David Hargreaves (actor)

David Hargreaves (born 2 February 1940) is an English actor, active on stage and screen, as well as radio drama, he is best known for his television drama roles in the 1970s and 1980s set in the north of England, and as a presenter on BBC children's television of the same period.

Hargreaves was born in New Mills, Derbyshire, and attended Glossop Grammar School (became Glossopdale School in 1965).^[1] He trained as a science teacher, at City of Leeds Training College, and at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Hargreaves worked as a supply teacher at Rising Hill Comprehensive School in Islington, before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company to play in the first The Wars of the Roses Cycle of plays in 1963/65. He played Hotspur in Henry IV part 1 and Leontes in A Winters Tale for the North East Shakespeare Festival run by Joseph O'Connor in 1965, before joining Olivier's National Theatre, appearing in Much Ado about Nothing, Mother Courage, The Crucible, Royal Hunt of the Sun, Love for Love, Othello, The Storm, A Flea in Her Ear and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. After an extensive career in repertory theatre, television and radio, he returned to the RSC in 2004 to play Capulet in Romeo and Juliet in Peter Gill's production, and as Gloucester in Bill Alexander's production of King Lear to Corin Redgrave's Lear.

Returned to the RSC in 2008/09 to play Baptista Minola in The Taming of the Shrew, directed, by Conal Morrison, and as Man in The Cordelia Dream, written by Marina Carr, directed by Selina Cartmell, for the RSC at Wilton's Music Hall. In 2005 he returned to the National Theatre in a co-production with the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to play Charlie in On the Shore of the Wide World. In 2011 he played God in Tony Harrison's, The Mysteries, directed by Deborah Bruce, and in 2012 played the King of France/Nym/Erpingham, in Dominic Dromgoole's production of Henry V, both at Shakespeare's Globe. 2015 he played Giles Corey in The Crucible, and in 2016, Gloucester in King Lear, both directed by Tom Morris at the Bristol Old Vic. In 2022 he appeared in Moira Buffini's play Manor, at the National Theatre, Lyttleton, directed by Fiona Buffini.

He married in 1966 in Buckinghamshire, to actress Chloe Ashcroft, whom he met at the National Theatre. They live in Whiteshill and Ruscombe in Gloucestershire and have a son (born 1968) and daughter (born April 1971).

• David Hargreaves at IMDb
• Portrait