James Bachman

James Hamilton Bachman (born 24 February 1972) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He has written for and acted in many British television and radio programmes, including That Mitchell and Webb Look, Saxondale, Bleak Expectations and Sorry, I've Got No Head. In 2014, he co-starred in the film Transformers: Age of Extinction. Early life Bachman was born in Cuckfield, West Sussex to American father Thomas Edwin Bachman, of Meadow House, Battle, East Sussex, and English mother Carolyn, daughter of Major-General Godfrey John Hamilton, CBE, DSO, of The Old House, Hailsham, Sussex, who was married to the writer Mary Margaret Kaye, daughter of Lt-Col Sir Cecil Kaye, an officer in the British Indian Army and minister of Tonk State, India. Bachman attended Radley College and studied Natural Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, focusing on Physics and Mathematics. He joined Footlights, having been a Monty Python and Fry and Laurie fan as a youngster. It was while in Footlights that he first met David Mitchell and Robert Webb, whom he would collaborate with for their shows, and also future writing partner Mark Evans. His other student comedy contemporaries included the writer and director Dan Mazer and the TV scriptwriter Robert Thorogood. He became co-vice-president of Footlights in 1993 and appeared in and wrote for the 1994 Footlights revue The Barracuda Jazz Option. He returned after graduation to direct the subsequent revue Fall From Grace, which included amongst its cast Mitchell, Webb, and Matthew Holness. That same year he also directed a production of the Keith Waterhouse play Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell 2, starring Mitchell as Jeffrey Bernard and Webb in multiple roles.