Gareth Armstrong

Gareth Armstrong has combined the roles of actor, director and writer throughout a 40-year career that has taken him to over fifty countries. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he worked in Stratford and London, and has performed in the West End and at Shakespeare’s Globe. In Wales, where he was born and educated, Armstrong was a Founder Director of the Made in Wales Stage Company, presenting new Anglo-Welsh plays and premiering over a dozen original works for the theatre. Armstrong was an Artistic Director of Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre, where he directed classics including Shakespeare, Shaw and Chekov, new plays, and the modern repertoire from Coward to Stoppard. As a freelance, he has directed productions in many regional theatres and was an Associate Artist Director at the Salisbury Playhouse. His most recent West End production was Hugh Whitemore’s play Sand in the Sandwiches, starring Edward Fox, seen at the Haymarket in 2017 and on two nationwide tours. Most recently he directed the 2019 UK tour of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap and will repeat the production in 2020.

As a regular broadcaster with the BBC, Armstrong has worked as a writer, performer and presenter. Over 25 years, he played three running characters in the world’s longest-running radio soap opera, The Archers, and was an occasional contributor to From Our Own Correspondent. He was a recipient of the Jewish Cultural Media Award for his work on the radio documentary The Blood Libel. He also records around 30 audiobooks every year, as well as video games and commentaries for TV documentaries.

Following the success of his one-man play Shylock, which toured internationally for ten years, Armstrong now specializes in creating solo shows with other artists. His Edinburgh Fringe successes include Becoming Marilyn with Issy van Randwyck, Burton and Dylan Thomas – Clown in the Moon with Rhodri Miles, and Hugh Whitemore’s play My Darling Clemmie, performed by his widow Rohan McCullough. Armstrong and Gerard Logan staged Shakespeare’s The Rape Of Lucrece, Wilde Without the Boy and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Most recently Gerard and Gareth have collaborated on a show called Night Terrors – the supernatural tales of E.F. Benson, which is touring domestically and internationally.

Armstrong's play Fondly Remembered received its professional London premiere in 2015 and has been performed by amateur companies in England, Scotland and Wales. His new play A Critical Matter, about the 20th-century critic and writer James Agate, received its first London performance in 2023.