Alisdair Simpson
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Alisdair Simpson (b. 1969) is a British actor, voice-over artist and narrator. He has a distinctive, masculine voice, making him one of the most popular and recognisable narrators of documentaries on television.
He appeared as Ser Donnel Waynward, the Knight of the Bloody Gate in Series Four of Game of Thrones and between 2014 and 2016 he was Chapman Carter in War Horse at The New London Theatre. He was the voice of Richard in the BAFTA winning and Oscar nominated The Bigger Picture a short animation film directed by Daisy Jacobs. His most recent narration work includes Egypt's Unexplained Files for Discovery, 4 series of The Real Story of.. and Hitler's Circle of Evil for WMR along with Operation Goldrush for the BBC and Wonders of the Moon for BBC Worldwide.
He has narrated over 250 documentaries including Pompeii: The Last Day, Lost Land of the Jaguar, Expedition Borneo, Operation Iceberg, Doctors in the Death Zone, The Somme – From Defeat to Victory for the BBC. Other programmes for WMR broadcast on the Yesterday include: Nazi Hunters, Nazi Collaborators, Secret War, Great Crimes and Trials, Black Ops', Ancient Black Ops, Secrets of the Bible, Raiders of the Lost Past & Manhunt.
Biography and professional career
Alisdair went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and graduated in 1995.
His professional stage debut was at the Royal Exchange, Manchester in Tartuffe by Molière, and has gone on to work at Stratford and London in The White Devil, Troilus and Cressida and Three Hours after Marriage (1996/97) for the RSC. He was the King of France in Yukio Ninagawa's 1999/2000 production of King Lear in Tokyo, London and Stratford. He was Captain Horster in Trevor Nunn's 1997 production of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People at the National Theatre and the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. He was Achilles in Troilus and Cressida for Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol in 2003. He has also appeared at Watermill Theatre in the play Neville's Island, on tour in Stephen Daldry's An Inspector Calls and in The Years Between at the Royal in Northampton. In 2008 he appeared at the Young Vic in an opera based on David Lynch's Lost Highway. From 2014-2016 he played Chapman Carter in War Horse at The New London Theatre.
On television he has appeared in Game of Thrones, No Bananas, Soldier Soldier, Men Behaving Badly, Teachers, Spooks, The Worst Week of My Life, Broken News, The Bill, Casualty, Dream Team, etc.
Narrator
Alisdair has narrated over 250 documentaries and he has voiced commercial campaigns for Ford, BMW, American Airlines, British Airways, Talk Sport, and many others. He has voiced audio guides for the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York and various corporate pieces.
Filmography
- No Bananas (1996)
- Soldier Soldier (1996)
- Men Behaving Badly (1997)
- Casualty (2001)
- Doctors (2001)
- Pompeii: The Last Day (Narration) (2003)
- The Bill (2003, 2005)
- Spooks (2004)
- Supervolcano: The Truth About Yellowstone (Narration) (2005)
- Genghis Khan (Narration) (2005)
- Broken News (2005)
- The Worst Week of My Life (2005)
- The Somme – From Defeat to Victory (Narration) (2006)
- Waking the Dead (2007)
- Expedition Borneo (Narration) (2007)
- The Science of Superstorms (Narration) (2007)
- Sea of Souls (2007)
- The Whistleblowers (2007)
- Lost Land of the Jaguar (Narration) (2008)
- Pacific Abyss (2008)
- Ancient Rome (Narration)
- Ancient MegaStructures (Narration)
- 1000 Ways to Die (Narration) (2008)
- Nazi Hunters (Narration) (2010)
- Great Crimes and Trials (Narration) (2011)
- Secret War (Narration) (2012)
- Black Ops (Narration) (2012, 2014)
- Myth Hunters (aka Raiders of the Lost Past) (Narration) (2013-2015)
- Ancient Black Ops (Narration) (2014)
- Game of Thrones (2014)
- Get Santa (2014)
- Operation Gold Rush with Dan Snow (2016) (Narration)
- Hitler's Circle of Evil (2017) (Narration)
Other works
In 1996 Alisdair appeared in the John Webster play The White Devil produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.