Aidan McArdle
Macbeth
Richard McCabe
Colin McCormack
Alec McCowen
Ian McDiarmid
Martin McDonagh
Malcolm McDowell
John McEnery
Peter McEnery
Tom McGrath
Frank McGuinness
Jo McInnes
Ian McKellen
Peter McKintosh
Hilton McRae
Anna Madeley
Madness in Valencia
Dominic Mafham
The Maid's Tragedy
Major Barbara
The Malcontent
Michael Maloney
Malvern Festival
Man and Superman
Man is Man
Tom Mannion
The Man of Mode
The Man Who Came to Dinner
Lesley Manville
Marat/Sade
Tony Marchant
Claire Marchionne
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
Christopher Marlowe
The Marquis of Keith
The Marrying of Ann Leete
John Marston
Trevor Martin
Ashley Martin-Davis
Mary, After the Queen
Mary and Lizzie
Brewster Mason
Daniel Massey
Philip Massinger
The Master Builder
Maydays
Measure for Measure
Nancy Meckler
Joe Melia
Leonie Mellinger
Melons
Sam Mendes
Men's Beano
Mephisto
David Mercer
The Merchant of Venice
The Mermaid
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Meteor
Roger Michell
Thomas Middleton
Midnight's Children
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Midwinter
Arthur Miller
Jonathan Miller
Poppy Miller
Joseph Millson
Helen Mirren
Misalliance
A Miserable and Lonely Death
Les Misérables
Misha's Party
Miss Julie
The Mistake
Katie Mitchell
Tim Mitchell
Ariane Mnouchkine
Moby Dick
Molière
Molière (The Cabal of Saintly Hypocrites)
Money
A Month in the Country
Richard Moore
Hattie Morahan
Christopher Morley
Cherry Morris
Clive Morris
David Morrissey
Moscow Gold
Mother Courage
The Mouth Organ
Slawomir Mrozek
Much Ado About Nothing
Peter Mumford
Murder in the Cathedral
Gerard Murphy
The Mysteries
Gerard Murphy first appeared with the RSC in 1973, playing minor roles in Trevor Nunn's 'The Romans' (Aldwych) and David Rudkin's Cries from the Casement (Terry Hands, The Place). He came to notice at the Glasgow Citizens' in the years that followed: the title roles in Chinchilla (Philip Prowse, 1977), Macbeth, Woyzeck and Coriolanus; Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet; Pinchwife in The Country Wife (Prowse, 1977); Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest; and Ezra/Orin in Mourning Becomes Electra.
Revealed as a visceral performer of some originality, he re-joined the RSC in 1980 to play Johnny Boyle in Juno and the Paycock (Trevor Nunn, Aldwych). Then, in his first full season, 1981-82, he played the Young Shepherd in The Winter's Tale (Ronald Eyre, RST), Frank opposite Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson in The Witch of Edmonton (Barry Kyle, TOP, Pit), and the key role of Hal in Nunn's production of the two parts of Henry IV (Barbican). Murphy, fair-haired and thickset, held his own against the svelte Timothy Dalton and later Hugh Quarshie (playing Hotspur). His strikingly original Hal was a rough and bitter creation.
Murphy and Quarshie were reunited for The Two Noble Kinsmen (Kyle, Swan, 1986), their characters' rivalry culminating (London run, Mermaid, 1987) in one of the most dangerously realistic sword fights seen on the English stage. In the 1986-87 cycle he also played Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Bill Alexander, RST, Barbican); Sam Mowbray in Country Dancing (Alexander, TOP, Pit); Roger in The Balcony (Terry Hands, Barbican); Green Eyes and Solange in the Genet double-bill of Deathwatch and The Maids (Pit), which he also co-directed; and Graham in Tony Marchant's Speculators (Kyle, Pit). He brought a Presbyterian preacher's intensity to the title role in Doctor Faustus (Kyle, Swan, 1989, Pit, 1989), played Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (Alexander, Small-scale Tour, 1990) without any notion of 'political correctness', and gave a masterly performance as Oedipus in Adrian Noble's The Thebans (Swan, 1991, Barbican, 1992). As the blinded Oedipus, a hunched, mud-caked figure led by Joanne Pearce's Antigone, Murphy presented an unforgettable image of misery and stoicism. During the 1990 season he directed a graphic production of Marlowe's Edward II (Swan) featuring Simon Russell Beale.
Since 1993 he has appeared at the major regional theatres: Mosca in Volpone (Alexander, Birmingham Rep, 1993); D'Amville in The Atheist's Tragedy (Anthony Clark, Birmingham Rep, 1994); the title role in Macbeth (Glasgow Citizens', 1998); a brutish Claudius in the Richard McCabe Hamlet (Alexander, Birmingham Rep, 1998, 2000); Mallory in Peter Barnes's Dreaming (Matthew Lloyd, Manchester Royal Exchange, 1999); the father in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (Lloyd, Royal Exchange Manchester, 2001); George to Clare Higgins's Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Gareth Machin, Bristol Old Vic, 2002); Falstaff in the two parts of Henry IV (Bristol Old Vic, 2002); Pozzo in Waiting for Godot and Jack in The Weir (Rupert Goold, Royal Theatre, Northampton, 2003); Jack in Alan Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business (Ian Brown, West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2003); Eichmann in Donald Freed's The White Crow (Michael Vale, Mercury, Colchester, 2003); Sir David Ochterlony in A Taste for Mangoes (Jatinder Verma, Tara Arts, Wilton's Music Hall, 2003); the title role in Volpone (Greg Hersov, Manchester Royal Exchange, 2004); Samuel Byck in Assassins (Nikolai Foster, Sheffield Crucible, 2006); the Chorus in Henry V (Jonathan Munby, Manchester Royal Exchange, 2007).
Screen credits: Sacred Hearts (Barbara Rennie, 1985); Waterworld (Kevin Reynolds, 1995); McCallum (Patrick Lau, 1996-98); Vanity Fair (BBC, 1998); The Scarlet Pimpernel (Lau, BBC, 1999-00); I Was a Rat (BBC, 2001); Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005); Waking the Dead (BBC, 2005); Trial and Retribution: The Lovers (ITV, 2005); Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC, 2007).
RSC: Joined 1973; Associate Artist (since 1988)
Seasons: 1973 (Lond.); 1980 (Lond.); 1981 (Strat.)-82 (Lond.); 1986 (Strat.)-87 (Lond.); 1989 (Strat.)-89/90 (Lond.); 1990 (Small-scale Tour); 1991 (Strat.)-92 (Lond.)
Productions (as director): Deathwatch and The Maids, Genet, co-directed with Ultz (Pit, 1987); Edward II, Marlowe (Swan, 1990/Pit, 1991)
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