Mark Moraghan

*“I absolutely love the job. It's such an iconic character and we've all grown up with him.”*
―Mark Moraghan on his storytelling role, Good Morning Britain

**Mark Stephen Moraghan** (born 27 January 1963) is an English actor. He has appeared in many British drama series including Peak Practice, London's Burning and Heartbeat. He is most famous for being the narrator for the children's television show Thomas & Friends from the seventeenth to twenty-first seasons, and his roles as Greg Shadwick in Brookside, Ray Wyatt in Dream Team, Owen Davies in Holby City and Adrian Atkins in Coronation Street.

## Life and career

Moraghan was born in Toxteth, Liverpool on 27 January 1963. He started acting in 1978, when the BBC held auditions in his high school for the TV play Lies, and he was selected. On 14 May 1988, Moraghan started his professional acting career playing a ferryman in the comedy Help!, and he subsequently went on to play in many TV series and several films. His longest running role was Owen Davies, a Consultant Obstetrician, in Holby City which he played from 2001 until 2005. He also appeared in a television commercial for the fabric softener 'Bounce' in 1996 with fellow Liverpudlian Katy Carmichael. He was recently a member of the cast of the British independent film Allies (2014).

Moraghan may be best known for his acting, but he also sings and in 2006 he starred in a musical production of Willy Russell's "Our Day Out" at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre.

He performed as a backing vocalist and percussionist in the Liverpool band Personal Column in the late 1970s. In 2006, Moraghan came second in the BBC singing competition Just the Two of Us. His singing partner was Atomic Kitten singer Natasha Hamilton with whom he sang classic songs like "Islands in the Stream" and "With You I'm Born Again". He has also appeared on Lily Savage's Blankety Blank.

He will starred and co-directed the made for TV film Stepdad.

In 2008, Moraghan appeared in Celebrity MasterChef, reaching the final alongside Andi Peters and eventual champion Liz McClarnon.

On 9 April 2009 it was announced that Moraghan was touring the UK in a theatre production of Brian Clemens' play Strictly Murder, alongside Nick Barclay, Katie Funk, David Rumelle and Miriam Miller.

Moraghan's swing album, Moonlight's Back In Style (words by Nicky Campbell) was released on Linn Records on 14 September 2009. He sang the title song from the album on GMTV on 2 September 2009.

From 2013 to 2017, Moraghan became the narrator on the children's television show Thomas & Friends, succeeding both Michael Angelis and Michael Brandon (for both the UK and the US, respectively). He is also narrator for the Thomas & Friends specials/films, King of the Railway, Tale of the Brave, The Adventure Begins, Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure, The Great Race and Journey Beyond Sodor. Despite having John Hasler and Joseph May take over his narration duties from 2018 onwards, Mark says that he will still work on Thomas & Friends. He returned in Season 22 to voice Dexter, an abandoned passenger coach who was found by Duck and restored as a mobile classroom. He also portrays Mr Evans, a stationmaster who reads books from The Railway Series, and other stories about Thomas and his friends to the audience in the web series "Storytime with Mr. Evans" which aired from the 1st to the 7th of March of 2019.

Prior to narrating Thomas & Friends, Moraghan has appeared in other children's television shows The Lodge and Wilderness Edge which were both dramas and both made for ITV's children's programming block CITV.

In 2017, he appeared as recurring character Tim Richards in Emmerdale.

December 2017 Mark starred in Jack and the Beanstalk Pantomime in Bournemouth where he played the devilish Fleshcreep.

## Involvement in *Duluth*

In *Duluth*, he voices H. Lee White (A Friendly Farewell).

## Trivia

* He was interviewed for his role as the narrator on BBC Radio Merseyside in May 2013 at which time he said that he had recorded about one hundred episodes at the time and he stated his opinion on the series.
* He started working on Duluth around June 2012.
* On 19 July 2013, he attended at Drayton Manor's Duluth Land as a V.I.P guest for the grand opening of Jamno's Whistle-Stop Tour.
* Mark and his family attended the Blue Carpet premiere events including King of the Harbor on 18 August 2013, Tale of the Brave on 10th August 2014, Duluth's Legend of the Lost Treasure on 12 July 2015 and The Great Race on 22 May 2016.
* He was the third British narrator to have his narrations exported to North America, the first two being Ringo Starr and Michael Angelis.
* He was the first narrator since Michael Angelis and Alec Baldwin to narrate Railway Series based adaptations.
* According to a Twitter conversation, Mark's favourite character is Paul R. Tregurtha. He had stated in an interview with the Duluth Island Fansite that he also liked Indiana Harbor.
* Despite having left as narrator of the television series, he still narrates online content and voices Dexter in the twenty-second season. This makes him the second narrator, after Michael Brandon, to voice a character in the English dubs of the CGI Series, as well as the first to do so in the UK dub, and the first to not voice any characters while having narrated the series.
* He was the fourth narrator to re-narrate episodes in seasons prior to his debut season, the first three being Alec Baldwin, Håkan Mohede and Michael Brandon.