John Henshaw is a British actor, best-known for his roles as Ken the landlord in Early Doors

Early Doors

Early Doors is a BBC sitcom written by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey who also appear in the series playing best friends Joe and Duffy. The setting is The Grapes, a small public house in Greater Manchester, where daily life revolves around the issues of love, loneliness and blocked urinals...

, Wilf Bradshaw in Born and Bred

Born and Bred

Born and Bred is a light-hearted British drama series that aired on BBC One from 2002 to 2005. Created by Chris Chibnall and Nigel McCrery, Born and Breds cast was led by James Bolam and Michael French, who play a father and son who run a cottage hospital in Ormston, a fictional Lancashire village...

and PC Roy Bramwell in The Cops. He is often associated with playing "hard men". He played John Prescott

John Prescott

John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...

 in ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 drama Confessions Of A Diary Secretary.

One of 12 siblings, he grew up in Ancoats

Ancoats

Ancoats is an inner city area of Manchester, in North West England, next to the Northern Quarter and the northern part of Manchester's commercial centre....

, Manchester's "Little Italy" community. He was a refuse collector for ten years before deciding to become an actor at the age of 40. His first big break in acting was as a minder to Robert Lindsay

Robert Lindsay (actor)

Robert Lindsay is an English actor who is best known for his television work, especially his roles of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith, Michael Murray in G.B.H., Captain Sir Edward Pellew in Hornblower and Ben Harper in My Family which has been on television screens since 2000.-Early life:Lindsay was...

's character Michael Murray in the acclaimed Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 series, G.B.H.. He had roles in the Steve Coogan

Steve Coogan

Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...

 film, The Parole Officer

The Parole Officer

The Parole Officer is a 2001 film, directed by John Duigan and was the first feature film to star comedian Steve Coogan. The film follows a mismatched group of former criminals as they assist their probation officer in proving his innocence after a murder accusation.-Plot:Simon Garden is a...

and in the BBC Three

BBC Three

BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent...

 sitcom The Visit

The Visit (TV series)

The Visit is a British television programme starring Iain McKee and Steve Edge.The BBC revealed The Visit is part of a series trilogy with I'm With Stupid and Thieves Like Us and the decision is yet to be made about a second series.-Plot outline:...

, which was first shown 15 July 2007. In 2002, he appeared in a Scottish Gaelic drama, Anna Bheag (Wee Anna), although he does not play a Gaelic-speaking character.

Other credits include Nice Guy Eddie, When Saturday Comes

When Saturday Comes (film)

When Saturday Comes is a British film from 1996 starring Sean Bean and Emily Lloyd, directed by Maria Giese. It is about a factory worker who gets scouted, firstly by the well-known non-league side Hallam F.C. and then later by Sheffield United Football Club...

and appearances in The Royle Family

The Royle Family

The Royle Family is a popular, BAFTA award-winning television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards...

, Last Of The Summer Wine

Last of the Summer Wine

Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...

and Life on Mars

Life on Mars (TV series)

Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....

. In September 2007 at The Lowry

The Lowry

The Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex situated on Pier 8 at Salford Quays, in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early-20th century painter, L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England...

 in Salford he starred in the world premier of King Cotton

King Cotton (play)

King Cotton was a specially commissioned musical written by Jimmy McGovern and directed by Jude Kelly, with original music by Howard Goodall, based on an idea by Ian Brownbill and designed by Ti Green....

.

He played the role of Ken, the deputy manager in the Post Office

Post Office Ltd.

Post Office Ltd is a retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of products including postage stamps and banking to the public through its nationwide network of post office branches.-Structure:Post Office Ltd...

 adverts (2007-08). March 2008 saw Henshaw return to Manchester playing the lead in Jim Cartwright

Jim Cartwright

Jim Cartwright is an English dramatist, born at Farnworth, Lancashire, England. Cartwright's first play, Road, won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the BBC....

's play Road

Road (play)

Road is the first play written by Jim Cartwright, and was first produced in 1986.The play explores the lives of the people in a deprived, working class area of Lancashire during the government of Margaret Thatcher, a time of high unemployment in the north of England...

at the Octagon theatre.
Summer 2009 saw Henshaw play Meatballs in the Ken Loach-directed and Eric Cantona

Eric Cantona

Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona is a French actor and former French international footballer. He played for Auxerre, Martigues, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nîmes and Leeds United before ending his professional footballing career at Manchester United, where he won four Premier League titles in...

-starring film Looking for Eric

Looking for Eric

Looking for Eric is a 2009 French/Belgium/British film about the escape from the trials of modern life that football and its heroes can bring for its fans. It was written by screen writer Paul Laverty and directed by English director Ken Loach...

. Meatballs was a workmate and friend of the lead character Eric Bishop (Steve Evets

Steve Evets

Steve Evets is an English actor and musician, who found fame in the leading role in the 2009 film Looking for Eric.-Personal life:...

).
In 2010 he played Mr. Pony in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal is a two-part television adaptation of the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett, adapted by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle and produced by The Mob, which was first broadcast on Sky1, and in high definition on Sky1 HD, at the end of May 2010.It is the third in a...

.

Henshaw is chairman of the 24:7 Theatre Festival, an annual festival of new writing for theatre based in Manchester.

External links