Welcome to RichardArmitageOnline.com

This is an unofficial website about the work of the British actor Richard Armitage, star of BBC Spooks, Robin Hood, North and South and The Vicar of Dibley.

There's information here about his television, film and theatre work, including pictures and video clips of many of his TV and film roles. You can also read his comments about his characters, taken from published interviews.

Navigate to any of his roles from the menu at the top of the page, or go to the Television Career, Film Career, Theatre Career or Voice Career pages and follow the links from there. Also see...

Nb Richard's four JustGiving pages are as follows:

Childline, Barnardos, Shelter, and the Salvation Army.

Latest News

BBC Winter Olympics trailers Richard Armitage has recorded a radio trailer for the BBC's Winter Oympics coverage, which begins on 13th February. It's been heard on various BBC radio stations, including BBC Wales, Radio 2 and Radio 4. Listen...

He also provides the voiceover for a trailer currently running on BBC television. Watch...

Spooks 8 DVD The Region 2 DVD boxset of Spooks series 8 is due to be released in the UK on 11th October. It can be pre-ordered at Amazon UK.

George Gently DVD in The Netherlands A region 2 DVD of the first series of George Gently (which includes the pilot episode, in which Richard Armitage appeared) has been released - it's in English with Dutch subtitles. The pilot episode was first broadcast in The Netherlands in January, and was very well received, being the eighth most-watched programme of the day.

Richard Armitage at Sky Showcase  Richard Armitage was one of the guests at an event held recently in London by Sky, to showcase their new programming for 2010. OK magazine reported on it. He will star in one of their new dramas this spring, Strike Back.

Spooks 8 in Canada  BBC Canada started showing Spooks series 8 on 21st January, with no advance publicity at all. There are further episodes each Thursday at 10pm, repeated at 1am later in the night.

Spooks 9 to be the last series?  The Daily Mail (20th January) reports that among the drama series to be axed by the BBC will be Spooks. However, the BBC has denied this, saying that Spooks will return for a ninth series in the autumn, and that there are no plans to cancel it.

It was recently reported that the BBC's controller of drama commissioning, Ben Stephenson, was intending to kill off a number of long-running drama series to make way for new ones. Although there has been much speculation in the British press about which series might go, there has been no official announcement so far.

Santander advert Richard Armitage provides the voiceover for an advertisement on British TV for the bank Santander.

The Spanish bank took over two British banks, Abbey and Bradford & Bingley, some time ago, but in an advertising campaign beginning on 11th January, both of them are being rebranded under the Santander name. The advert can be seen on The Guardian's website, in an article about the new campaign.

Robin Hood series 3 DVD in North America The region 1 DVD of season 3 has now been released, and can be ordered at Amazon USA and the BBC America shop.

Writing for Spooks  On BBC Radio 4's Front Row on 18th December, Mark Lawson interviewed two of the writers on Spooks, Ben Richards and Richard McBrien, and mentioned that Spooks has been recommissioned for a ninth series. (Front Row is Radio 4's daily review of arts and culture.) The discussion about writing for Spooks was an interesting one, and can be heard about half way through the programme on the BBC iPlayer.

Spooks 7 in South Africa BBC Entertainment started broadcasting Spooks series 7 on Monday 11th January at 9.30pm. New episodes are shown at the same time each week, with repeats during the week.

Strike Back in FHM  The February edition of FHM magazine carries a short article about the filming of FHM in the Kalahari desert. Working in the 40 degree heat is like "being in a pizza oven", says Richard Armitage.

George Gently premieres in The Netherlands The Dutch TV channel Nederland 1 will broadcast George Gently for the first time on Wednesday 27th January at 21:25 CET. It will be shown in English with Dutch subtitles. Nederland 1 can be seen in some countries outside The Netherlands.

Article about Strike Back filming Sky magazine has a short feature about the filming of Strike Back in its January 2010 issue (available to Sky subscribers only). It reports that filming in the Green Kalahari desert last autumn was briefly halted when a snake was spotted nearby.

Strike Back promo Sky has been showing a brief promo for Strike Back. A copy of it can be seen on You Tube.

Spooks series 8 ends The last episode of the series was broadcast on 23rd December. The Guardian's Sam Wollaston reviewed it (but beware spoilers). The viewing figures were strong - 5.46 million, a 23.3% share. This was the second highest audience of the series.

Strike Back The Sky website has more details about Strike Back, due to air in spring 2010, probably in April.

Richard Armitage plays John Porter (right) in an adaptation of Chris Ryan's novel of the same name. Porter is a discharged veteran who led a special forces unit on a daring hostage rescue into the heart of Basra on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But things went disastrously wrong, and Porter has been haunted by guilt for the last seven years. Then he is given the opportunity to return to Iraq and redeem himself.

Set in Iraq, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, the six part series was filmed in South Africa over the last few months. It reunites Richard with a former cast member from Robin Hood, Toby Stephens. Also in the cast are Andrew Lincoln, Ewen Bremner, Jodhi May, Dhaffer L'Abidine, Orla Brady and Colin Salmon.

Charlie filming delayed Filming on Charlie has been put back from from early 2010 to the summer. Richard Armitage is due to play the lead in the film, which is written, directed and produced by Mike Ogden.

Set in southern Italy in 1943, it tells the story of an escaped Allied prisoner of war, Charlie (Richard Armitage). Fleeing the Germans, he encounters Marco, the teenage son of an executed partisan leader. Eventually, Charlie is forced to rely on the help of a group of children to evade capture. But then Marco discovers that Charlie has a secret, one which could prompt him to betray Charlie to the Germans.

Ogden describes Charlie as a complex character who is on an emotional rollercoaster. He's been developing the film for several years, and says that although it contains a lot of action, there is just as much drama and character development.

Further information can be found at the film's website, and there is also a messageboard for discussion and news about the film.

Robin Hood series 3 DVD in the Netherlands The DVD of the third series of Robin Hood with Dutch subtitles has been released. Extras include 'The Legend Reborn'.

Spooks series 7 DVD in North America  The Region 1 DVD of series 7 of Spooks (MI-5) will be released on 26th January 2010. It can be pre-ordered at the BBC America shop.

New audiobook of Venetia   Naxos Audiobooks will be releasing an abridged recording by Richard Armitage of Georgette Heyer's novel, Venetia. It's due on 1st April 2010, but it can already be pre-ordered at Amazon UK, Amazon USA and Amazon Canada.

It can also be ordered from The Book Depository, which sends orders all over the world post-free.

Like Sylvester, which Richard Armitage also recorded for Naxos Audiobooks, Venetia is one of Heyer's Regency romances. Published in 1958, it tells the story of Venetia Lanyon, a woman on the verge of permanent spinsterhood who has lived all her life quietly in the country, and the rakish Lord Damerel whose reputation as the most notorious libertine in England precedes him. They make an unlikely couple, but their story is one of Heyer's most popular novels.

Strike Back filming  The October 2009 edition of Screen Africa magazine carried a report on the filming of Strike Back. A news item on page 1 (cont'd page 47) reported that the series started filming in September in and around Johannesburg and would continue until December.

In the same edition, an advertorial for Kodak (on page 15) discussed the producer Andrew Benson's decision to shoot the series on 35mm film, rather than Digital HD which had been the original intention. Director of Photography Steve Lawes explained, "Firstly I think you can get some very interesting results on digital, but I feel it has an inherent electronic look. Secondly, the running performance of it. It doesn’t have the latitude of film, the whole way that you work on it - the back up etc. - yes the work flow can work, but my over riding argument is that if you are going to come to South Africa and shoot and where you have the kind of light that is available here, you want to capitalise on it. The way I always feel about digital - any digital camera - is it simply takes me longer to get the same aesthetic on any format other than film".

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Forthcoming work

Richard has recently been filming Strike Back in South Africa. It's a 6 part TV series based on Chris Ryan's novel of the same name. It's being made by Left Bank Pictures for Sky, a British satellite station, and is due for transmission in April 2010.

He is currently attached to a film called Charlie, in which he's been cast as the lead character. It's due to be shot in Italy in summer 2010 (see the Latest News section above for further details).

In April, Naxos Audiobooks will release his abridged recording of Georgette Heyer's novel, Venetia.

In the autumn, he will return as Lucas North in the ninth series of Spooks for the BBC. Filming is due to begin in the spring.

Other future projects include a stage play, as yet unannounced, but "based on a novel, which became a 60’s film classic", as he said in a recent interview with Vulpes Libris.

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