John Shrapnel

Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy (née Edwards) and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel.[1] As a stage actor, he was a member of Laurence Olivier's Royal National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company and most recently appeared as Sir Oliver Surface in The School for Scandal (directed by Deborah Warner) at the Barbican Centre in 2011. He has also appeared extensively in film and on television in roles in Elizabeth R, Z-Cars, Edward and Mrs. Simpson, 101 Dalmatians, Space: 1999, Inspector Morse, Coogan's Run, Notting Hill and Foyle's War. He presented an episode of the 1983 BBC television travel series Great Little Railways. He gave performances in three entries in the BBC Television Shakespeare plays and as Creon in the BBC's 1984 productions of the Three Theban plays of Sophocles. In America, he has starred in supporting roles as Senator Gaius in Gladiator, Nestor in Troy and Pompey in the second episode of Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. He also played the Jail Warden in the 10th Kingdom, an epic fantasy miniseries. He has the rare achievement of appearing in two episodes of Midsomer Murders as two different characters, in Death in Chorus and Written in Blood. Shrapnel appeared in an episode of Jonathan Creek as Professor Lance Graumann in the episode The Omega Man. He appears in Chemical Wedding alongside Simon Callow, telling the tale of the resurrection of occultist Aleister Crowley. Shrapnel also has experience in the field of BBC radio drama through such characters as Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and William Gibson's Neuromancer. He is the son-in-law of Deborah Kerr through his 1975 marriage to her younger daughter Francesca Ann Bartley. They have three sons, the actors Lex Shrapnel (b.1979), Tom Shrapnel (b.1981) and the writer Joe Shrapnel (b.1976). They live in Highbury, north London.

Known For: Acting

Born: Birmingham, England, UK, 1942-04-27

Died: 2020-02-14

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1969	The Ha-Ha	Jamie	0
2	1969	It's Called the Sugar Plum	Wally Zuckerman	0
3	1971	Nicholas and Alexandra	Petya	69
4	1972	Pope Joan	Father James	59
5	1975	King Lear	Duke of Cornwall	0
6	1975	Hennessy	Tipaldi	47
7	1976	Hitting Town	Leonard Brazil (voice)	0
8	1977	Professional Foul	McKendrick	60
9	1977	The Three Hostages	Gaudian	0
10	1978	Flayed	Robert	0
11	1978	Edward & Mrs. Simpson	Maj. Alexander Hardinge	100
12	1979	Gossip from the Forest	Matthias Erzberger	0
13	1980	The Victim	Vincent Craig	0
14	1980	The Tom Machine		0
15	1981	Timon of Athens	Alcibiades	70
16	1981	Troilus & Cressida	Hector	80
17	1982	King Lear	Earl of Kent	60
18	1985	Poppyland	George Sims	0
19	1985	The Burston Rebellion	Rev. Charles Tucker Eland	0
20	1986	Theban Plays: Oedipus the King	Creon	20
21	1986	Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus	Creon	0
22	1986	Theban Plays: Antigone	Creon	0
23	1987	Personal Services	Lionel	61
24	1987	Partition	General Flood	50
25	1988	Testimony	Andre Zhdanov	45
26	1989	How to Get Ahead in Advertising	Psychiatrist	63
27	1990	The Tragedy of Flight 103: The Inside Story	BKA Police Chief	65
28	1992	SS-3: The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich	Narrator	40
29	1992	Hamlet	Claudius/Ghost	0
30	1993	Selling Hitler	Gerd Schulte-Hillen	70
31	1994	Fatherland	General Globus	62
32	1995	England, My England	Samuel Pepys	50
33	1995	King Arthur: His Life and Legends		100
34	1996	Two Deaths	Cinca	54
35	1996	101 Dalmatians	Skinner	59
36	1997	St. Stephen's: The Living Cathedral	Narrator (English voice)	0
37	1999	The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka	Iwaszkiewicz	0
38	1999	Hornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters	General Charette	72
39	1999	Notting Hill	PR Chief	73
40	1999	Mary, Mother of Jesus	Simon	42
41	2000	Gladiator	Gaius	82
42	2000	Supermassive Black Holes	Narrator	80
43	2001	The Body	Moshe Cohen	55
44	2001	Mountain Men: The Ghosts of K2	Narrator	70
45	2001	Animals of the Ocean Desert	Narrator	0
46	2001	The Gentleman Thief	Monty Sinclair	0
47	2002	Alone	Hannah	46
48	2002	Claim	Lex Vandenberg	54
49	2002	K-19: The Widowmaker	Admiral Bratyeev	65
50	2002	Whistle	Paul	61
51	2002	Schönbrunn - Well of Beauty	Narrator (English Version)	0
52	2003	Wild Women of Viramba	Narrator	0
53	2003	The Race for Everest	Narrator	0
54	2004	Seven Wonders of Ancient Rome	Narrator	0
55	2004	Seven Wonders of Ancient Egypt	Narrator	100
56	2004	Troy	Nestor	72
57	2004	Seven Wonders of Ancient Greece	Narrator	0
58	2005	Shadow of the Sword	Archbishop	59
59	2005	Wachau - Valley of Golden Magic	Narrator (English Version)	0
60	2006	Alien Autopsy	Michael Kuhn	56
61	2007	Elizabeth: The Golden Age	Lord Howard	67
62	2007	Hindenburg: Titanic of the Skies	Himself (Narrator)	68
63	2008	Chemical Wedding	Crowley	44
64	2008	Mirrors	Lorenzo Sapelli	63
65	2008	The Duchess	General Grey	70
66	2009	An Organization of Dreams	Father	0
67	2009	National Theatre Live: Phèdre	Théramène	78
68	2011	The Awakening	Reverend Hugh Purslow	64
69	2013	Run.	St. Peter	0
70	2013	National Theatre Live: Macbeth	Duncan, King of Scotland/Seyton, attendant to Macbeth/Old Man	70
71	2014	Building Burma's Death Railway: Moving Half the Mountain	Narrator	0
72	2014	OXI, an Act of Resistance	Creon	0
73	2015	Hamlet	Claudius/Ghost	82
74	2015	Branagh Theatre Live: The Winter's Tale	Camilo	77
75	2016	The Return of the Flying Scotsman	Narrator - (Voice)	0
76	2017	Britain's Nuclear Bomb - The Inside Story	Narrator (Voice)	70
77	2017	King Charles III	Archbishop of Canterbury	63
78	2022	Hamlet Within		0
79		Hamlet	Claudius	0

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1965	BBC Play of the Month	Duke of Cornwall	50
2	1965	BBC Play of the Month	Viktor Myshlaevsky	50
3	1967	Omnibus	Zborowski	72
4	1971	Elizabeth R	Earl of Sussex	74
5	1971	Justice	Roger Anderson	60
6	1975	Space: 1999	Jack Tanner	71
7	1977	BBC2 Play of the Week	McKendrick	70
8	1977	BBC2 Play of the Week	Robert	70
9	1978	Armchair Thriller	Vincent Craig	42
10	1978	Edward and Mrs Simpson	Major Alexander Hardinge	62
11	1982	The Woman in White	Sir Percival Glyde	75
12	1983	Natural World	Narrator	71
13	1988	The Modern World: Ten Great Writers	Thomas Mann	0
14	1989	About Face		60
15	1990	Centrepoint	Claud Wareing	60
16	1991	G.B.H.	Dr Jacobs	65
17	1992	Between the Lines	Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dunning	56
18	1992	Between the Lines	D.C.C. Dunning	56
19	1992	Shakespeare: The Animated Tales	Claudius / The Ghost (voice)	64
20	1994	Wycliffe	Dr. Sam Malvern	60
21	1995	Kavanagh Q.C.	Mr. Justice Griffin	70
22	1997	True Tilda	Reverand Glasson	0
23	1997	Midsomer Murders	Max Jennings	75
24	1997	Midsomer Murders	Leo Clarke	75
25	1997	Bodyguards	Commander Alan MacIntyre	0
26	1997	Jonathan Creek	Prof. Lance Graumann	75
27	1997	Predators Killing for a Living		0
28	1998	Invasion: Earth	Air Marshal Bentley	61
29	2000	The 10th Kingdom	Governor of Prison	76
30	2001	Waking the Dead	John Christie	72
31	2002	The Inspector Lynley Mysteries	Sergent Mike McCaffrey	71
32	2002	Foyle's War	Raymond Brooks	79
33	2004	New Tricks	DAC John Felsham	74
34	2004	I Am Not an Animal	Narrator	86
35	2006	Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire	Pompey	73
36	2008	Merlin	The Sarrum	78
37	2008	Apparitions	Cardinal Bukovak	71
38	2017	The Lions Rule	Narrator (voice)	90

John Shrapnel

Film

Television