Jeffery Kissoon

Jeffery Kissoon (born 4 September 1947) is a Trinidadian-born British actor and director of stage, screen, and radio.

He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner. He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.

A regular director of theatre, Kissoon is a member of the board of directors of the Shared Experience company and the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon, London. He has tutored younger actors, writers and directors, and values the rehearsal process. He played the lead role in the Mark Norfolk film Ham and the Piper (2012), and also directed Norfolk's theatre productions Knock Down Ginger, staged in 2003, Naked Soldiers, 2010 and Where the Flowers Grow, 2011, at the Warehouse Theatre. He reprised his role as Antony in Suzman's production of Antony and Cleopatra, appearing opposite Kim Cattrall as Cleopatra, at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2010.

Early life and career Born in Trinidad, British Windward Islands (now Trinidad and Tobago) Kissoon, of Dougla heritage, emigrated to London with his parents at an early age. While attending the Christopher Wren School in Shepherd's Bush, he joined the student drama group. In 1970, under Robert Tanitch and Eric Rickman, he made his first appearance as an actor in the film Like You, Like Me, an inter-racial romance.

Although he trained as a drama teacher, Kissoon has worked as an actor since the early 1970s. In 1972, he joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre Company and, for two years thereafter, played leading roles in a number of productions, including Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine The Great and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera. During this period, he worked with director Keith Hack, who cast him as Tamburlaine for the 1972 Edinburgh Festival, Kissoon had his first prominent television role playing Sam in Beryl's Lot for Yorkshire Television (in 1975), after which he played PC Robbins in an episode of Z-Cars and Sonny in a BBC Play for Today titled "Rocky Marciano is Dead" (both in 1976).

In 1985, Kissoon played Karna in Peter Brook's nine-hour stage adaptation of The Mahabharata. The three-year project opened at the Festival d'Avignon in France and completed a world tour, ultimately leading to a film adaptation running to six hours. It also resulted in a lasting professional association between Kissoon and Brook, which witnessed Kissoon play two roles in the director's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Kissoon is a veteran cast member of both RSC and Royal National Theatre productions, regularly collaborating with director Sir Peter Hall. In 2002, he participated in a rehearsed reading of Wrong Place at the Soho Theatre, continuing his association with playwright Mark Norfolk whose play ″Knock Down Ginger″ he later directed at the Warehouse Theatre the following year. The play starred former EastEnders actors Judith Jacob, Sylvester Williams and marked the stage debut of Troy Glasgow.

Kissoon's more recent screen and stage credits include W1A (TV series) (BBC, 2017), Star Wars: The Force Awakens, EastEnders (BBC, 2015), Julius Caesar (Royal Shakespeare Company), Ham & The Piper (Mark Norfolk, 2013) Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002), Crossing Bridges (Mark Norfolk, 2006), Holby City (BBC, 2006), Casualty (BBC, 2008), War and Peace (Hampstead Theatre, 2008), Amazonia (Old Vic, 2009) and The Meeting (Warehouse Theatre, 2009). He played the lead role in Norfolk's film Ham and the Piper (2013), for which he won the Best Lead Actor Award at the 2012 Peloponnesian International Film Festival, after having directed Ewart James Walters, Elisabeth Dahl and Adam Sopp in Norfolk's play Naked Soldiers at the Warehouse Theatre the previous year. Kissoon reprised his Mark Antony, opposite Kim Cattrall's Cleopatra, in a production of Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Janet Suzman and performed at the Liverpool Playhouse, in October 2010. This was followed by Waiting For Godot at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (co-starring Patrick Robinson) and the RSC's production of Julius Caesar (in the title role). In 2016 Kissoon featured in the Unicorn Theatre's My Father, Odysseus written by Timberlake Wertenbaker and later directed a stunning Hamlet in a contemporary adaptation by Mark Norfolk. The Egyptian-themed production for Black Theatre Live toured nationally in the UK and was noted for its narrative clarity as well as being the first all black company of Shakespeare's tragedy in Britain, including an all black creative team. Kissoon utilised the ancient African martial art form, Ka Zimba during rehearsals, employing professional drumming and movement practitioners to explore how the breath and the natural spirit combine to conjure up character. He and writer, Norfolk maintained their collaboration in 2018 with Kissoon directing Norfolk's play about the world of finance, Dare To Do (The Bear Maxim) for Ka Zimba Theatre at the Space. Rehearsals took place in Notting Hill as a way of engaging with a traumatised community after the recent Grenfell Fire tragedy and they later teamed up again, producing staged readings of edgy new plays at the Muse Gallery & Performance Space in Notting Hill, London, including plays such as The Misclarification of Sulieman Dewani and short plays Dinner With Bono by Mark Norfolk based on the short story by Jackee Butesta Batanda and Birdbath by Leonard Melfi.

In 2019, Kissoon also directed Norfolk's post-Windrush three-hander What A' Fe' Yu, which performed over three nights at the Actors Centre, Tower Street, London, as part of its Johnthreehaw Initiative under the theme of Motherhoods. The cast featured Linda Mathis, Benjamin Cawley and Lenox Kambaba in a narrative that explored family expectations and legacy in contemporary Britain and went on to perform at the Muse Gallery. More recently Kissoon has been appearing as Justice Wainwright on the West End in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution at County Hall, London.

Kissoon performed in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Rudy's Rare Records (2008–12) as Rudy's friend Clifton. He also featured in Norfolk's "Broken Chain", a segment of Radio 4's The City Speaks (2008), which is credited as the first "feature film for radio" produced in collaboration with Film London and Arts Council England.

In 2001, Kissoon joined the cast of the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, in which he played a friend of Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker). In 2015, Kissoon returned to EastEnders, this time playing the part of Judge Anthony Abego who oversees Max Branning's (Jake Wood) murder trial. A year later, he reprised his role of the judge, this time overseeing the murder trial of the killers of Paul Coker (Jonny Labey).

Work Theatre

Vision of Youth Tamburlaine The Great (as Tamburlaine), The Citizen's Company, dir. Keith Hack, 1972 The Way of the World The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window The Island Streamers Reflections Othello, Bristol Old Vic, dir. Paul Unwin Colon's Macbeth, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Macbeth, The Young Vic Love's Labours Lost The Tempest (as Caliban), RSC's The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, dir. Keith Hack, 1974 City Sugar, Bush Theatre, dir. Stephen Poliakoff, 1976. Barbarians: A Trilogy: Killing Time, Abide with Me, In the City, Greenwich Theatre, dir. Keith Hack, 1977. The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, The Warehouse, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1978 Dr Faustus, Royal Exchange, Manchester, dir. Adrian Noble, 1981 Marino Faliero, The Young Vic, dir. Keith Hack, 1982 Oroonoko, Glasgow Citizens Theatre, dir. Phillip Rowse, 1983 Cheapside, Croydon Warehouse Theatre, dir. Ted Craig, 1985 The Mahabharata (as Karna), Festival d'Avignon in France, tour and film, dir. Peter Brook, 1985–89. Troilus and Cressida (as Diomedes), Barbican Centre, dir. Howard Davies, 1986 The Gods Are Not to Blame, Riverside Studios, dir. Yvonne Brewster, 1989 The Merchant of Venice (as the Prince of Morocco), Phoenix Theatre, dir. Peter Hall, 1989 As You Like It, Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. Trevor Nunn. In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, Almeida Theatre, 1991 Antony and Cleopatra (as Antony), Merseyside Theatre and Bloomsbury, dir. Yvonne Brewster, 1991 A Taste of Honey The Coup, Royal National Theatre, dir. Mustapha Matura, 1991 A Midsummer Night's Dream, (as Oberon) Royal National Theatre, dir. Robert Lepage, 1992 A Midsummer Night's Dream (as Theseus/Oberon), Chichester Festival Theatre, dir. Gail Edwards/Steven Pimlott 1992 Othello (as Othello), Birmingham Repertory Theatre, dir. Bill Alexander, 1993 Julius Caesar (as Brutus), Royal Shakespeare Company's The Other Place, video and tour, dir. David Thacker, 1993 The Tempest (as Prospero), Birmingham Repertory Theatre, dir. Bill Alexander, 1994 Oedipus the King, Royal National Theatre, dir. Peter Hall, 1996 Life is a Dream (as Basilio), Edinburgh and London, dir. Calixto Bieito, 1999 The Dove, Croydon Warehouse Theatre, dir. Jeanette Smith, 1999 The Free State (as Alexander), tour, dir. Janet Suzman, 2000 The Tragedy of Hamlet, (as Claudius and Ghost) world tour, dir. Peter Brook, 2001–02 The Meeting (as Malcolm X), Croydon Warehouse Theatre, dir. Malcolm Fredericks, 2002 Nathan the Wise, Chichester Festival Theatre, dir. Steven Pimlott, 2003 Resurrection Lichfield Garrick Theatre, dir. Annie Castledine 2003 Fix Up by Kwame Kwei-Armah (as Brother Kiyi), Royal National Theatre, dir. Angus Jackson 2004 Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 (as Earl of Northumberland), Royal National Theatre, dir. Nicholas Hytner, 2005 Tamburlaine the Great (as Bajazeth), Bristol Old Vic and Barbican Centre, dir. David Farr, 2005 Orestes (as Tyndareos), Tricycle Theatre and tour, dir. Nancy Meckler, 2007 An African Cargo by Margaret Busby (as Equiano and Lord Mansfield), Greenwich Theatre, Black Theatre Co-operative (now NitroBeat), dir. Felix Cross, 2007 War and Peace (as Prince Bolkonsky), Hampstead Theatre and tour, dir. Nancy Meckler, 2008 Amazonia (as Don Antonio), Young Vic, dir. Paul Heritage/Joe Hill-Gibbins, 2009 The Meeting (as Malcolm X), Croydon Warehouse Theatre, director Jeffery Kissoon, 2009. Antony and Cleopatra (as Antony), Liverpool Playhouse, dir. Janet Suzman, 2010 Waiting For Godot, West Yorkshire Playhouse, dir. Ian Brown, 2011 Julius Caesar (as Julius Caesar), Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. Greg Doran, 2012–13

Radio

The Ministry of Performing Arts, BBC Sound, Mustapha Matura Dionysos, BBC Radio Three, 2003 The City Speaks: Broken Chain, BBC Radio 4, Toby Swift, 2008 Rudy's Rare Records (Series 1–3), BBC, Lucy Armitage, 2008 Tamburlaine: The Shadow of God, BBC, Marc Beeby, 2008 Broken Chain, Mark Norfolk, 2008 Gone, BBC Radio 3, debbie tucker green, 2010

Film Carry on Up the Jungle (1970) - Nosher (uncredited) Hamlet (1996) - Fortinbras's Captain Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - Cab Controller The Nativity Story (2006) - Herod's Architect Crossing Bridges (2007) - Buster Ham and the Piper (2013) - Burt Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) - Rear Admiral Guich

Television

Like You, Like Me (1970) Beryl's Lot (1975) - Sam "Devil to Pay" "Safety First" "Home Again" "A Day at the Races" Z-Cars (1976, Episode: "Manslaughter") - PC Robbins BBC Play for Today (1976, Episode: "Rocky Marciano is Dead") - Sonny Space: 1999 (1976–1977) - Dr Ben Vincent Very Like a Whale (1981) - Customs Officer Grange Hill (1986–1987) - Mr Kennedy The Mahabharata (1990) - Karna The Bill (1995) - De Silva "Street Life" "Uncle Bob" Only Love (1998, TV Movie) - Rashid Brothers and Sisters (1998) - Russel Leonard The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1999, Episode: "Tales of Innocence") - El Hadji Dalziel and Pascoe (1999, Episode: "Time to Go") - Mr Graham The Tragedy of Hamlet (2002) - Claudius / Ghost EastEnders (2002-2016) - Judge Anthony Abego / Milton Hibbert Holby City (2002–2018) "Last Chances" (2002) - Douglas Payne "Bad Blood" (2006) - Trevor Heron "Last Dance" (2013) - Professor JJ Kirby "The Three Musketeers" (2018) - Reg Thompson Doctors (2003, Episode: "A Question of Priorities") - Lewis Parnell Grease Monkeys (2004, Episode: "Jail Bait") - Bertrand Baptiste Agatha Christie's Marple (2006: "The Sittaford Mystery") - Ahmed Ghali Kiss of Death (2008) - Commissioner Casualty (2008, Episode: "Before a Fall") - Lyndon Marshall Doctors (2010) - Denny