Janet Dale
Timothy Dalton
Charles Dance
The Dance of Death
Ron Daniels
The Danton Affair
Nick Darke
Daughter of the Air
Shaun Davey
Alan David
Howard Davies
Rudi Davies
Daniel Day-Lewis
Days in the Trees
Days of the Commune
The Dead Monkey
Nick Dear
Deathwatch/The Maids
Thomas Dekker
Robert Delamere
A Delicate Balance
Frances de la Tour
Robert Demeger
Jeffery Dench
Judi Dench
The Desert Air
Desire Under the Elms
Destiny
The Devil is an Ass
The Devil's Disciple
The Devils
Ann Devlin
Es Devlin
Mark Dignam
Stephen Dillane
The Dillen
Lisa Dillon
Dingo
The Dispute
Divine Gossip
Joe Dixon
Doctor Faustus
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Dog in the Manger
Monica Dolan
A Doll's House
Don Carlos
Donmar Warehouse
Declan Donnellan
Gregory Doran
Simon Dormandy
Roy Dotrice
John Dougall
Wayne Dowdeswell
Downchild
Penny Downie
Kevin Doyle
A Dream of People
Dreamplay
Amanda Drew
Darrell D'Silva
Kate Duchêne
The Duchess of Malfi
Duck Song
William Dudley
The Dumb Waiter
Lindsay Duncan
Jeremy Dunn
Marguerite Duras
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Susan Dury
Dutch Uncle
The Dybbuk
Charles Dyer
Chris Dyer
Mark Dignam, a Londoner by birth, grew up in Sheffield (his father worked in the steel industry). Dignam's potential as an actor was recognised by one of the priests at his school, the Jesuit Mount St Mary's College. He played the leading female roles in school productions of Shakespeare, and received elocution lessons from Chris Castor, an actress in the company of the Sheffield Repertory Theatre.
Dignam learnt his craft as a classical actor touring England and America with Ben Greet's Shakespeare company in 1931, and the following year made his London debut as the Bloody Sergeant in Macbeth (Kingsway Theatre). He was a supporting player at the Westminster Theatre and the Old Vic in the years before the war (roles at the latter included Colonel Pickering in Pygmalion, the Provost in Measure for Measure, and Buckingham in Richard III). From 1941 he served as a signaller in the Royal Artillery; wounded at Anzio, he was invalided out in 1944. He resumed his career at the Arts Theatre (1945-46), and confirmed his growing reputation as a Shakespearean actor, adept at both comedic and dramatic roles, with the Old Vic company at the New (1947-50): Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew (John Burrell); John of Gaunt in Richard II (Ralph Richardson); Sicinius in Coriolanus (E. Martin Browne); Malvolio in Twelfth Night (Alec Guinness); Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost (Hugh Hunt); and a formidable Claudius in the Michael Redgrave Hamlet (Hunt). During the 1950/51 Old Vic homecoming season he played Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor (Hunt), and Exeter in Henry V (Glen Byam Shaw).
Dignam was a redoubtable member of the RSC in the 1950s, 70s and 80s. First at Stratford between 1956 and 58, as well as returning to three favourite parts, Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost (Peter Hall, 1956), Malvolio in Twelfth Night (Hall), and Claudius—again opposite Redgrave—in Hamlet (Glen Byam Shaw, both 1958), he played the Ghost in Hamlet (Michael Langham); the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice (Margaret Webster); the Duke of Venice in Othello (Shaw); the Provost in Measure for Measure (Anthony Quayle); Mr Badger in Toad of Toad Hall (Patrick Donnell); Duke Frederick in As You Like It (Shaw); Cardinal Pandulph in King John (Douglas Seale); Casca in Julius Caesar (Shaw); Pisanio in Cymbeline (Hall); Antonio in The Tempest (Peter Brook); Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Shaw); and Simonides in Pericles (Tony Richardson). Then, ending an absence of fourteen years, he led the 1972/73 'Romans' company as Menenius in Coriolanus, the title role in Julius Caesar, Marcus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus (Trevor Nunn/Buzz Goodbody, RST, Aldwych), and went on to create the roles of Maurice Shanklin in David Mercer's Duck Song (David Jones, Aldwych, 1974), Valladares/Phillip IV in Peter Barnes's The Bewitched (Terry Hands, Aldwych, 1974), and Vladimir in Mercer's Cousin Vladimir (Jane Howell, Aldwych, 1978). Finally, as an elder statesman, he played Father Barre in John Whiting's The Devils (John Barton, Pit, 1984); Russell Blackborough in Harley Granville Barker's Waste (Barton, Pit, 1985); Perchikhin in Gorky's Philistines (John Caird, TOP, 1985, Pit, 1986); Adam in As You Like It (Adrian Noble, RST, 1985, Barbican, 1985-86); Nestor in Troilus and Cressida (Howard Davies, RST, 1985, Barbican, 1986); Voice 3 in Harold Pinter's Family Voices (Paul Marcus, RSC fringe festival, TOP, 1985, Almeida, 1986); Thomas Bruckner in Mephisto (Noble, Barbican, 1986); Igor Gertzmann in John Berger's A Question of Geography (Caird, TOP, 1987, Pit, 1988); Escalus in Measure for Measure (Nicholas Hytner, RST, 1987, Barbican, 1988); and Homer in Howard Barker's The Bite of the Night (Danny Boyle, Pit, 1988).
Prominent work elsewhere: Kroll in Rosmersholm (Royal Court and Comedy, 1959-60); Auda Abu Tayek in Rattigan's Ross (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1960); Polonius in the Nicol Williamson Hamlet (Roundhouse, 1969); the Father in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father (Greenwich Theatre, 1970); and Cardinal Bellarmin in Brecht's The Life of Galileo (John Dexter, NT Olivier, 1980).
Screen credits: Beau Brummell (1954); Doctor in the House (1954); Sink the Bismarck! (Lewis Gilbert, 1960); The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960); Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963); Vincentio in The Taming of the Shrew (Franco Zeffirelli, 1967); The Charge of the Light Brigade (Richardson, 1968); The Saint (ITV, 1968); Polonius in Hamlet (Richardson, 1969); A Voyage Round My Father (BBC, 1969); A Family at War (ITV, 1970); The Wild Duck (BBC, 1971); Further Up Pompeii! (BBC, 1975); The Picture of Dorian Gray (BBC, 1976); Disraeli (ITV, 1978); Rumpole of the Bailey (ITV, 1978); Duncan in Macbeth (BBC, 1983); The Biko Inquest (1984); The Chain (Jack Gold, 1984); The Last Place on Earth (ITV, 1985).
Education: King Edward VII School, Sheffield; Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield
RSC: Joined 1956
Seasons: 1956 (Strat.); 1957 (Strat.); 1958 (Strat.); 1972 (Strat.)-73 (Lond.); 1974 (Lond.); 1978 (Lond.); 1984/85 (Lond.); 1985 (Strat.)-85/86 (Lond.); 1987 (Strat.)-88 (Lond.)
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