Paul John McGann was born on the 14th of November 1959 in Kensington, Liverpool into a Roman Catholic family. With his ancestors immigrating from Ireland in the mid-19th century, having left due to the Great Famine, his mother, Clare, was a teacher, and his father Joe who died in 1984 was a metallurgist. He had a cousin Ritchie Routledge who was in the 1960s band 'The Cryin' Shames'. Paul attended Cardinal Allen Grammar School in West Derby, Liverpool and when he was 17, working in a shoe shop, he acted on the advice of one of his teachers and successfully auditioned for a place on the acting course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He had started acting at the age of 12 at Liverpool's Everyman Youth Theatre after seeing his first play, 'The Ghost Train' by Arnold Ridley. In 1980, the Principal of RADA selected a scene from an adaptation of 'Macbeth', which Paul co-wrote with Bruce Payne, to be performed in front of the Queen in one of her rare visits to the Academy. Having performed several small roles on TV from 1982, his breakthrough role came in 'Give Us a Break' (1983-84), playing a good snooker player who got into scrapes with his manager, Robert Lindsay. His first major dramatic role was as Percy Toplis, the British WW1 deserter and criminal in 'The Monocled Mutineer' (1986) and although the serial garnered controversy his performance was acclaimed. Then he was cast as the anonymous main character, Marwood, in the cult film 'Withnail and I' (1987) and then as Lieutenant Price in the the epic war film 'Empire of the Sun' (1987). He also starred as Anton Skrebensky in Ken Russell's adaptation of 'The Rainbow' (1989), with other early film appearances including, 'Dealers' (1989), 'Tree of Hands (1989), alongside Lauren Bacall, and 'The Monk' (1990).
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| With Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I. |
From 1989 he concentrated primarily on television work, including 'Nice Town' (1992) for the BBC and in 1992 was cast as Richard Sharpe, the lead character in the series of made-for-TV films based on Bernard Cornwell's novels, 'Sharpe'. However he injured his knee while playing football just days into filming and was replaced by Sean Bean which effectively kick-started Bean's career and is the one that he is most closely identified with. Also in the drama series 'The Hanging Gale' (1995), he and his three brothers, Joe, Mark and Stephen, played the four brothers of the Phelan family who battle to save their farm and their family from the ravages of the Irish Potato Famine in 1846. Other noteable TV appearances were in the series, 'Our Mutual Friend' (1998), 'Forgotten' (1999), 'Nature Boy' (2000) and 'Fish' (2000). In 1996 he played the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the television film 'Doctor Who'. This 85-minute episode was a joint production between BBC Worldwide, Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox and the American network Fox and was an introduction to the Eighth Doctor, designed as a pilot for a future series (which, as we now know, did not happen). Paul's brother Mark also auditioned for the title role. Although it had 9.08 million viewers and was very successful in the UK, ratings were very low in the United States and as a consequence, Fox did not exercise its option to pick up the series and Universal could not find another network interested in airing a new 'Doctor Who' series. Thus no new series was produced until 2005, after all the contractual rights had returned to the BBC. Despite playing the Doctor on screen for the shortest time of any actor, Paul was actually the Time Lord for the longest period, serving from 1996 to 2005 (beating off Sylvester McCoy by a matter of days). He gave permission for his likeness to be used on the covers of the BBC's 'Eighth Doctor' novels and he has reprised the role in an extensive series of audio plays which have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 7, (later BBC Radio 4 Extra), as well for anniversaries and specials.
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| The Eighth Doctor Who |
In the 2000s Paul's film appearances began to increase with films like 'My Kingdom' (2001), 'Listening' (2003) and 'Gypo' (2005), but perhaps his most iconic role since 'Doctor Who' came in 2002, when he played the part of David Talbot in the film adaptation of the third story from Anne Rice's 'The Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned'. He also gained acclaim for his portrayal of William Bush in the final four installments of the television series 'Hornblower', where he initially appears in the episode 'Mutiny' (2001), with Bush being the 2nd Lieutenant of HMS Renown (and Hornblower's superior). In the 7th episode, 'Loyalty' (2003), he agrees to join Hornblower as his 1st Lieutenant when Hornblower takes command of HMS Hotspur and again portrays Bush in the 2003 finale of the series, 'Duty' (2003). He then appeared in 6 episodes of the television drama 'Tripping Over' (2006) and then in the BBC One drama series 'True Dare Kiss' (2007). Then in 2010 he played a major role in a feature-length episode of long-running BBC mystery series Jonathan Creek, as well as appearing as a regular in the crime drama 'Luther' (2010-19). In 2017, he joined the cast of the long-running BBC series Holby City' (2017-18) as the neurosurgeon John Gaskell for 40 episodes. In 2021, he hosted the British Podcast Awards Gold-winning Noiser podcast production 'Real Dictators', a history show about the up to date facts on dictators of the past. Paul has also been in demand for voice-over work in Britain in recent years, particularly on television documentaries and commercials.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/03/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-paul.html
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