Biography

Gareth S. Armstrong (born 25 June 1948) is a Welsh actor, director, teacher and writer.

Armstrong began his career by acting in school plays at the Bishop Gore School, Swansea. At the age of 16 he joined the National Youth Theatre; and went on from there to study drama at Hull University. On stage he has played leading roles in most of the UK's regional theatres including Birmingham Rep., Nottingham Playhouse and the Bristol Old Vic where parts ranged from Mamet to Molière. He has specialised in Shakespearean theatre where roles have included Romeo, Richard III, Oberon, Macbeth, Shylock and Prospero. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company he worked in Stratford and London and has performed in the West End in plays by Noël Coward, Tom Stoppard, Agatha Christie and most recently in Yes, Prime Minister (2013). He played at Shakespeare's Globe in 2008, 2010, and 2011.

Armstrong's television credits include: Z-Cars, Doctor Who (in the serial The Masque of Mandragora), Blake's 7, The Professionals, Terry and June, One Foot in the Grave, Casualty and EastEnders and Birds of a Feather.

Armstrong provided the voice for the character of Sandy in the Japanese television series Saiyūki, released in English-speaking countries as Monkey. He has recorded hundreds of audiobooks and has embarked on recording all of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels for Audible. For Black Library he has narrated novels and audio dramas at Games Workshop.

On radio, Armstrong has played three recurring roles in The Archers on Radio 4, including Sean Myerson, the publican of the Cat and Fiddle and the serial's first regular gay character. He also starred in an episode of Fear on Four, titled "The Edge", which was first broadcast in 1991.

Armstrong is noted for his own one-man show Shylock, in which Shakespeare's principal Jewish character is seen from the viewpoint of Tubal, Shakespeare's only other male Jewish character and Shylock's only friend in the original play. Armstrong began performing the play in 1998 and was still staging it in 2024, when the play was characterised as "a metatheatrical exploration of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice [...] a compelling meditation on Shylock, tracing both the plot and performance history of Shakespeare's Merchant and the dark details of Jewish persecution in Europe from the twelfth century". Armstrong has toured the play in over fifty countries and across the United States.[citation needed] The play has won awards in New Zealand, Canada, Spain and Germany and been translated into Catalan, Spanish, Italian, French and Russian as well being performed on Dutch television and Romanian radio.

In 2015, Armstrong wrote a five-handed comedy called Fondly Remembered which premiered in London, and was subsequently published by French's Acting Editions.

Armstrong's play A Critical Stage, about the theatre critic James Agate, received its premier in June 2023 at London's Tabard Theatre.[citation needed]