# Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss (/ˈɡeɪtɪs/ ; born 17 October 1966) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. He is best known for his work in television acting in and co-creating shows with Steven Moffat. Gatiss has received several awards including a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Gatiss co-created, co-wrote and acted in BBC comedy series The League of Gentlemen (1999–2002). He co-created and portrayed Mycroft Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock (2010–2017) and Frank Renfield in BBC / Netflix miniseries Dracula (2020). He also wrote several episodes of Doctor Who during Moffat's tenure as showrunner, as well as two episodes during Russell T Davies' earlier tenure. His other TV roles include Tycho Nestoris in Game of Thrones (2014–2017), Stephen Gardiner in Wolf Hall (2015), and Peter Mandelson in Coalition (2015). He has acted in films such as Victor Frankenstein (2015), Denial (2016), Christopher Robin (2018), The Favourite (2018), The Father (2020), Operation Mincemeat (2021), and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023).
On stage, Gatiss played Menenius in the revival of William Shakespeare's Coriolanus (2013) for which he earned a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination. He took on the role of King George III in a revival of the Alan Bennett play The Madness of George III (2018). He portrayed Sir John Gielgud in the Jack Thorne play The Motive and the Cue (2023) for which he earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. His other theatre roles include in The Recruiting Officer (2012), The Vote (2015), and A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story (2021).

## Early life and education

Gatiss was born in Sedgefield, County Durham, England, to Winifred Rose (née O'Kane, 1931–2003) and Maurice Gatiss (1931–2021). He grew up opposite the Victorian psychiatric hospital Winterton, and later in Trimdon, before his father, a colliery engineer, took a job as engineer at the School Aycliffe Mental Hospital in Heighington. His family background is working class. His passions included watching Doctor Who and Hammer Horror films on television, reading Sherlock Holmes and H. G. Wells, and collecting fossils. All those interests have influenced his creative work.
Gatiss attended Heighington Church of England Primary School, and Woodham Comprehensive School in Newton Aycliffe. At the latter, he was two years ahead of Paul Magrs, who also went on to write Doctor Who fiction. Gatiss then studied Theatre Arts at Bretton Hall College, an arts college affiliated to the University of Leeds.

## Career
### 1999–2005: Career beginnings

Gatiss is a member of the sketch comedy team The League of Gentlemen (along with fellow performers Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and co-writer Jeremy Dyson). He first met his co-writers and performers at Bretton Hall, Yorkshire, a drama school which he attended after finishing school and having spent a gap year travelling around Europe. The League of Gentlemen began as a stage act in 1995, which won the Perrier Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997. In the same year the show transferred to BBC Radio 4 as On the Town with the League of Gentlemen, and later arrived on television on BBC Two in 1999. The television programme has earned Gatiss and his colleagues a British Academy Television Award, a Royal Television Society Award and the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux. In 2005, the film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse was released, to generally positive reviews.
Shearsmith and Pemberton reunited in 2009 to create a similarly dark BBC sitcom, Psychoville, which featured an episode guest-starring Gatiss. The three reunited again in 2012 to film a series of sketches for the fourth series of CBBC show Horrible Histories.
Outside The League, Gatiss' television work has included writing for the 2001 revival of Randall & Hopkirk and script editing the popular sketch show Little Britain in 2003, making guest appearances in both. In 2001 he guested in Spaced as a villainous government employee modelled on the character of Agent Smith from The Matrix film series. In the same year he appeared in several editions of the documentary series SF:UK. Other acting appearances include the comedy-drama In the Red (BBC Two, 1998), the macabre sitcom Nighty Night (BBC Three, 2003), Agatha Christie's Marple as Ronald Hawes in "The Murder at the Vicarage", a guest appearance in the Vic & Bob series Catterick in 2004 and the live 2005 remake of the classic science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment. A second series of Nighty Night and the new comedy-drama Funland, the latter co-written by his League cohort Jeremy Dyson, both featured Gatiss and aired on BBC Three in the autumn of 2005. He appeared as Johnnie Cradock, alongside Nighty Night star Julia Davis as Fanny Cradock, in Fear of Fanny on BBC Four in October 2006, and featured as Ratty in a new production of The Wind in the Willows shown on BBC One on 1 January 2007. He wrote and starred in the BBC Four docudrama The Worst Journey in the World, based on the memoir by polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard.
Gatiss appears frequently in BBC Radio productions, including the science fiction comedy Nebulous and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes story The Shameful Betrayal of Miss Emily Smith. In 2009, he was The Man in Black when BBC Radio 7 revived the character (originally played by Valentine Dyall and Edward de Souza) to introduce a series of five creepy audio dramas. He is also involved with theatre, having penned the play The Teen People in the early 1990s, and appeared in a successful run of the play 'Art' in 2003 at the Whitehall Theatre in London. In film, he has starred in Sex Lives of the Potato Men (2004) and had minor roles in Birthday Girl (2001), Bright Young Things (2003), Match Point (2005) and Starter for 10 (2006). The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, a film based on the television series, co-written by and starring Gatiss, was released in June 2005. He also plays the recurring character of Gold in the audio revival of Sapphire and Steel produced by Big Finish Productions. Gatiss also appeared in Edgar Wright's fake trailer for Grindhouse, Don't, a homage to 1970s' Hammer Horrors.

### 2007–2017: Doctor Who and Sherlock

Gatiss has also made three credited appearances in Doctor Who. In 2007, he played Professor Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment". In 2011, he returned in the Series 6 episode "The Wedding of River Song" as a character known as Gantok, and in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon A Time" as "The Captain". Also in 2007, he appeared as Robert Louis Stevenson in Jekyll, a BBC One serial by his fellow Doctor Who scriptwriter Steven Moffat. In 2008, he appeared in Clone as Colonel Black. Gatiss also wrote, co-produced and acted in the BBC Four ghost story Crooked House (2008).
He appeared in the stage adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother at the Old Vic in London from 25 August-24 November 2007. He won much critical acclaim for his portrayal of the transgender character Agrado. In the 2008 English language re-release of the cult 2006 Norwegian animated film Free Jimmy, Gatiss voiced the character of "Jakki," a heavy-set, bizarrely dressed biker member of the "Lappish Mafia." In this his voice is used along with the other actors of League of Gentlemen such as Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The dialogue was written by Simon Pegg and other actors included Pegg himself, Woody Harrelson and David Tennant, who worked with Gatiss on Doctor Who. He was scheduled to perform in Darker Shores by Michael Punter, a ghost story for all the family, at Hampstead Theatre 3 December 2009 – 16 January 2010 but had to withdraw after a serious family illness. Tom Goodman-Hill took over his role.
In 2010, he portrayed Malcolm McLaren in the BBC drama Worried About the Boy which focused on the life and career of Boy George. He adapted H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon into a television film of the same name for the BBC, also playing Professor Cavor. He also made a three-part BBC documentary series entitled A History of Horror, a personal exploration of the history of horror cinema. This was followed on 30 October 2012 with a look at European horror with the documentary Horror Europa. In March 2010, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3. From December 2010 to March 2011, Gatiss was playing the role of Bernard in Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings at the Royal National Theatre in London alongside Catherine Tate. In December 2011, he appeared in an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage in an episode entitled The Science of Christmas, alongside Brian Cox, Robin Ince and Richard Dawkins. In January 2012, he took the role of Brazen in The Recruiting Officer at the Donmar Theatre, London. From 18 October – 24 November that year he was Charles I in the Hampstead Theatre production of 55 Days by Howard Brenton, a play dramatising the military coup that killed a King and forged a Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.
With Steven Moffat, with whom Gatiss worked on Doctor Who and Jekyll, he also co-created and co-produced Sherlock (2010) starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. He also portrayed Mycroft Holmes in the series. Gatiss had influence on all episodes as producer and he wrote four episodes, one for each series: the finale, "The Great Game" for the first series, "The Hounds of Baskerville" for the second, "The Empty Hearse" for the third and "The Six Thatchers" for the fourth. He also co-wrote "Many Happy Returns", a mini-episode released in late December 2013 which acts as a prelude to the third series, with Steven Moffat; the episode "The Sign of Three" with Moffat and Steve Thompson; and "The Abominable Bride", a special episode released in early January 2016, with Moffat. Finally, he co-wrote the final episode of Sherlock, "The Final Problem", with Moffat, released in January 2017.
In December 2013, Gatiss joined the cast of the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus as Senator of Rome, Menenius. The play went from 6 December 2013 through 13 February 2014. For his performance, Gatiss received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. On 25 December 2013, a version of the ghost story "The Tractate Middoth" by M. R. James and adapted by Gatiss was broadcast on BBC Two as part of the long-running A Ghost Story for Christmas series. It starred Sacha Dhawan, John Castle, Louise Jameson, Una Stubbs, David Ryall, Eleanor Bron, Nick Burns and Roy Barraclough. It was followed on 25 December 2013 by a screening on BBC2 of a new documentary by Gatiss titled M. R. James: Ghost Writer. The programme saw Gatiss explore the work of James and look at how his work still inspires contemporary horror today.
He appeared in season four of Game of Thrones in 2014 playing Tycho Nestoris and reprised this role in season five and season seven. In the BBC's 2015 series Wolf Hall, Gatiss played King Henry VIII's secretary Stephen Gardiner. He also appeared in Channel 4's Coalition in 2015. In 2016, he played Harold in the groundbreaking American play The Boys in the Band, play at Park Theatre (London) opposite his husband Ian Hallard. They made history when the play transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in 2017 as the first married gay couple to appear together on a West End stage.
Gatiss appeared as the Prince Regent (later George IV) in the eight-part historical fiction television drama series Taboo (2017) first broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2017 and in the United States on FX on 10 January 2017. In May 2017, Gatiss began a recurring role on The Secret History of Hollywood, a series of podcast biopics on Golden Age-era Hollywood. Its 11-part series, Shadows tells the story of Val Lewton's life and career, with Gatiss providing the introductions for each episode.

### 2018–present: Theatre roles and expansion

In November 2018, Gatiss portrayed the lead, King George III in a revival of the Alan Bennet play The Madness of George III at Nottingham Playhouse. The production was broadcast live to cinemas as part of National Theatre Live. Kate Maltby of The Guardian wrote of his performance, "Productions of The Madness of George III live or die by their star, and Gatiss delivers a tour de force. This is a viscerally repulsive depiction of the gap between public and private life." That same year he played a supporting role as John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough in the Yorgos Lanthimos directed black comedy The Favourite (2018) starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Also in 2018 he acted in the children's film Christopher Robin starring Ewan McGregor and The Mercy with Colin Firth. In 2020 he acted opposite Anthony Hopkins in the film The Father based on the Florian Zeller play Le Père. In October 2021, Gatiss wrote and played Jacob Marley in a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol – A Ghost Story by Charles Dickens playing at both Nottingham Playhouse and Alexandra Palace in 2021.
He appeared as a modern-day incarnation/descendant of Count Dracula's servile companion Renfield in the series of his own co-creation, Dracula in the third and final episode, "The Dark Compass". In 2017, Gatiss and Steven Moffat re-teamed to write three episodes for TV miniseries Dracula. The series premiered on BBC One on 1 January 2020, and was broadcast over three consecutive days. The three episodes were then released on Netflix on 4 January 2020. In June 2021, a new adaptation of The Ghosts by Antonia Barber, written and directed by Gatiss for Sky One, was announced. It broadcast on 24 December. In 2021 he acted in the British war film Operation Mincemeat portraying Ivor Montagu. That same year he acted in Locked Down, The Road Dance, and The Sparks Brothers. He joined the Mission Impossible franchise acting in action film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) starring Tom Cruise.
In May 2022, Gatiss directed The Unfriend, a new play by Steven Moffat at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, starring Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith. The play transferred to London's West End Criterion Theatre in January 2023. In February 2023, Gatiss directed The Way Old Friends Do a new play by Ian Hallard at the Birmingham Rep. This also transferred to the Criterion in August. In April 2022, Gatiss starred as Lawrence in the seventh series opener of Inside No. 9. In April 2023, Gatiss played as Sir John Gielgud in The Motive and the Cue, a new play written by Jack Thorne and directed by Sam Mendes at London's National Theatre. The story of how Richard Burton (played by Johnny Flynn) and Gielgud clashed as they staged Hamlet on Broadway in 1964, the play has received good reviews, particularly the two leads. Leonie Cooper of Time Out wrote of his performance, "Mark Gatiss launches himself into a condescending but sensitive Gielgud...[who] is just as impressive, his uncanny Gielgud manifesting a man in flux, as a new era of performance threatens to subsume his traditional take on stagecraft. Gatiss's Gielgud is lonely and lost, but still more than capable of getting one over on the wayward Burton." For his performance Gatiss won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.
Filming got underway in Belgium in April 2024 on Bookish, which Gatiss co-wrote and stars. He will also be appearing in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, set for debut in 2025.

## Writing for Doctor Who

At the age of eleven, Gatiss won a school literary competition with a short science fiction story "The Anti-Noise Machine", published in a booklet by Darlington Borough Council. Gatiss had a childhood interest in the BBC science-fiction show Doctor Who and devoted much of his early writing to the series, despite its 1989 cancellation. Gatiss's earliest published work as a professional writer was a sequence of novels in Virgin Publishing's New Adventures series of continuation stories and novels. In these works, he tried to correct the problems which had led to the show's decline in the late 1980s. The first television scripts Gatiss wrote were for a BBV direct-to-video series called "P.R.O.B.E." Gatiss's four scripts each featured a different actor who had played Doctor Who's titular character of the Doctor: Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. The videos have since been released on DVD despite Gatiss once commenting that he would not authorise their re-release, as he regarded them as a learning exercise. His other early contributions to the Doctor Who franchise included four novels, two audio plays for BBV and two audio plays for Big Finish Productions.
Gatiss has written nine episodes for the 2005 revival of the show. His first, "The Unquiet Dead," was the third episode of the revived series in 2005; the second, "The Idiot's Lantern," aired the following year in the second series. Although he acted in the third series and proposed an ultimately unproduced episode for the fourth, involving Nazis and the British Museum, it took until 2010 for Gatiss to return as writer. He wrote "Victory of the Daleks" for that year's fifth series and went on to contribute "Night Terrors" for series 6, "Cold War" and "The Crimson Horror" for series 7 and "Robot of Sherwood" for series 8. He also wrote "Sleep No More" for series 9 and "Empress of Mars" for series 10. He has also contributed to the franchise outside the main show. His early work (see above) was primarily Doctor Who expanded media.
Gatiss wrote and performed in the comedy spoof sketches The Web of Caves, The Kidnappers and The Pitch of Fear for the BBC's "Doctor Who Night" in 1999 with David Walliams. He penned the 2013 docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, a drama depicting the origins of the series, to celebrate the show's fiftieth anniversary. It ended with a cameo by Gatiss's League of Gentleman castmate Reece Shearsmith, portraying Patrick Troughton, who played the Second Doctor. A "Making Of" feature about this programme, narrated by Gatiss, was made available on the BBC Red Button service, and also posted on the BBC's official YouTube channel. He has written for Doctor Who Magazine, including a column written under the pseudonym "Sam Kisgart," which he was originally credited as in the Doctor Who Unbound audio play Sympathy for the Devil for his role as the Master. "Sam Kisgart" is an anagram of "Mark Gatiss", and is also the name under which he was credited for his cameo in Psychoville.
Novels
Gatiss has written several non-fiction works, including a biography of the film director James Whale and the documentary M.R. James: Ghost Writer, which Gatiss also presented. The documentary followed Gatiss's directorial debut with an adaption of one of James's stories, "The Tractate Middoth", for BBC Two, which was broadcast on Christmas Day 2013. His first non-Doctor Who novel, The Vesuvius Club, was published in 2004, for which he was nominated in the category of Best Newcomer in the 2006 British Book Awards. A follow-up, The Devil in Amber, was released on 6 November 2006. It transports the main character, Lucifer Box, from the Edwardian era in the first book to the roaring Twenties/Thirties. A third and final Lucifer Box novel, Black Butterfly, was published on 3 November 2008 by Simon & Schuster.

## Personal life

Gatiss was featured on The Independent on Sunday's Pink List of influential gay people in the UK in 2010, 2011 and 2014. He entered into a civil partnership with actor Ian Hallard in 2008 in Middle Temple, in the City of London. Gatiss once built a Victorian era laboratory in his north London home, as the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Gatiss is an atheist. The University of Huddersfield awarded him an honorary doctorate of letters in 2003. The University of Leeds awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws in 2024.

## Filmography
### Actor
#### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1994 | P.R.O.B.E.: The Zero Imperative | Dr. William Bruffin | Video; also writer |
| 1995 | P.R.O.B.E.: The Devil of Winterborne | Georgie | Video; also writer |
| 1996 | P.R.O.B.E.: Unnatural Selection | Mr. Emerson | Video; also writer |
| 2001 | Birthday Girl | Porter | |
| 2003 | Bright Young Things | Estate agent | |
| 2004 | Sex Lives of the Potato Men | Jeremy | |
| 2004 | Shaun of the Dead | Radio Presenter With 'Spaceship' Theory Wildlife voiceover | Voice; Uncredited |
| 2005 | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Additional Vogon voices | Collectively credited as "The League of Gentlemen" |
| 2005 | Match Point | Ping pong player | |
| 2005 | The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse | Various characters / Himself | Also writer |
| 2005 | Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit | Miss Blight (voice) | |
| 2006 | Starter for 10 | Bamber Gascoigne | |
| 2006 | The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You! | Various | |
| 2007 | Grindhouse | Eye Gouging Victim | Segment: Don't |
| 2008 | Free Jimmy | Jakki (voice) | English dub |
| 2015 | Victor Frankenstein | Dettweiler | |
| 2016 | Dad's Army | Colonel Theakes | |
| 2016 | Our Kind of Traitor | Billy Matlock | |
| 2016 | Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie | Publisher | |
| 2016 | Denial | Robert Jan van Pelt | |
| 2018 | The Mercy | Ronald Hall | |
| 2018 | Christopher Robin | Giles Winslow | |
| 2018 | The Favourite | Marlborough | |
| 2020 | The Father | The Man | |
| 2021 | Locked Down | Terry | |
| 2021 | The Sparks Brothers | Himself | |
| 2021 | A Silent Imprisonment | Mr. Murphy | Short film |
| 2021 | The Road Dance | Doctor Maclean | |
| 2021 | Operation Mincemeat | Ivor Montagu | |
| 2023 | Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | NSA | |
| 2025 | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | NSA | Post-production |

#### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1993 | Harry | Diner Manager | Episode #1.5 |
| 1994 | Catherine Cookson's "The Dwelling Place" | Bowmer | Episode #1.3 |
| 1998 | In the Red | Junior Detective | 3 episodes |
| 1998–1999 | This Morning with Richard Not Judy | Various voices | 18 episodes; uncredited |
| 1999–2002, 2017 | The League of Gentlemen | Various characters | Also co-creator and co-writer |
| 2000 | Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) | Inspector Large | Episode: "Drop Dead"; also writer |
| 2000 | Barbara | Archie | Episode: "Christening" |
| 2001 | Spaced | Agent | Episode: "Back" |
| 2001 | Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible | Hang Man Chang | Episode: "Frenzy of Tongs" |
| 2002 | Robbie the Reindeer in Legend of the Lost Tribe | Viking (voice) | Television film |
| 2003 | Little Britain | Theatrical Agent | Episode: "Smallest Ant" |
| 2004 | Catterick | Peter | Episode #1.5 |
| 2004 | Footballers' Wives | Teddy – Agent | Episode #3.7 |
| 2004 | Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures | Kenyon | Television film |
| 2004 | Agatha Christie's Marple | Ronald Hawes | Episode: "The Murder at the Vicarage" |
| 2004–2005 | Nighty Night | Glenn Bulb | 10 episodes; also writer |
| 2005 | The Quatermass Experiment | John Patterson | Television film |
| 2005 | Funland | Ambrose Chapfel | 4 episodes |
| 2006 | Fear of Fanny | Johnnie Cradock | Television film |
| 2006 | The Wind in the Willows | Ratty | Television film |
| 2007 | Gina's Laughing Gear | | Episode: "Stairlift to Heaven" |
| 2007 | The Worst Journey in the World | Apsley Cherry-Garrard | Television film; also writer |
| 2007 | Jekyll | Robert Louis Stevenson | Episode #1.5 |
| 2007 | Consenting Adults | PC Butcher | Television film |
| 2007, 2010– 2011, 2017 | Doctor Who | Professor Lazarus / Danny Boy / Gantok / The Captain | 5 episodes; also writer |
| 2008 | Sense and Sensibility | John Dashwood | Miniseries, 2 episodes |
| 2008 | Agatha Christie's Poirot | Leonard Boynton | Episode: "Appointment with Death"; also writer |
| 2008 | Clone | Colonel Black | 6 episodes |
| 2008 | Crooked House | Curator | Miniseries, also creator and writer |
| 2009 | Psychoville | Jason Griffin | Episode: "David and Maureen" |
| 2009 | Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen | Ernest Dunks | Television film |
| 2010 | Midsomer Murders | Rev. Giles Shawcross | Episode: "The Sword of Guillaume" |
| 2010 | Worried About the Boy | Malcolm McLaren | Television film |
| 2010 | The First Men in the Moon | Professor Cavor | Television film; also writer |
| 2010 | A History of Horror | Himself | Documentary; also writer |
| 2010–2017 | Sherlock | Mycroft Holmes | Also co-creator and writer of 6 episodes |
| 2011 | The Infinite Monkey Cage | Himself | Episode: "The Science of Christmas" |
| 2011 | The Crimson Petal and the White | Henry Rackham Junior | Miniseries, 2 episodes |
| 2012 | Being Human | Mr Snow | 2 episodes |
| 2012 | Inspector George Gently | Stephen Groves | Episode: "The Lost Child" |
| 2012 | Horror Europa | Himself | Documentary; also writer |
| 2013 | Psychobitches | Joan Crawford | Episode #1.1 |
| 2013 | Horrible Histories | Hollywood Producer No. 2 | 2 episodes; as part of "The League of Gentlemen" |
| 2014 | Mapp & Lucia | Major Benjy | 3 episodes |
| 2014–2017 | Game of Thrones | Tycho Nestoris | 4 episodes |
| 2015 | Wolf Hall | Stephen Gardiner | 4 episodes |
| 2015 | Coalition | Peter Mandelson | Television film |
| 2015 | The Vote | Steven Crosswell | Television film |
| 2015 | London Spy | Rich | Episode: "Blue" |
| 2016 | Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge | The Partridge Playhouse Players (voice) | Episode: "Foxhunter + Radio Play" |
| 2017 | Taboo | Prince George | 5 episodes |
| 2017 | Thunderbirds Are Go | Professor Quentin Questa (voice) | Episode: "Volcano!" |
| 2017 | Gunpowder | Robert Cecil | 3 episodes |
| 2017–2018 | Horizon | Narrator | 2 episodes |
| 2018 | Sally4Ever | Doctor | 2 episodes |
| 2018 | The Dead Room | Radio Announcer (voice) | Television film; also writer |
| 2019 | Brexit: The Uncivil War | Peter Mandelson (voice) | Television film |
| 2019 | Good Omens | Harmony | 2 episodes |
| 2020 | Dracula | Frank Renfield | Episode: "The Dark Compass", also co-creator and writer |
| 2020 | In Search of Dracula with Mark Gatiss | Himself (presenter) | Television documentary film |
| 2021 | The Amazing Mr. Blunden | Mr Wickens | Television film; also writer and director |
| 2022 | Inside No. 9 | Callum | Series 7 episode 1 |
| 2023 | Nolly | Larry Grayson | |
| 2024 | 3 Body Problem | Isaac Newton | Episode: "Destroyer of Worlds" |
| 2024 | Time Bandits | John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich | Episode: "Georgian" |
| 2024 | Moonflower Murders | Parris/Berlin | |
| 2025 | Bookish | Gabriel Book | In production |

### Writer

| Production | Notes | Broadcaster |
| P.R.O.B.E. | The Zero Imperative (1994) The Devil of Winterbourne (1995) Unnatural Selection (1996) Ghosts of Winterbourne (1996) (released direct to video) | N/A |
| Randall & Hopkirk | "Two Can Play at That Game" (2001) "Painkillers" (2001) | BBC One |
| The League of Gentlemen | Also co-creator 22 episodes (1999–2002, 2017) (with Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith) | BBC Two |
| The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse | Feature film (2005) (with Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith) | N/A |
| Doctor Who | 9 episodes; "The Unquiet Dead" (2005) "The Idiot's Lantern" (2006) "Victory of the Daleks" (2010) "Night Terrors" (2011) "Cold War" (2013) "The Crimson Horror" (2013) "Robot of Sherwood" (2014) "Sleep No More" (2015) "Empress of Mars" (2017) | BBC One |
| The Worst Journey in the World | TV film (2007) | BBC Four |
| Crooked House | Also creator 3 episodes (2008) | BBC Four |
| Agatha Christie's Poirot | "Cat Among the Pigeons" (2008) "Hallowe'en Party" (2010) "The Big Four" (2013) | ITV |
| Sherlock | 7 episodes, 1 miniepisode, also co-creator (with Steven Moffat); "The Great Game" (2010) "The Hounds of Baskerville" (2012) "Many Happy Returns" (2013) "The Empty Hearse" (2014) "The Sign of Three" (2014) (with Steven Moffat and Steve Thompson) "The Abominable Bride" (2016) (with Steven Moffat) "The Six Thatchers" (2017) "The Final Problem" (2017) (with Steven Moffat) | BBC One |
| The First Men in the Moon | TV film (2010) | BBC Four |
| An Adventure in Space and Time | TV film (2013) | BBC Two |
| A Ghost Story for Christmas | "The Tractate Middoth" (2013) "The Dead Room" (2018) "Martin's Close" (2019) The Mezzotint (2021) Count Magnus (2022) Lot No. 249 (2023) Woman of Stone (2024) | BBC Two/BBC Four |
| The Lost Man of British Art, John Minton | Writer/Presenter (2018) | BBC |
| Dracula | Miniseries (2020) | BBC One |

### Director

| Year | Title | Notes |
| 2013 | The Tractate Middoth | Short film |
| 2017 | Queers | Mini-series |
| 2018 | The Dead Room | Short film |
| 2019 | Martin's Close | Short film |
| 2021 | The Mezzotint | Short film |
| 2021 | The Amazing Mr. Blunden | TV film |
| 2022 | Count Magnus | TV film |
| 2023 | Lot No. 249 | TV film |
| 2024 | Woman of Stone | TV film |

## Theatre
### Actor

| Year | Title | Role | Playwright | Venue |
| 2002 | Art | Serg | Yasmina Reza | Whitehall Theatre |
| 2007 | All About My Mother | Agrado | Samuel Adamson | The Old Vic |
| 2009 | Darker Shores | Stokes | Michael Punter | Hampstead Theatre |
| 2010 | Season's Greetings | Bernard | Alan Ayckbourn | Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre |
| 2012 | The Recruiting Officer | Captain Brazen | George Farquhar | Donmar Warehouse |
| 2012 | 55 Days | King Charles I | Howard Brenton | Hampstead Theatre |
| 2013 | Coriolanus | Menenius | William Shakespeare | Donmar Warehouse |
| 2015 | The Vote | Steven Crosswell | James Graham | Donmar Warehouse |
| 2015 | Three Days in the Country | Shpigelsky | Patrick Marber | Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre |
| 2016 | The Boys in the Band | Harold | Mart Crowley | Park Theatre, Vaudeville Theatre |
| 2018 | The Madness of George III | George III | Alan Bennett | Nottingham Playhouse |
| 2019 | Dark Sublime | Kosley the Computer | Michael Dennis | Trafalgar Theatre 2 |
| 2021 | A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story | Jacob Marley | Mark Gatiss | Nottingham Playhouse, Alexandra Palace |
| 2023 | The Motive and the Cue | Sir John Gielgud | Jack Thorne | Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, Noël Coward Theatre |

### Writer

* A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story (2021)

### Director

| Year | Title | Playwright | Venue |
| 2022 | The Unfriend | Steven Moffat | Minerva Theatre, Chichester Criterion Theatre Wyndham's Theatre |
| 2023 | The Way Old Friends Do | Ian Hallard | Birmingham Repertory Theatre UK tour Criterion Theatre |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Association | Category | Project | Result |
| 2011 | BAFTA TV Award | Best Drama Series | Sherlock | Won |
| 2014 | BAFTA TV Award | Best Single Drama | An Adventure in Space and Time | Nominated |
| 2011 | Peabody Award | Peabody Award | Sherlock: A Study in Pink | Won |
| 2012 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Miniseries or Movie | Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia | Nominated |
| 2014 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Television Movie | Sherlock: His Last Vow | Nominated |
| 2016 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Television Movie | Sherlock: The Abominable Bride | Won |
| 2017 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Television Movie | Sherlock: The Lying Detective | Nominated |
| 2014 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Coriolanus | Nominated |
| 2016 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Three Days in the Country | Won |
| 2024 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor | The Motive and the Cue | Won |