James Smillie

Smillie has appeared in films and television shows as featured actor and host, and as leading man on stage in the UK and Australia. His television credits include Return to Eden, Prisoner: Cell Block H, Adventure Island, Space: 1999 the episode End of Eternity, Thriller, The Gentle Touch, Skin Deep, Comedy Playhouse, The Mackinnons, Red Dwarf and Highlander: The Series. He has also made numerous appearances in a variety of light entertainment shows, including Highway with Sir Harry Secombe, An Evening with Barry Humphries, the BBC series Battle of the Sexes, and A Tribute to Robbie Burns for Scottish television. Crackerjack, and hosted his own series I Like Music. Smillie also has a Royal Variety Performances to his credit. He was also the original voice of Sky, voicing programmes there for over a decade.[2]

On the London stage, he played Tony in West Side Story . The following years saw him playing leading men in a string of West End productions, notably: an Italian Lothario in Brian Clemens' whodunit Lover (Ambassadors Theatre); Henry II in Thomas and The King (Her Majesty's Theatre) music written by John Williams; Dr. Thomas Barnardo in Barnardo (Royalty Theatre); Nicos in Zorba; Georges in La Cage aux Folles (London Palladium); and also as Fred Graham in 'Kiss Me Kate' (RSC Savoy), George Bernard Shaw's Candida as the Reverend James Mavor Morrell.

His other stage credits include Orin in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, Chance Williams in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, Eilif in Mother Courage and Her Children, the lead in Tom Jones, Emile de Beque in South Pacific, and as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Followed by his success as Mack Sennet in the 1996 London production of Mack & Mabel, Smilie recorded the part of Fred/Petruchio again in the full live production of 'Kiss Me Kate' for the BBC in London with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

1998/99 and 2000 saw Smillie touring in the UK Productions tour of 42nd Street, playing the lead role of producer Julian Marsh. In 2001, he returned to Australia to play Pastor Manders in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts for the Perth International Arts Festival. In 2003, he returned to the UK to play Charles in Stephen Sondheim's Putting It Together at the Library Theatre in Manchester. This was followed in 2004 by Daddy Warbucks in a touring production of Annie with Su Pollard and Caesar in a Sadlers Wells Lost Musicals production of Harold Rome, Joshua Logan and S. N. Behrman's Fanny.