Mark McGann

Acting McGann made his professional acting debut after joining the Everyman Theatre Company, Liverpool, for their 1981/82 rep season under Bob Eaton, having first been earmarked for elevation from the Everyman Youth Theatre the previous year by the then Artistic Director Ken Campbell. His first break-through role was as the eponymous hero in the company's production of Lennon in 1981 which, thanks to McGann's uncannily accurate portrayal, received outstanding reviews and ran for 10 months at the London Astoria Theatre winning McGann the first of his two Olivier Award nominations for best actor in a West End theatre production. He was later to reprise the role for the film John and Yoko: A Love Story for NBC television in the United States in 1985. His first television appearances were in 1982 in Recording Studio opposite Peter Howitt and Robert Stephens for Granada TV, and Moving On The Edge, a BBC Play for Today TV Drama starring Eleanor Bron. He then appeared as 'Mad Dog' in the C4 TV series Scully by Alan Bleasdale in 1983 with Cathy Tyson and Elvis Costello, the first of three separate collaborations with Bleasdale which included the films No Surrender in 1985 and Pleasure for Channel 4 in 1990. McGann's long career in TV has seen him play a huge variety of characters including 'Marcus Bannerman' in the World War I era drama series by Russell T. Davies The Grand in 1999 for Granada TV; 'Joseph Bazalgette' the great Victorian industrial engineer in the award winning factual drama/doc Seven Great Industrial Wonders of the World in 2002 for the BBC; and 'Tom Crean' the Irish companion of Ernest Shackleton in Shackleton opposite Kenneth Branagh; and also 'Niven Craig' in Peter Medak's Let Him Have It with Christopher Eccleston and Tom Courtenay. He also appeared as 'Conor Phelan' in the multi-BAFTA nominated The Hanging Gale, a BBC drama set against the backdrop of the Irish Potato Famine of 1846 which also starred his three actor brothers Joe, Paul and Stephen and which was loosely based on his own family history. McGann has also appeared in many successful theatre productions including as Mickey in Blood Brothers by Willy Russell in 1984, An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley for a National Theatre Tour in which he played 'Inspector Goole' and also at the National Theatre in On the Ledge. Other notable theatre appearances include Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Mosca in Volpone by Ben Jonson for the Cambridge Theatre Company, twin brothers Rupert & Evelyn in Corpse by Gerald Moon, Scott in Up On The Roof at the Donmar Warehouse and Apollo Theatre London - which gained him a second Olivier Award nomination for best actor - Javetts in Yakety Yak at the Astoria London, Gethin Price in Comedians by Trevor Griffiths at the Young Vic London, Killers at the Royal Court London with Ian Rickson in 1992 and as Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni at the Greenwich Theatre London. Writing & Directing Original works for stage and screen include: "Two of Us" the Lennon & McCartney Songbook for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra co-written with Bob Eaton and directed by McGann for the RTE Orchestra Dublin, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Liverpool, The Northern Sinfonia Newcastle and the Sibelius Orchestra Lahti, Finland; "Imagine Lennon" for the Stadsteatern Gothenburg Sweden co-written with Bob Eaton, "Perplexed Music" a film written and directed by McGann currently in post production ; "Backstories" written and directed by McGann for the Merton Music Foundation and performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015; The Sunderland Saga an educational commission written and directed by McGann for Sunderland City Council in 2011; The Legend of Spottee's Cave - a film project commissioned by Sunderland City Council and produced and directed by McGann in 2011 which received a UK Arts and Culture Award nomination for best educational film and The Could Lad of Hylton Castle directed by McGann for writer Colin Swash. McGann has also directed iVirgin Boy a play by South African writer Peter Krummeck for the Oval Theatre London in 2003 as part of the New SA writers' festival; Socrates by Colin Swash at Andover Lights Theatre and Bullet Shaped Heart for Neil A. Edwards. He has also written and produced The McGann Acting Academy - two complete online professional acting courses for Stage and Screen presented by McGann and due to go live online in 2017/18; McGann is also a published songwriter who has written many original compositions, including for the West End production Up On the Roof with co-writer Simon Moore and three original compositions for the album The McGanns in 1999 which he recorded with his brothers Joe and Stephen for Coalition/Warner Bros. One of McGann's compositions, A Heartbeat Away was released as a single in 1999. McGann continues to create original works for and on behalf of his production company Drama Direct Ltd (2007 - ) offering a wide variety of creative projects and artist training to the entertainment industry and beyond. In 2017, McGann launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund his short film Perplexed Music which is based on the Elizabeth Barrett Browning petrarchan sonnet of the same name. The film is written and directed by McGann and stars his brother Paul and nephew Jake Sonny McGann in leading roles. Filming was completed in Summer 2017 and it is in post-production for a release date sometime early 2018. Personal life McGann's three brothers (Joe, Paul, and Stephen) are all actors. He lives with his wife Caroline Guinness-McGann in Frome, Somerset. Since 2007, McGann has been the director of Drama Direct Ltd, a creative production company which has produced many original productions and projects for the entertainment and education industries. McGann's belief in the necessity for ongoing high quality professional actor training has led to the development of his perennially popular Stage and Screen Acting Masterclasses and Workshops, which he continues to deliver throughout the UK and that have led to the creation of two complete online acting courses titled The McGann Acting Academy written by McGann and featuring a company of specifically selected professional actors. It is scheduled to go live online late 2017/early 2018. McGann continues to mentor actors both privately and via Drama Direct Ltd group workshops, supporting professional and student actors and helping develop them in the rich theatrical tradition unique to the UK. This includes the vocational continuation of the work of Peter Hall and John Barton in his traditional approach to acting Shakespeare's blank verse and prose and how to use the rhetorical devices to find the clues in Shakespeare's text.