Nigel Lindsay

Nigel Lindsay (born 17 January 1969) is an English actor. He is best known on television for his roles as Sir Robert Peel in the first two seasons of Victoria, Jo Jo Marshall in the Netflix series Safe and as Barry in the BAFTA-winning Chris Morris film Four Lions for which he was nominated for Best British Comedy Performance in Film at the 2011 British Comedy Awards. In 2012 he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in the title role in the original West End run of Shrek the Musical at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and won the Whatsonstage Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 2011 production of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre. Early life and education Lindsay was born in St John's Wood and grew up in North West London. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, an independent private day school for boys before going on to the University of Birmingham, where he studied English and French. After university, he worked for three years as a financial analyst, specialising in French and Belgian equities at London stockbrokers Savory Milln and Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). But he gave up the city and won a place at bar school and drama school starting on the same day. He opted for the two-year drama course at the Webber Douglas Academy, where he won the Amherst Webber Scholarship. His finals show, in which he appeared as the eponymous Charley's Aunt, was directed by Michael Fry, who gave him his first professional job with the Lincolnshire touring company Great Eastern Stage. Career Lindsay's early work was mainly in theatre. One of his first London stage roles saw him play the King of France in King Lear at the Royal Court Theatre, with Tom Wilkinson as Lear and Andy Serkis as the Fool. At a weekly Monday night poker game, Lindsay was asked by Patrick Marber to attend a week's improvisational workshop of a play he was devising about poker. This became Dealer's Choice, which premiered at the National Theatre in February 1995 with Lindsay as Mugsy and Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels among the original cast. The play transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre, and won that year's Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and Writers' Guild Award for Best Play.