45 Facts About Samuel West

Samuel Alexander Joseph West was born on 19 June 1966 and is an English actor, theatre director and narrator.

Samuel West has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor in theatre, film, television, and radio.

Samuel West has appeared as reciter with orchestras and performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002.

Samuel West has narrated several documentary series, including five for the BBC about the Second World War.

Samuel West was educated at Alleyn's School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he studied English literature and was president of the Experimental Theatre Club.

Samuel West originally intended to attend Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, but chose instead to focus on his career after he was cast as King Caspian in the BBC's 1989 series The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

In 2002, Samuel West made his stage directorial debut with The Lady's Not for Burning at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester.

Samuel West succeeded Michael Grandage as artistic director of Sheffield Theatres from 2005 to 2007.

Samuel West left Sheffield when the theatre closed for refurbishment in 2007, and made his Samuel West End directorial debut with the first major revival of Dealer's Choice following its transferral to the Trafalgar Studios.

Samuel West continued his acting career: in 2007 he appeared alongside Toby Stephens and Dervla Kirwan in Betrayal at the Donmar Warehouse.

In 2008, West played Harry in the Donmar revival of T S Eliot's Family Reunion, and in 2009 he starred as Jeffrey Skilling in Enron by Lucy Prebble.

Samuel West played Ivanov and Trigorin in the Chichester Festival Theatre's Young Chekhov Season from September 2015, alongside Nina Sosanya, Anna Chancellor, and James McArdle.

In 2023, Samuel West played Hugh Delavois in Adrian Edmundson and Nigel Planer's comedy play It's Headed Straight Towards Us at the Park Theatre, Londonopposite Rufus Hound.

In late 2024, Samuel West returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Malvolio in Prasanna Puwanarajah's production of Twelfth Night opposite Gwyneth Keyworth, Freema Agyeman and Bally Gill.

Samuel West appeared in the film Reunion with Jason Robards and Christien Anholt as an aristocratic boy who befriends the son of a Jewish doctor in 1930s Germany.

Samuel West appeared with Thompson again in the film Carrington.

In voice-over, Samuel West provided the voice of Pongo in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, replacing Rod Taylor.

Samuel West has appeared in many long-running series: Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead and Poirot, as well as one-off dramas.

Samuel West played Anthony Blunt in Cambridge Spies, a BBC production about the four British spies, starring alongside Toby Stephens, Tom Hollander and Rupert Penry-Jones.

Samuel West reprised his role as Blunt in "Olding", the premiere episode of the third season of The Crown released in 2019.

Samuel West played Frank Edwards in the ITV drama Mr Selfridge, and Sir Walter Pole in the 2015 BBC adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Samuel West is regularly heard on radio as a reader or reciter and has performed in many radio dramas, including Otherkin by Laura Wade, Present Laughter by Noel Coward, Len Deighton's Bomber, Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Michael Frayn's Here, The Meaning of Zong by Giles Terera and The Homecoming as Lenny to Harold Pinter's Max.

Samuel West has appeared alongside his actor parents on several occasions: with his mother Prunella Scales in Howards End and Stiff Upper Lips, and with his father Timothy Samuel West on stage in A Number, Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2.

Samuel West became the patron of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus in February 2008, having been the narrator for a concert of theirs in February 2002.

Samuel West was an outspoken critic of the New Labour government of Tony Blair and their involvement in the Iraq War.

Samuel West has written essays on Richard II for the Cambridge University Press series Players of Shakespeare, on Hamlet for Michael Dobson's CUP study Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today and on Shakespeare and Love and Voice and Radio for BBC Radio 3.

Samuel West has published articles on Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill and the Shipping Forecast.

Samuel West frequently writes and speaks in public about arts funding.

Samuel West has collected stamps since childhood and owns more than 200 Two Shilling Blues.

In 2013, Samuel West was one of the judges for the Forward Prizes for Poetry.

Samuel West is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a trustee and previous Chair of the Campaign for the Arts.

Samuel West is a keen birdwatcher, and an Ambassador for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

In 2007, Samuel West began living with playwright Laura Wade, but in 2011 the couple temporarily split up.

In 2013, Samuel West was cast in a minor role in The Riot Club, the film version of Wade's successful play, Posh, and in 2014 the couple had a daughter.

Samuel West is a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association which commemorates Wilfred's life and poetry.

Samuel West narrated the Yorkshire Television documentary The SS in Britain for director Julian Hendy in 1999, and considering his role in the ITV drama series Mr Selfridge, he was the voiceover for Secrets of Selfridges in 2014.

In June 2012, Samuel West recorded an English narration of The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My by Tove Jansson for an interactive audiobook developed by Spinfy and published by Sort of Books.

In May 2015, Samuel West's reading of Brighton Rock was chosen as one of "The 20 best audiobooks of all time" by Carole Mansur of the Daily Telegraph.

In 2007 Samuel West made his New York recital debut in the first performance of Little Red Violin by Anne Dudley and Steven Isserlis.

In November 2010, Samuel West performed a new English translation of Grieg's complete incidental music to Ibsen's play Peer Gynt with the Southampton Philharmonic Choir at Southampton Guildhall.

Samuel West has performed at the Proms six times, including the suite version of Henry V at the 2002 Last Night of the Proms.

Samuel West has appeared with the Nash Ensemble, the Raphael Ensemble, The Hebrides Ensemble, Ensemble 360 and the Lindsay, Dante and Endellion Quartets at the Wigmore Hall, London.

Samuel West toured a program of Britten cabaret songs and Auden poems across the UK with Ruthie Culver and the UtterJazz Quartet.

On 14 July 2017, one month after the Grenfell Tower fire, BBC's Newshour programme invited Samuel West to read out an excerpt from a letter written by an anonymous firefighter giving a personal account of the fire scene and his inner thoughts on duty that night.

In 2020, Samuel West appeared on the album From The Ground Up: an ensemble led by Hugo Ticciati improvised over Henry Purcell chaconne bass lines while Samuel West read Shakespeare and rapper Baba Israel improvised.