17 Facts About Barrie Rutter

Barrie Thomas Rutter OBE was born on 12 December 1946 and is an English actor and the founder and former artistic director of the Northern Broadsides theatre company based in Dean Clough complex, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.

Barrie Rutter participated in school plays, joining the National Youth Theatre and at the age of 17 in 1964, he left Hull to live with his aunt in Kennington, London.

Barrie Rutter later studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but left early before finishing the course to go on a European tour with the NYT.

Barrie Rutter was passed over for the 1967 production of Peter Terson's football play Zigger Zagger, but Terson wrote a role for him in The Apprentices.

Barrie Rutter was with the Nottingham Playhouse in 1968, then freelanced until joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1975.

Barrie Rutter founded Northern Broadsides in 1992 and the company performs at its Halifax base and on tour.

Barrie Rutter has played major parts in many of its productions.

Barrie Rutter has appeared in many films and television programmes, including Countdown to War, Queenie's Castle, Minder, and a regular role in the early 1980s ITV sitcom Astronauts and as armed robber Oakes in the 1979 film version of the BBC sitcom Porridge.

In 2009 Barrie Rutter directed Lenny Henry in a production of Othello.

In June 2016 Barrie Rutter was the subject of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Barrie Rutter declined to take The Bible but accepted the complete works of Shakespeare; his chosen book was a collection of Tony Harrison's poems and his luxury a pair of swimming flippers so that "at the first sign of madness" he could swim out to sea and battle with a shark.

In July 2017 Barrie Rutter announced that he would step down from the post of artistic director at Northern Broadsides in April 2018 after frustration at what he saw as inadequate Arts Council funding for the company.

Barrie Rutter toured the same show in 2024 to venues including The Dukes in Lancaster, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, and the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Barrie Rutter married American Carol Chillington in 1978, and moved near to Stratford-on-Avon when Chillington got a job at Warwick University.

Carol Chillington Barrie Rutter is Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at Warwick and was director of the CAPITAL Centre from 2006 to 2011.

In January 2020 The Yorkshire Post said that Barrie Rutter had been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Barrie Rutter was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama.