David Oakes

David Oakes
Born	Rowan David Oakes[1] (1983-10-14) 14 October 1983 Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England
Alma mater	• Bristol Old Vic Theatre School  • University of Manchester
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2008–present
Website	davidoakes.co.uk

David Oakes (born Rowan David Oakes; 14 October 1983) is an English film, television and theatre actor.

Early life and education

He was born in Fordingbridge,^[2] Hampshire, England, the son of a Church of England canon^[3] and a professional musician.

Oakes was head boy at Bishop Wordsworth's School, in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he was also heavily involved with the Salisbury Playhouse and their youth theatre, Stage 65. He graduated with a first in English Literature from the University of Manchester.^[3]

He attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School from 2005 to 2007.^[4]

Career

He played the villainous William Hamleigh in the television miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010), produced by Ridley Scott's production company.^[5] Subsequently, Oakes was cast in the television miniseries The Borgias (2011), airing on Showtime.^[6] He played Juan Borgia opposite Jeremy Irons.

Continuing a career on television playing morally dubious characters, Oakes had a role in The White Queen for BBC One and Starz playing George, Duke of Clarence. It was broadcast in mid-2013.

Television

Film

Radio

• Oakes has performed with The Fitzrovia Radio Hour
• 2008: A Dance to the Music of Time as Charles Stringham (BBC Radio 4)

Stage

• In 2006, David performed a 90-minute abridged version of Much Ado About Nothing as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Complete Works" festival along with his final year graduates from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.^[7]
• Since appearing at Shakespeare's Globe at the outset of his career, David has frequently performed in numerous rehearsed readings as part of their "Read Not Dead" initiative. Including their landmark 200th reading of Philip Massinger's A New Way To Pay Old Debts; David played Wellborn alongside a cast including Benjamin Whitrow, Alan Cox and Nicholas Rowe.^[8]
• Other performances between 2008 and 2013 for "Read Not Dead" include: An early quarto edition of Henry IV: Part One as Prince Hal oppopsite Benjamin Whitrow's Falstaff, Calderon's Life is a Dream (La Vida Es Sueno) as Segismundo, Taming Of A Shrew as Aurelias, The Spanish Tragedy as Lorenzo, The Return from Parnassus as Ingenioso, Bassianus as Geta, Gorboduc as a "smooth, almost oily^[9]" Arostus, John Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis as Montanus and Thomas Middleton's Your Five Gallants as Tailby.^[10]
• Oakes set up a theatre company called Dog Ate Cake with a long term theatrical collaborator, Henry Bell^[11]
• David was nominated for both WhatsOnStage and Broadway World awards for his performance in Shakespeare in Love in 2015. The production was also nominated for an Olivier Award.
• In 2015 David starred as Banquo in a charity fundraiser for the Shakespeare Schools Festival.^[12] The event was largely improvised by the actors and lawyers involved, but based on a framework written by Jonathan Myerson. The cast also included Christopher Ecclestone as Macbeth, Haydn Gwynne as Lady Macbeth, Patterson Joseph as MacDuff and Pippa Bennett-Warner as one of the Weird Sisters. The event interrupted the events of Shakespeare's play following the death of Duncan and placed Macbeth on trial for Murder with David, Patterson and Haydn appearing as witnesses for the prosecution and Christopher and Pippa as witnesses for the defence. The event was overseen by High Court Judge, Sir Michael Burton, the QC's were John Kelsey-Fry, Jonathan Laidlaw, Dinah Rose and Ian Winter, and the foreman of the Jury was Jeremy Paxman.^[13]

Theatre Direction

Oakes has directed a number of theatre pieces alongside his acting career. In 2003 he took a stage adaptation of The Wicker Man to the Epping Forest Theatre Festival. Rehearsing in and around his home town of Salisbury, Oakes "got kicked out of the [Cathedral] Close for rehearsing pagan rituals for [his] open-air production of The Wicker Man."^[14]

At University he directed numerous plays including Martin McDonagh's Beauty Queen of Leenane, Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter and Anthony Minghella's Whale Music^[15]

Also whilst at University, in 2005 Oakes assisted director Natalie Wilson on a production of "Smilin' Through" which was co-produced by the Truant Company, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Contact Theatre, Manchester Later that year, Oakes once again turning to literary adaptation, took a production of Stephen King's The Boogeyman to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.^[15]

With his and Bell's theatre company, Dog Ate Cake, in 2009 Oakes directed a small tour revival of John Maddison Morton's Box and Cox^[16]

Oakes frequently directs at Shakespeare's Globe extending their Read Not Dead Series, a study devoted to performing fully staged readings of the entirety of the Early Modern Canon of Drama: Most recently Oakes directed Robert Greene's The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay^[17] and Lewis Theobald's "Happy Ending" version of John Webster's Duchess of Malfi, "The Fatal Secret".^[18]

David recently directed an extract of Robert Daborne's A Christian Turn'd Turk as part of a special Read Not Dead event at Shakespeare's Globe. Four directors with four scholars were teamed up with actors and presented their arguments and selected scenes at a special hustings event on Thursday 29 May 2014

Personal life

Oakes plays both the clarinet and bass clarinet, and is a strong bass singer.^[11]

He is an avid follower of folk music, and continues to support the Bristol folk group Sheelanagig.^[2]

He has an extensive collection of canoes and is currently developing a comedy pilot based on this interest. His preferred canoe method is kayak but he also enjoys Canadian canoeing.

Art

Oakes is an avid fine line sketcher. He is increasingly known for sketching on-set animals upon coloured pages of script reissues and giving them to production members.^[19] In May 2015 he exhibited as part of the Dulwich Artists Open House Festival^[20] alongside artist and designer Sarah Hamilton.

See also

• List of British actors and actresses

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Oakes.

• davidoakes.co.uk, Oakes's official website
• David Oakes at the Internet Movie Database
• Dog Ate Cake Official Website
• David Oakes Prints
• David Oakes at the London Theatre Database