David Weston

Classically-trained London-born character actor, a RADA graduate of 1961. Weston was inspired to become an actor (and mentored) by Michael Croft, co-founder in 1956 of the National Youth Theatre. Following his national service with the Royal Artillery, Weston took his first steps on the stage in London's West End in the early 60s. He made his theatrical debut for the Royal Shakespeare Company seven years later in Macbeth. Weston has since appeared in 29 of the bard's 37 plays, having portrayed such characters as Laertes in Hamlet, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor (his personal favorite role), Balthazar in The Merchant of Venice and Alonso in The Tempest. He has also directed plays for various London theatres and authored a 2014 memoir, entitled "Covering Shakespeare: An Actor's Saga of Near Misses and Dogged Endurance".

Rather fittingly, Weston began on screen with a small role in An Age of Kings (1960), a BBC television adaptation of eight sequential historical Shakespeare plays. He next played Romeo to Jane Asher's Juliet in 1962 before branching out into more mainstream entertainments. His first notable role in motion pictures was as a patriotic Saxon friar in Becket (1964). Weston followed this with back-to-back leading roles in the horror films Witchcraft (1964), and, as a starving villager who defies the sadistic Prince Prospero (Vincent Price), in Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964). He played the eponymous highwayman in Disney's highly fictionalized telemovie The Legend of Young Dick Turpin (1965) and a Norwegian in the World War II drama The Heroes of Telemark (1965), alongside Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.

Weston has enjoyed guest spots on diverse TV shows, including UFO (1970), Dixon of Dock Green (1955), Special Branch (1969), Minder (1979) and The Bill (1984). He has been noted for his appearances in two Doctor Who (1963) serials: as the ill-fated 16th century Parisian servant Nicholas Muss in The Massacre, and, secondly, as the time-sensitive leonine navigator Biroc in Warrior's Gate.

Retired from screen acting, Weston has latterly concentrated on writing. His novel "Dodger Down Under" (published 2013), a Dickens pastiche, tells the continuing story of Jack Dawkins, the 'artful dodger' of Oliver Twist fame. He followed this with a sequel in 2015, titled "Dodger treads the Boards". A review has described the book as "wondrously inventive but faithful to the character's origins. He has an uncanny grasp of time and place, writes with fluent wit and excitement ...". A similarly themed Australian TV series, The Artful Dodger (2023), has recently aired on the Disney network.

A lifelong supporter of Chelsea football club, Weston resides in the central London district of Pimlico.