Sean Connolly :: Actor & Voice Artist

. biography .

Sean was born in Derbyshire into a large Anglo-Irish family.

He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.

THEATRE: Soon after leaving drama school Sean clinched his first theatre job in 'Alice In Wonderland' at the Civic Theatre, Barnsley playing the Cheshire Cat and Humpty Dumpty for which he gained Equity membership. How many actors can say that they got their Equity card playing a cat and an egg!! Well I know at least three others..! Since then Sean has played Ted Snarget in the children's classic 'Stig of The Dump' for Clarion Productions, National Tour and West End, The Narrator in 'Frankie's Monster' for Unicorn Theatre, London, Bottom in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with Find The Light Theatre Company, Smee in 'Peter Pan' at the Midlands Arts Centre, Ade in 'Between' on a National Tour and at the Belgrade Studio, Coventry, Knot in 'Good King Wenceslas' at Warwick Arts Centre, Friar Lawrence in 'Romeo and Juliet' and Porthos in 'The Three Musketeers' for the Redditch Theatre Company, Boatswain and Adrian in 'The Tempest' at Derby Playhouse and most recently Peter in the World Premier of 'Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman and Paddy...?' at Birmingham Repertory Theatre with a hugely successful transfer to the Tricycle Theatre, London. Sean has also been the voice of Terry Wogan for the wonderful Euro-Vision inspired National Tour of 'Sing-A-Long-A-Eurosong' for AJN Productions...

TELEVISION & FILM: Sean's television career began in the early nineties, opposite the late Michael Elphick in 'Boon'. Roles in 'Resnick' (BBC), 'Woof' (Central) opposite Nigel Havers, the Screen 2 Film 'Cruel Train' soon followed. A Comedy Pilot called 'Ordinary Lives - Dale Winton' playing the Rugby Captain opposite Jon Culshaw's Dale Winton, comedy characters for the BBC 1 Quiz Show - 'Relatively Speaking'. More recently Sean has been seen in 'The Bill' (Thames), 'Doctors' (BBC) opposite Stephanie Cole, 'Venus and Mars' (part of The Afternoon Plays season) - (BBC) opposite Robson Green and Tina Hobley and the second series of the controversial hospital comedy drama 'No Angels' (Channel 4). Film credits for Sean include 'Knights & Satellites', 'Jim's Gift', 'The Big Game' and most recently 'Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang)' playing the Bouncer opposite Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code), Chris Penn (Reservoir Dogs) and Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting)...

Sean also auditioned for Gareth in 'The Office' and was thrilled when it became one the biggest comedy phenomenon's of the last twenty years..!!

RADIO & VOICE: Sean's radio career again started in the early nineties. He has now been heard in over 100 radio productions for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 (yes they did once produce excellent radio drama!), BBC Radio 7 and countless Independent productions. Highlights include 'Campion's Ghost' (playing alongside Paul McGann and Timothy West), 'US' (with Adrian Lester), 'I Can't Be Ill I'm A Hypochondriac' (playing Ray Brooks' boss), 'The Archers' (with David Bamber), 'Watership Down' (spending a week in studio being a rabbit!), 'Falco: The Silver Pigs' and 'Falco: Shadows in Bronze' (the first two radio adaptations of Lindsey Davis' Roman detective novels with Anton Lesser as 'Falco'), the 'Woman's Hour' 5-part serial 'Bollywood Jane', in addition Sean works regularly on 'Silver Street' the BBC’s newest Radio Soap on the BBC Asian Network playing roles as varied as Liverpudlian Football Star, Irish Builder, Scottish Reporter, Estate Agent (even playing John Lennon in a special 60's flashback storyline!) in fact he's played 18 different roles so far in over 50 Episodes (surely a 'Silver Street' record!). He is also fortunate to play the on-going characters of local community policeman PC Evans and Birdyman, the street's very own mystery man..!, 'St Berks' (radio's very first comic strip set in crazy comprehensive school!) for BBC Radio 7's 'The Big Toe Radio Show' and reading 24 'Horrid Henry' stories again for BBC Radio 7 but this time for 'The Little Toe Radio Show' (bringing to life over 60 madcap characters..!). More recently Sean recorded the children’s million-seller book ‘The Number Devil’ by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (an International Bestseller which has been translated into 26 languages ) again for BBC Radio 7's 'The Big Toe Radio Show' abridged by Neville Teller MBE into 12 magical episodes and produced for BBC Radio 7 by Helen Lee. Also for BBC Radio 7, Sean has recorded 8 classic children's stories (over 50 characters) for CBeebies Radio on BBC Radio 7, producer was Daniel Edwards. He was also thrilled to be asked to be in Season 3 of 'Big Cook Little Cook' for CBeebies Radio performing over a dozen characters in 6 episodes (everything from a very tall Italian Decorator called Michael Ganglio to a Baby Tyrannosaurus Rex!) produced by Nicky Grischotti. Sean has also worked for Big Finish Productions (producers of the excellent classic 'Doctor Who' audio adventures) most notably playing the father of Davros (creator of the Daleks) in a 4-part mini series called 'I, Davros - Innocence'. It’s not every voice artist that can say that they’ve played the GRANDFATHER OF THE DALEKS..! Sean has also worked with the 6th Doctor - Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford in Big Finish's - 'Doctor Who - The Wishing Beast' where he played Mildew, a rather forlorn but heroic ghost, the cast also included Jean Marsh and Geraldine Newman. Additional Big Finish work includes the latest instalment of the Dalek Empire spin-off saga called 'Dalek Empire: The Fearless', a 4-part science fiction extravaganza alongside amongst others Noel Clarke (telly Dr Who's Mickey), as well as 'The Davros Mission' opposite 'Spooks' and 'Doctor Who' star Miranda Raison and 'Doctor Who - The Dark Husband' with the 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy with Sophie Aldred as his companion Ace. Sean's other impressive voice over credits include: Over 30 characters for the second 13-part series of 'Rex the Runt' - the animated cult classic from Aardman Animations (the studio that created 'Wallace and Gromit' and 'Chicken Run'...) and the BBC, MacDonald in 'The Great Escape' (made by SCI) for PC-CD ROM/XBox/PS2 platforms voicing one of the 4 main game play characters the Intelligence Officer (played by Gordon Jackson in the movie), Bover the Dog in the Animation Short - 'Bover's Rollocks' - produced by Benjamin Weller and Mark Thorley, Creepy Vincent Price Narration plus all Sound Effects in the Horror Short - 'Evil Resident' ( Lynall & Pressdee Films) which was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, All Irish Voices in the Animated Irish Folk Tale - 'The Rise of Hy-Breasail' for Ezme Murphy, other computer games include 'Conflict: Desert Storm II' (SCI), 'The Battle For Crawrth' (Rage Software), 'Shadow Of The Horned Rat' and 'Hammer Of Vigilance' both for Games Workshop. Other television voice over includes dubbing work for 'The Cook Report' (Central), Space Pilot Centaur in the BSkyB/Andromeda TV Sci-Fi Series - 'Jupiter Moon', the English Dubbing on the controversial Norwegian fishing documentary 'Catch & Denial' for Kurt Salo, also the English Dubbing of Judas Iscariot in 'The Lamb Of God' - An Epic 30 minute re-telling of 'The Passion' of Jesus Christ. Corporate voice work includes: IBM, Barclays Bank, British Rail & Honda. Dozens of radio commercials both for local and national campaigns: The Queen's Award For Industry, Hamlet Cigars, Sandicliffe Ford, Peacocks, Birmingham Cable Co, Bryant Homes, Business Links & Gerry Feeney Travel...

Sean is a PROFESSIONAL IMPRESSIONIST and also has such a versatile voice that he is capable of almost any dialect requested. His extensive repertoire of character voices has to be heard to be believed!

TV COMMERCIALS: Severn Trent Water, Secure Homes, West Midlands Travel, The Little Pub Company...

ROLE PLAY: Work includes : Interactive Studies Unit at the University of Birmingham Medical School also for IMPROMPTU LTD click here to go to Impromptu's website...

OTHER: Sean has directed a community production of Caryl Churchill's 'Vinegar Tom' and Dave Roberts' 'The Messenger' for the Birmingham Readers and Writer Festival. He has appeared with Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee in a Charity Sketch Show, did met Denham Elliot, but didn't go to school with Paul McCartney's sister and supports Derby County Football Club...(I know!).