Richard Armitage’s Followers (749)

Add New
Videos

Interview with Richard Armitage – narrator of 'Classic Love Poems'

Add a comment

Richard Armitage

Born

in Leicester, The United Kingdom

August 22, 1971

Website

http://www.richardarmitageonline.com/index.html

Twitter

RCArmitage

Genre

Historical Fiction

edit data

British actor and audio-book narrator.

Richard Armitage was born in 1971, the second son of Margaret, a secretary, and John, an engineer. He grew up in a village outside the city. Some of his favourite childhood stories included The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

At the age of fourteen he transferred from a local state middle school, Brockington College, to Pattison’s Dancing Academy in Coventry (now Pattison College), an independent boarding school specialising in Performing Arts. The school arranged regular theatre visits, and it was here, watching a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, that he discovered an interest in acting: “I remember having that moment of finally understanding what was going on. They British actor and audio-book narrator.

Richard Armitage was born in 1971, the second son of Margaret, a secretary, and John, an engineer. He grew up in a village outside the city. Some of his favourite childhood stories included The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

At the age of fourteen he transferred from a local state middle school, Brockington College, to Pattison’s Dancing Academy in Coventry (now Pattison College), an independent boarding school specialising in Performing Arts. The school arranged regular theatre visits, and it was here, watching a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, that he discovered an interest in acting: “I remember having that moment of finally understanding what was going on. They were having such a good time and the audience was having such a good time and I just thought that was where I wanted to be. I remember thinking they were doing something they loved and they were getting paid for it”. [2]

Pattison’s introduced him to the demands and obligations of an acting career: "It... instilled me with a discipline that has stood me in good stead - never to be late, to know your lines and to be professional." It gave its pupils opportunities to appear in local amateur and professional productions, and by the time Richard left school at 17, he had already appeared in Showboat, Half a Sixpence, as Bacchus in Orpheus and the Underworld and in The Hobbit at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham. [3]

After leaving school, Richard joined The Second Generation, a physical theatre group, working for eight weeks in a show called Allow London at the Nachtcircus in Budapest. Here he “threw hoola hoops to a skateboarding Russian and held ladders for [a] juggling act…did guide roping for the trapeze, and…a weird kind of UV glow-in-the-dark mime illusion thing”. [4] Though he later described “sleeping next to the elephants” as “a low point in show business”, it was sufficient to gain him his Equity card, a pre-requisite at the time for entry to the profession. [1]

Returning to the UK, he embarked on a career in musical theatre, working as assistant choreographer to Kenn Oldfield and appearing in the West End and on tour in a series of musicals including 42nd Street, My One and Only, Nine, Mr Wonderful, Annie Get your Gun and Cats.

By 1995, inspired in part by seeing Adrian Noble’s classic 1994 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Stratford, he was laying the foundations of an acting career, appearing at the Actors’ Centre’s Tristram Bates Theatre as Macliesh in Willis Hall’s The Long and the Short and the Tall, and at the Old School Manchester as Henry in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, Flan in John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation and Biff in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. He was also studying for a Society of British Fight Directors qualification.

This was the year that Richard enrolled on a three-year Acting course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). Here he appeared in student productions including Pericles as Antiochus the Great, David Copperfield as Uriah Heep, Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart as Felix, and as Buscher in Manfred Karge’s metaphorical drama of unemployment The Conquest of the South Pole.

In his final year at LAMDA, an advert on the college notice board for film extras led to his first experience of acting in a feature film: a one-line role in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It was a humble, though interesting, entry into film: “I felt very nervous saying my line - I had practised it for three weeks… I actually ended up as a computer graphic in the film, I think”. [4] Despite being unidentifiable on screen, he found himself besieged by Star Wars fans when touring Japan with the RSC two years later.

Graduating in the summer of 1998, he immediately joined the cast of Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, having already appeared at the Edinburgh Festival ...more

Combine Editions
Richard Armitage’s books

Average rating: 3.9 · 68,470 ratings · 10,927 reviews · 92 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (Goodreads Author), Richard Armitage (Narrator) 4.32 avg rating — 1,161,836 ratings — published 2018 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Richard Armitage (Narrator) 4.03 avg rating — 992,424 ratings — published 1939 — 999 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney (Goodreads Author), Richard Armitage (Narrator), Stephanie Racine (Narrator) 3.88 avg rating — 695,578 ratings — published 2021 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Geneva by Richard Armitage (Author & Narrator ), Nicola Walker (Narrator ) 3.60 avg rating — 9,541 ratings — published 2022 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Classic Love Poems by Richard Armitage (Narrator), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Shakespeare 3.95 avg rating — 2,707 ratings — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cut by Richard Armitage, Jacob Dudman (Narrator) 3.32 avg rating — 1,699 ratings — published 2024 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Robin Hood: The Complete Series 1 4.13 avg rating — 23 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The cut 3.20 avg rating — 20 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Out & about: A Travel & Transport Guide by Richard Armitage, Richard Armitage 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Getting Going in Europe: A Guide to Developing Transnational Projects 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Richard Armitage…

Quotes by Richard Armitage (?)

“I have a secret feeling that we're all Hobbits. Deep down we all want to stay home and feel safe, but we all dream about someone knocking on the door and saying "Come on an adventure and let's have a fun ride.”
― Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Chronicles I: Art & Design

tags: the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey

28 likes

“The heart beats in a different way when you know what you’re doing is wrong. It’s a punch, not a flutter.”
― Richard Armitage, Geneva

5 likes

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Romance Audiobooks: 2011 Listening Challenge	89	106	Nov 03, 2011 06:56PM
A Million More Pages: Get Ready for Summer Read-a-Thon	100	102	Jun 28, 2016 08:35PM
Our Reading Cove: AMMPs Get Ready for Summer Read-a-Thon (June 17th - June 26th)	2	2	Jun 29, 2016 12:55AM
Romance Audiobooks: Who’s Talking to Me Quarterly Challenge - Multiple Narrators (July - September)	10	48	Jul 31, 2018 01:01PM
Romance Audiobooks: 2019 Karin's Personal Challenge Log	23	38	Dec 30, 2018 07:26AM

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Richard to Goodreads.