Mark Heap

Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his roles in television comedies, including, Brass Eye (1997–2001), Big Train (1998–2002), Spaced (1999–2001), Jam (2000), Green Wing (2004–2007), Friday Night Dinner (2011–2020), Upstart Crow (2016–present), and Benidorm (2017–2018).

Mark Heap
Born	13 May 1957[1] Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India[2]
Nationality	British
Occupation	Actor comedian
Years active	1983–2021 Decesased

Early life

Heap was born in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India, to an English father and American mother, the youngest of four boys. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry. His brother, Carl Heap, was the artistic director of the company.[3] After its demise, he became part of the street theatre duo The Two Marks (with Mark Saban)[4] who appeared on television shows Ghost Train, Saturday Live and 3-2-1.

Television

Heap has appeared in a variety of television comedy roles, often playing eccentric and self-deluded characters and drama including struggling artist Brian Topp in Spaced, the pompous Dr. Alan Statham in Green Wing, and various roles in the sketch show Big Train, many scenes of which he improvised, most notably performing a barefoot gymnastics routine to Montagues and Capulets.

He has worked in a number of ventures with Chris Morris, appearing in Jam, its radio predecessor Blue Jam, and the documentary parody series Brass Eye. He voiced the lead character of Eric Feeble in the animated comedy Stressed Eric. Other recurring roles included Terry Roche in Paul Whitehouse's comedy-drama Happiness and Derek Few in How Do You Want Me?. He played Harry in the short-lived Rob Grant TV series The Strangerers, aired in 2000. He also guested in the second series of the BBC comedy Look Around You as Leonard Hatred.

He appeared in the 2007 BBC One drama Hotel Babylon as an unsuccessful businessman who became a bellboy. Between 2008 and 2010 he appeared in 32 episodes of the BBC period drama Lark Rise to Candleford as head postman Thomas Brown, as well as super villain Lightkiller in an episode of the sitcom No Heroics. He also appears as the father of Chris Miles in the Channel 4 programme Skins. Heap played the love interest of the main character in the second series of the BBC comedy Love Soup. He played the role of Charles Dickens in the 2009 BBC Two drama Desperate Romantics. Also that he played Jessica Hynes' husband in the one-off comedy Lizzie & Sarah, written by Hynes and Julia Davis.

In 2010, Heap appeared as Bob Stevens, the leader of a rambling group in the BBC4 series The Great Outdoors. He also appeared as a psychiatrist in Miranda Hart's comedy Miranda on BBC2. In October 2010, he appeared as Robin in the four-part BBC drama Single Father. Heap plays Jim Bell in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner alongside Simon Bird, Paul Ritter, Tom Rosenthal and Tamsin Greig. He also played Andrew Thorogood in the BBC Four comedy Holy Flying Circus and Jonas in the 8th episode of E4's sci-fi comedy-drama Misfits series 3. He also appeared as a misguided church minister in the BBC Series The Indian Doctor during an outbreak of smallpox. He joined the cast of the Sky1 original series Spy for its second season commencing in October 2012, replacing Tom Goodman-Hill as Philip Quil, Judith's partner and Marcus' headteacher. He appeared in the spin-off episode of Outnumbered, the Christmas special episode, aired on 24 December 2012 in which he portrayed Norris, for this single episode. He played the owner of a pet crematorium in Sue Perkins's 2013 comedy Heading Out. Mark also had a leading role in BBC Radio 4's adaptation of Gogol's 'Dead Souls.' He starred as Robert Greene in three seasons of Upstart Crow (2016–2018), a BBC 2 sitcom about Shakespeare, written by Ben Elton. His co-stars included David Mitchell, Harry Enfield, Rob Rouse, Gemma Whelan and Liza Tarbuck. He also appeared as Dr. John Hall in the stage show based on the programme.

Heap also starred in recent series of the sitcom Benidorm, in which he played the character Malcolm Barrett, the controlling and manipulative boyfriend of Pauline Maltby. Heap's 2020 roles continues with playing headmaster and husband in ITV's The Trouble with Maggie Cole alongside Dawn French.

Film

In 1983, Heap made a brief appearance as a torch-juggler in the James Bond film Octopussy. He played a school teacher in the 2002 film About a Boy. He appeared in Tim Burton's 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He played supporting roles in Confetti (2006), Tunnel of Love (2004), Stardust (2007), and The World's End (2013). In 2008 he co-starred in the surreal science fiction film Captain Eager and the Mark of Voth.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Octopussy	Torch juggler
1997	Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis	Duncan
2002	About A Boy	Maths teacher
2004	The Calcium Kid	Sebastian Gore-Brown
2005	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Man with Dog
2007	Stardust	Prince Tertius
2008	Captain Eager and the Mark of Voth	Scrutty Baker
2013	The World's End	Publican 7
2016	’’The Comedians Guide to Survival’’	Pick up Driver
2018	The Midnight Gang	Sir Quentin	TV Movie

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	The Les Dennis Laughter Show	The Two Marks	1 episode
1990	Up Yer News	Film Assistant	1 episode
1992	Packing Them In	Fire eating stiltwalker	1 episode
1993	Viva Cabaret	The Two Marks	1 episode
1994	The Bill	Chris Boxer	1 episode
	Seaforth	Capt. Karl Von Berner	2 episodes
	How High The Moon
1995	The World of Lee Evans	Platform Guard	1 episode
1997	Hospital	Dr. Ralph Crosby
	An Unsuitable Job for a Woman	DS Maskell	1 episode
1997–1998	Smith and Jones		2 episodes
1997–2001	Brass Eye	Various roles
1998	Kiss Me Kate	Peter	3 episodes
1998–1999	How Do You Want Me?	Derek Few
1998–2000	Stressed Eric	Eric Feeble
1998–2002	Big Train	Various roles
1999	All Along the Watchtower	Mr. Carter	1 episode
	People Like Us	Graham Atkinson	1 episode
1999–2001	Spaced	Brian Topp
2000	The Strangerers	Harry
	Jam	Various roles
2001	The Ultimate Stress Show: Managing Stress
	Doc Martin	Mitch
2001–2003	Happiness	Terry Roche
2003	Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie	Mitch
	Spine Chillers	Balfus	1 episode
2004	Dalziel and Pascoe	Julian Finch	1 episode
	Swiss Toni	Terry Fragment	1 episode
	Tunnel of Love	Gibson
	Out of Time	Charlie
2004–2007	Green Wing	Alan Statham	17 episodes & 1 special
2005	Blake's Junction 7	Avon	Short
	Look Around You	Leonard Hatred	2 episodes
	Casanova	Doctor Gozzi	1 episode
	Animal	Hugo Getner
2006	Confetti	Registrar
	Scoop	MC
	Alpha Male	Darwen
2007	Hotel Babylon	Robert Kane	1 episode
	Marple: At Bertram's Hotel	Mr. Humfries
2007–2008	Skins	Graham Miles	2 episodes
2008–2011	Lark Rise to Candleford	Thomas Brown
2008	Love Soup	Douglas McVitie
	No Heroics	Lightkiller	1 episode
	The Pro		Short
2009	Desperate Romantics	Charles Dickens
	Cast Offs	Darren	1 episode
2010	Lizzie and Sarah	Michael
	The Great Outdoors	Bob
	Fable III	Brian	Video game
	Single Father	Robin
2010, 2015	Miranda	Anthony	2 episodes
2011	Holy Flying Circus	Andrew Thorogood
	Misfits	Jonas	1 episode
	Miso Soup	Shash	Short
2011–2020	Friday Night Dinner	Jim Bell	Main role, 37 episodes
2012	The Indian Doctor	Rev Herbert Todd	Series 2, 5 episodes
	A Moody Christmas	Heathrow Passenger	1 episode
	Outnumbered	Norris	1 episode
	Spy	Philip
	Is This a Joke?		Short
2012–2016	The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret	Lord Mountford	4 episodes
2013	Heading Out	Brian	1 episode
	All Stars	Simon Tarrington
	Midsomer Murders	Simon Fergus-Johnson	1 episode (series 16 episode 1)
2014	Death in Paradise		1 episode (series 3 episode 6)
2015	We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story	Clive Dunn
2016–present	Upstart Crow	Robert Greene
2016	The Comedian's Guide to Survival	Pick Up Driver
	Endeavour	Felix Lorimer	1 episode (series 3, episode 4)
	Maigret	Doctor Moers
2017	Murder on the Blackpool Express	Graham
2017, 2018	Benidorm	Denis Walker (Malcolm Barrett)	3 episodes (series 9, episodes 7 and 8 and series 10, episode 7)
2020	Intelligence	Barnaby Bailer
	The Trouble with Maggie Cole	Peter Cole

Advertising work

In 2009 he appeared as a car salesman in a SEAT television advert. Heap voices the fox in the Old Speckled Hen adverts sponsoring comedy on Dave.[5]

Other acting

In 2008 Heap played the role of Widmerpool in a Radio 4 serialisation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. He played Eliza's husband in 2006 Radio 4 play The Eliza Stories and appeared as Marmite the Dwarf in the short-lived Radio 4 sitcom The Sofa of Time. He starred in the music video for Four Tet's single "Smile Around the Face" in 2005, contributed a multitude of character voices in the audiobook "Do Ants Have Arseholes?". In 2012 he starred as Martin in the Radio 4 play Cordite for Breakfast, a comedy about Napoleonic-era battle re-enactments.[6] In March 2013, he appeared as Rincewind in a 4-part Radio 4 adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Eric. He also played the angel Aziraphale in the 2014 BBC radio adaption of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.[7]

References

1. Mark Heap–Biography. Hello! website. Retrieved 28 March 2020
2. "Mark Heap". IMDb. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
3. Heap, Carl. "Finding the method in medieval theatre's madness". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
4. Love, Catherine (3 April 2014). "Mark Heap: Mr Zany buttons up". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
5. Wilmore, James (7 May 2010). "Old Speckled Hen renews sponsorship of Tchannel Dave". The Publican magazine. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
6. "Cordite for Breakfast". BBC. 10 July 2010. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
7. Brown, Brigid (5 September 2014). "BBC Radio Brings Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens to Life". BBC America. Retrieved 6 September 2014.

External links

• Mark Heap at IMDb
• Agency profile