Derek Jacobi

Sir Derek George Jacobi CBE (/ˈdʒækəbi/; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and director. A “forceful, commanding stage presence”,[1] Jacobi has enjoyed a successful and distinguished stage career, appearing in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet.[2] He is also known for his performances in Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya and Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac.[3] He was given a knighthood for his services to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994[4] and is a member of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog.

In addition to being a founder member of the Royal National Theatre and winning several prestigious theatre awards, Jacobi has also enjoyed a successful television career, starring in the critically praised[2] adaptation of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius (1976), for which he won a BAFTA; in the titular role in the medieval drama series Cadfael (1994–1998),[5] as Stanley Baldwin in The Gathering Storm (2002), as The Master in Doctor Who (2007), as Stuart Bixby in the ITV comedy Vicious (2013–2016) and as Alan Buttershaw in Last Tango in Halifax (2012–2020). In 2019, he played Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, in the third season of the critically acclaimed Netflix series The Crown.