
Born in
London - on Waterloo Bridge,
Colin was raised and educated in
Rochdale and Manchester. He
studied law for five years,
training as a solicitor before
becoming an actor.
His
theatrical debut was at the
Cambridge Arts Theatre in Plaintiff
In A Pretty Hat followed
by The Other
House at
the Mermaid Theatre in London.
Repertory seasons followed in
Guildford, Liverpool, Canterbury,
Harrogate and the Chichester
Festival.
In London he has
appeared in Run For Your Wife
at the Criterion Theatre, The
Price of Justice at the
Mermaid, Traitors at the
Hampstead Theatre and in 1987 as
the twins in Corpse! at
the Strand Theatre (with Jack
Watling playing the Major). In
1996 he starred as Magwitch in
the musical version of Great
Expectations at the
Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham
followed by a tour of major
dates.
Colin's other
theatrical appearances on tour
include Private Lives, Time
And Time Again, Privates
On Parade, Born In The
Gardens, Spider's Web,
Frankie and Johnny in the
Clair de Lune, Death And
The Maiden, Why Me ?, a 2003
return to Corpse! this
time playing the Major,
Strangers On A Train, Alan
Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce,
the Birmingham Repertory Theatre
production of She Stoops To
Conquer, drunken ham actor
Selsdon Mowbray in the major
national tour of Michael Frayn's
award-winning comedy Noises
Off, as the iconic Inspector
Morse in the new stage drama House
Of Ghosts and most recently
as Count Fosko in Wilkie Collins'
Victorian ghost story The
Woman In White.
In 1998 he played
the entire D'Ascoyne family in Kind
Hearts And Coronets - the
world premiere of the stage
version of the famous 1949 film.
His pantomime
appearances have been as diverse
as Dick in Dick Whittington,
Buttons, Captain Hook, Sarah The
Cook and Widow Twankey. Credits
as a director include The Oz
Trials at Liverpool
Playhouse, The Mousetrap in
Stockholm and Oslo (in English!)
and Bazaar and Rummage at
the Duke of Cambridge.
His television
career, commencing with Sartre's Roads
To Freedom, includes Cousin
Bette, War and Peace in
which he played Prince Anatol
Kuragin, The Edwardians,
A Fall Of Eagles, The
Citadel, Swallows And
Amazons Forever, The
Famous Five, Hollyoaks,
Jonathan Creek, A
Dance To The Music Of Time, The
Bill, Sunburn, Casualty,
Dangerfield, The Knock
and as the Head of MI6 in The
Waiting Game with the late
John Thaw. He is however
principally known for very
contrasting roles in two of the
BBC's most popular programmes: The
Brothers in which he was
universally loathed as Paul
Merroney, the prototype yuppie
and Doctor Who, in which
he was universally loved as the
flamboyant sixth incarnation of
The Doctor, a role he
successfully reprised in the
stage version Doctor Who: The
Ultimate Adventure. Colin
has also played the Sixth Doctor
in an extensive range of popular
Doctor Who audio stories for Big
Finish Productions.
His most recent
television appearances have been
in Doctors, Jonathan
Creek, Hollyoaks, Little Britain,
Kingdom and Hustle.
Films include Dangerous
Davies, The Airzone
Solution, The Zero
Imperative, The Harpist,
Soul's Ark and most
recently, a horror film, The
Asylum.
For over a decade
Colin has written a weekly column
for the Bucks Free Press (1999
Newspaper Of The Year). He is
also a busy book reviewer and
lyric writer. His children's
musical Scrooge - A Ghost Of
A Chance, written with
composer Sheila Wilson, has been
performed in hundreds of schools
countrywide. Colin's first book, Look
Who's Talking, a collection
of his newspaper columns was
published in 2009 by Hirst Books
and was followed by a further
volume of newspaper columns Second
Thoughts, in addition to a
collection of short stories
entitled Gallimaufry.
Colin is married to
actress Marion Wyatt. They live
in Buckinghamshire with their
four daughters, two goats, three
cats, three dogs, two horses,
thirteen guinea pigs, two degus
and a hamster. He says they keep
him young - and working!

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