Gareth Armstrong

Gareth Armstrong has combined the roles of actor, director and writer throughout his career.

In Wales, where he was born and educated, Gareth was a founding Director of the Made in Wales Stage Company, presenting new Anglo-Welsh plays, and was an Artistic Director of Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre where he directed classics, new plays and the modern repertoire. Under Jonathan Church’s artistic directorship of Salisbury Playhouse he was an Artistic Associate and directed a range of new and established works. As a freelance he has directed dozens of productions in theatres in Britain, Europe and the United States.

He has specialised in the creation of award-winning solo shows which tour the UK and internationally: My Darling Clemmie by Hugh Whitemore, Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, his own dramatisation of Oscar Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’ called Wilde Without the Boy, and biographical dramas based on the lives of Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton. Gareth directed Edward Fox in one-man show celebrating the life of John Betjamen, A Sand in the Sandwiches by Hugh Whitemore which toured and played at the Haymarket Theatre in London.

He has written and performed his own solo play, Shylock, which premiered at the Salisbury Playhouse, and later played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play then toured worldwide to cities as diverse as Vienna and Tel Aviv, Bucharest and Bombay. Shylock has won awards in New Zealand, Canada, Spain, Germany and Romania. It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, French, Russian and has been filmed for Dutch television and broadcast on Romanian radio. The play has been performed by other actors in English, Welsh, Spanish, Catalonian, Italian, Hungarian and Mandarin Chinese.

Gareth’s five-handed comedy, Fondly Remembered, received its London premiere in 2017 and has since been published by French’s and is regularly performed by amateur companies throughout the UK. His play A Critical Stage, about the life of legendary critic James Agate, had its first performance in London in 2023.

As a regular broadcaster with the BBC Gareth has worked as a writer, performer and presenter. Over a quarter of a century he has played three running characters in the world’s longest running radio soap opera, The Archers and is 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 a dozen audiobooks every year as well as video games and commentaries for TV documentaries.

Gareth’s published work includes A Case for Shylock - Around the World with Shakespeare's Jew, with a foreword by Judi Dench, and "So, You Want To Do A Solo Show? with a foreword by Maureen Lipman. Both were published by Nick Hern Books. Gareth is with Suzy Wootton for voice-overs. http://www.suzywoottonvoices.com/