page_title: Rowan Atkinson
section_title: Theatre
hierarchical_section_title: Rowan Atkinson / Career / Theatre
caption_attribution_description: English: Personal photograph of the Theatre Royal in London's billboard showing Oliver!. Taken in March 2009.
context_page_description: Rowan Sebastian Atkinson CBE is an English actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for his work on the sitcoms Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Atkinson first came to prominence in the BBC sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News, receiving the 1981 BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance, and via his participation in The Secret Policeman's Ball. His other work includes the James Bond film Never Say Never Again, playing a bumbling vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral, voicing the red-billed hornbill Zazu in The Lion King, and playing jewellery salesman Rufus in Love Actually. Atkinson also featured in the BBC sitcom The Thin Blue Line. His work in theatre includes the 2009 West End revival of the musical Oliver!.
  Atkinson was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy in 2007, and among the top 50 comedians ever, in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with screenwriter Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, both of whom he met at the Oxford University Dramatic Society during the 1970s.
context_section_description: Rowan Atkinson performed live on-stage skits — also appearing with members of Monty Python — in The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979) in London for Amnesty International. Atkinson undertook a four-month tour of the UK in 1980. A recording of the stage performance was subsequently released as Live in Belfast.
  In 1984, Atkinson appeared in a West End version of the comedy play The Nerd alongside a 10-year-old Christian Bale. The Sneeze and Other Stories, seven short Anton Chekhov plays, translated and adapted by Michael Frayn, were performed by Rowan Atkinson, Timothy West and Cheryl Campbell at the Aldwych Theatre, London in 1988 and early 1989.
  In 2009, during the West End revival of the musical Oliver! based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, Atkinson played the role of Fagin. His portrayal and singing of Fagin at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London gained favourable reviews and he was nominated for an Olivier Award for best actor in a musical or entertainment.
  On 28 November 2012, Rowan Atkinson reprised the role of Blackadder at the "We are Most Amused" comedy gala for The Prince's Trust at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was joined by Tony Robinson as Baldrick. The sketch involved the first new Blackadder material for 10 years, with Blackadder as CEO of Melchett, Melchett and Darling bank facing an enquiry over the banking crisis.
  In February 2013, Atkinson took on the titular role in a 12-week production (directed by Richard Eyre) of the Simon Gray play Quartermaine's Terms at Wyndham's Theatre in London with costars Conleth Hill (Game of Thrones) and Felicity Montagu (I'm Alan Partridge). In December 2013, he revived his schoolmaster sketch for Royal Free Hospital's Rocks with Laughter at the Adelphi Theatre. A few days prior, he performed a selection of sketches in a small coffee venue in front of only 30 people.
caption: Oliver! billboard at the West End's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2009.
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