Ryan Kelly is a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 born actor best known for playing the role of Jack 'Jazzer' McCreary in the BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 soap The Archers

The Archers

The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...

, a part he has played since 2000.

Kelly was born in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, but moved to the Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

 at the age of three. Born without eyes and, as a result, Blind

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

 from birth, he attended Exhall Grange School

Exhall Grange School

Exhall Grange School and Science College is a community special school located in Ash Green just outside Coventry in Warwickshire, England. The school caters for pupils ranging in age from two to 19 years, and who have a range of disabilities and learning difficulties, including physical...

 in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

 and the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

, where he studied drama. In 1997 he became the first totally blind student in the history of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...

 after beating 3,000 other applicants to win a place. In 2000 he was selected for the part of Jazzer in an open audition with eight sighted actors.

On 22 November 2011 Kelly was the inaugural recipient of the Tyzack Award at the Ability Media International awards. The award
recognises writers, producers and performers who "transcend the stereotypical".

Kelly married Sonia Blakemore in 2004. The couple first met while teenagers at school. They have one daughter.

External links

• Ryan Kelly's profile at BBC Online
• All That Jazzer, Disability Now, Retrieved 19 February 2010.