Playing age: 50 - 60
Height: 5' 8''
Accent: Northern / RP
Ian trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama (now The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire).
His most recent roles include Norm, Macbeth, Banquo, Malcolm, A Messenger and A Soldier in Elsie and Norm’s Macbeth; soloist in My Dearest Mr Coward; Tom in Round and Round the Garden; Ugly Sister in Cinderella and Dr Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest all for Worcester Rep.
Other roles include Peter Lovich opposite Billy Pearce in the world premier of Stand Up the Musical which also starred Darren Day, Dean Sullivan and Lionel Blair; he played Larry Grayson in a critically acclaimed national tour of 3 Days and 3 Minutes With Larry and Nigel, a Brummie member of a diet club, in Fatbusters - The Musical, which had a very successful premier in London
Other theatre credits (in his younger days) include a tap dancing chorine in No, No Nannette; 3rd Pirate from the left in Treasure Island The Musical; Trombone playing twin in The Music Man; Asher in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Fred & Cordell Hull in Annie; Bobby in Cabaret; Annas in Jesus Christ Superstar and Caleb in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
In the West End, Ian was seen in Call Me Madam, with the late Noele Gordon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Peter Pan The Musical, with Lulu and the late George Cole.
He appeared in one Royal Variety Show and two Children’s Royal Variety Shows; The Kelly Monteith Show and The Eric Sykes Show for BBC 1 and on Channel 4, Ian provided the face and voice-over for a short feature called Luvvies On The Dole. His film credits include Gunbus, which was so popular it never made it into a cinema; Anxiety; The Nutcracker with Joan Collins and Paul Nicholas and The Jersey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Ian is also regularly seen in Panto. In 2011, he appeared in Jack and the Beanstalk playing King Crumble for PHA Productions at Bridlington Spa. He also went on for the Dame with only 2 hours notice when the original Dame fell ill. His performance was such a success he was invited back the following year as Dame in his own right in Beauty and the Beast.
In 2015, he was invited to play The Town Cryer, Alderman Willy Widl and The Maharaja of Monkey Island in a production of Dick Whittington specially written for the historic Wilton’s Music Hall by Roy Hudd (who also made his debut as Dame) and, at the end of 2016, Ian was invited back to Wilton’s to appear as The Spirit of Christmas and Squire Stingy in Mother Goose which, once again, was written by and starred Roy Hudd.
Ian’s other Panto appearances include Dame Able Mabel in Peter Pan; Widow Twankey in Aladdin and Dame Marge in Sleeping Beauty all for PHA Productions.
In 2000, Ian became a founding member of 4 Poofs And A Piano and, within eight months of being together, the group found themselves starting a TV career as the house band on the BAFTA and Comedy Award winning Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.
On top of the 9 years spent at the BBC, the boys also took 3 sell-out shows to the Edinburgh Festival, played the Glastonbury Festival 6 years in a row, had 3 successful national tours, supported Joan Collins on her one woman show and played comedy festivals countrywide.
They were given a regular slot on Daybreak for ITV1 and made numerous other television appearances including LK Today; This Morning; Loose Women; Children In Need; Comic Relief; Sport Relief; Harry Hill’s TV Burp; The Politics Show and BBC Breakfast. They also had the pleasure of performing with Abba’s Benny Andersson, Jimmy Osmond and Neil Diamond.