^[11] and as Caliban for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1974 production of The Tempest at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon.^[12] Kissoon had his first prominent television role playing Sam in Beryl's Lot for Yorkshire Television (in 1975),^[13] after which he played PC Robbins in an episode of Z-Cars and Sonny in a BBC Play for Today titled "Rocky Marciano is Dead" (both in 1976).^[13] He portrayed Dr. Ben Vincent in seven episodes of Gerry Anderson's science-fiction series Space 1999 between 1976 and 1977.^[13][14]

In 1985, Kissoon played Karna in Peter Brook's nine-hour stage adaptation of The Mahabharata.^[15] The three-year project opened at the Festival d'Avignon in France and completed a world tour, ultimately leading to a film adaptation running to six hours. It also resulted in a lasting professional association between Kissoon and Brook, which witnessed Kissoon play two roles in the director's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[16] Kissoon is a veteran cast member of both RSC and Royal National Theatre productions, regularly collaborating with director Sir Peter Hall.^[17][18] In 2003, he participated in a rehearsed reading of Wrong Place at the Soho Theatre,^[19] continuing his association with playwright Mark Norfolk whose play ″Knock Down Ginger″ he had directed at the Warehouse Theatre in the same year. The play starred former Eastenders actors Judith Jacob, Sylvester Williams and marked the stage debut of Troy Glasgow.

Kissoon's recent screen and stage credits include Julius Caesar (Royal Shakespeare Company), Ham & The Piper (Mark Norfolk, 2011) Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002), Crossing Bridges (Mark Norfolk, 2006), Holby City (BBC, 2006), Casualty (BBC, 2008), War and Peace (Hampstead Theatre, 2008), Amazonia (Old Vic, 2009) and The Meeting (Warehouse Theatre, 2009).^[20] He played the lead role in Norfolk's film Ham and the Piper (2011),^[21] for which he won the Best Lead Actor Award at the 2012 Peloponnesian International Film Festival, having directed Ewart James Walters, Elisabeth Dahl and Adam Sopp in Norfolk's play Naked Soldiers at the Warehouse Theatre the previous year.^[3] He was recently awarded the Best Actor Award at the Eko International Film Festival in Nigeria for his performance. In 2012, Kissoon directed Norfolk's Where The Flowers Grow, again at the Warehouse Theatre.^[22] Kissoon reprised his Mark Antony, opposite Kim Cattrall's Cleopatra, in a production of Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Janet Suzman and performed at the Liverpool Playhouse, in October 2010.^[23] This was followed by Waiting For Godot at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (co-starring Patrick Robinson) and the RSC's production of Julius Caesar (in the title role).

Kissoon performed in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Rudy's Rare Records (2008–12) as Rudy's friend Clifton.^[24][25] He also featured in Norfolk's "Broken Chain", a segment of Radio 4's The City Speaks (2008), which is credited as the first "feature film for radio" produced in collaboration with Film London and Arts Council England.

In 2001, Kissoon joined the cast of the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, in which he played a friend of Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker). In 2015, Kissoon returned to EastEnders, this time playing the part of Judge Anthony Abego who oversees Max Branning's (Jake Wood) murder trial. A year later, he reprised his role of the judge, this time overseeing the murder trial of the killers of Paul Coker (Jonny Labey).

Work

Theatre

Television

Radio

Film

References

External links

• Jeffery Kissoon on IMDb