Stephen Beckett
Encyclopedia
Stephen Beckett is an English
actor
, known for portraying Dr Matt Ramsden in Coronation Street
and Mike Jarvis in The Bill
.
, London
, Beckett was raised in Brixton
and Croydon
, and attended Wilson's School
in Wallington
. He has a sister, who is two years his senior. Beckett left school at the age of sixteen to become an actor, and began his career in street theatre
in Covent Garden
. He later trained at RADA
, graduating at the age of twenty three.
Beckett is married to actress Anna Brecon
, whom he met when both were cast in a production of The Blue Room at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton
. They married in 2002, and have a daughter, Nancy, and a son, Wilfred. They currently live in Brighton
.
and Callas at the Oldham Coliseum
. He went on to work in regional theatre throughout the UK
, and with the National Theatre
.
Beckett played the role of PC Mike Jarvis in The Bill
for five years. He later played Dr Matt Ramsden in Coronation Street
from 2000 to 2002, reprising the role in 2006. Discussing the character and the possibility of a return, Beckett said: "People were really protective of Ashley
, and very anti the child-stealing doctor. I don't know about returning to Corrie again, but as long as Ashley is in the show there is a potential kidnap plot." But as the character of Ashley has now been written out with the rest of his on-screen family to follow shortly the return of Dr. Ramsden seems unlikely.
His other television credits include Robin Hood, Doctors and Casualty
. In 2006, he guest starred as Richard III
in the Doctor Who
audio drama The Kingmaker
.
Beckett's theatre work includes the original productions of the Alan Ayckbourn
plays Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places
, Around the World in Eighty Days
, The Ghost Train, Murder with Love, Walk Hard, The Business of Murder, The Late Edwina Black and Absurd Person Singular
. He has also appeared in pantomime
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, known for portraying Dr Matt Ramsden in Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
and Mike Jarvis in The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
.
Background
Born in Herne HillHerne Hill
Herne Hill is located in the London Borough of Lambeth and the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London. There is a road of the same name which continues the A215 north of Norwood Road and was called Herne Hill Road.-History:...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Beckett was raised in Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
and Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
, and attended Wilson's School
Wilson's School
Wilson's School is a boys' grammar school in Wallington, in the London Borough of Sutton, UK. Admission is based on performance in an entrance test with around 1,000 pupils being taught there....
in Wallington
Wallington, London
Wallington is a town in the London Borough of Sutton situated south south-west of Charing Cross. Prior to the merger of the Municipal Borough of Beddington and Wallington into the London Borough of Sutton, it was part of the county of Surrey.- History :...
. He has a sister, who is two years his senior. Beckett left school at the age of sixteen to become an actor, and began his career in street theatre
Street theatre
Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are...
in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
. He later trained at RADA
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...
, graduating at the age of twenty three.
Beckett is married to actress Anna Brecon
Anna Brecon
Anna Brecon is an English actress, known for portraying Lady Tara Thornfield in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.-Background:...
, whom he met when both were cast in a production of The Blue Room at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton
Octagon Theatre, Bolton
The Octagon Theatre is a producing theatre located in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England.-Programme:The Octagon produces between eight and nine professional theatre productions a year in its Main Auditorium...
. They married in 2002, and have a daughter, Nancy, and a son, Wilfred. They currently live in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
.
Career
Beckett won his first professional roles a week after graduating from drama school, appearing in Richard IIRichard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
and Callas at the Oldham Coliseum
Oldham Coliseum Theatre
Oldham Coliseum Theatre is a theatre in Oldham, Greater Manchester, England.Oldham Coliseum is a building-based producing theatre. It has a capacity in its main auditorium of 585 seats; in addition the theatre has a studio with a capacity of 50 seats...
. He went on to work in regional theatre throughout the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and with the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
.
Beckett played the role of PC Mike Jarvis in The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
for five years. He later played Dr Matt Ramsden in Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
from 2000 to 2002, reprising the role in 2006. Discussing the character and the possibility of a return, Beckett said: "People were really protective of Ashley
Ashley Peacock
Ashley Sibelius Peacock is a fictional character from the UK television ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. Portrayed by actor Steven Arnold, the character first appeared onscreen during the episode airing on 1 February 1995.On 23 April 2010, it was announced that the character had been axed along...
, and very anti the child-stealing doctor. I don't know about returning to Corrie again, but as long as Ashley is in the show there is a potential kidnap plot." But as the character of Ashley has now been written out with the rest of his on-screen family to follow shortly the return of Dr. Ramsden seems unlikely.
His other television credits include Robin Hood, Doctors and Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
. In 2006, he guest starred as Richard III
Richard III of England
Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...
in the Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
audio drama The Kingmaker
The Kingmaker
The Kingmaker is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The drama was written by Nev Fountain who is better known for his work on the radio and television series Dead Ringers, and also stars Jon Culshaw who in the same...
.
Beckett's theatre work includes the original productions of the Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
plays Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places
Private Fears in Public Places
Private Fears in Public Places is a 2004 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The bleakest play written by Ayckbourn for many years, it intimately follows a few days in the lives of six characters, in four tightly-interwoven stories through 54 scenes.In 2006, it was made into a film Cœurs,...
, Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the...
, The Ghost Train, Murder with Love, Walk Hard, The Business of Murder, The Late Edwina Black and Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...
. He has also appeared in pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
.
Television
| Year | Show | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | The Bill The Bill The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work... |
Mike Jarvis (1993–1998) |
Police drama Police procedural The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several... |
| 2000 | Coronation Street Coronation Street Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960... |
Dr Matt Ramsden (2000–2002, 2006) |
Soap opera Soap opera A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,... |
| 2002 | The Day That Shook the World | Narrator | Television film Television movie A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to... |
| 2005 | Doctors | Mike Richmond - Freefall (2005) |
Soap opera Soap opera A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,... |
| 2006 | Dalziel and Pascoe Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC TV series) Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British television crime drama based on the Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill, which was first broadcast in March 1996. It is set in Yorkshire, and is about two detectives... |
Martin Bendelow - Glory Days: Part 1 (2006) - Glory Days: Part 2 (2006) |
Police drama Police procedural The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several... |
| Casualty Casualty (TV series) Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The... |
Mark Steed - Walk Before You Can Run (2006) |
Medical drama Medical drama A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the... |
|
| 2007 | Doctors | Damon Ashwood - Inocence Lost (2007) |
Soap opera Soap opera A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,... |
| Robin Hood | Legrand - Treasure of the Nation Treasure of the Nation Treasure of the Nation is the eleventh episode of series two of the BBC's new Robin Hood series. It aired on 15 December 2007.- Plot :The Sheriff has turned Locksley into a garrison town, throwing its people out to make room for an army of vicious mercenaries. Robin and the outlaws witness the... (2007) |
TV series Television program A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series... |
|
| 2009 | Holby City Holby City Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999... |
Gary Daley - Breathe Deeply (2009) |
Medical drama Medical drama A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the... |
| Heartbeat | Alan Page - Return Crossing (2009) |
TV series Television program A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series... |
Film
| Year | Show | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Enchanted April | Jonathan | Feature film Feature film In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie... |