Nick Berg Barnes
Nick Barnes was born in
In constant
demand to revoice foreign language productions, he scored notable successes as
Crispy in The Brothers Lionheart, Godik in Silas, Goat Peter in Heidi
and Edmund in the acclaimed animated version of The Lion, The
Witch And The Wardrobe. Nick also
claims a singular honour in revoicing one of Jackie Chan's lines in his movie Miracles
after the original version of the line was accidentally wiped.
He also performed
regularly on BBC Radio, including roles in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock,
in John Betjeman's Metroland, as Nijinsky in The God of the Dance,
and most notably as Dawid in The Diary of Dawid Rubinowicz, the highly
acclaimed factual monologue about the Holocaust. His triumph with this
harrowing role led BBC producer John Tydeman to offer him a radio monologue
chronicling a British teenager's angst in the 1980's. The success of this
subsequent broadcast led British publisher Methuen to commission its author,
Sue Townsend, to write an extended version of Mole's exploits - which became
the first of several internationally bestselling books: The Secret Diary of
Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾.
Nick had the
pleasure of recording this and subsequent volumes of Mole's journals both for
broadcast on BBC Radio and for release as bestselling audio cassettes,
culminating in Mole's more mature adventures as an angst-ridden
twenty-something in Adrian Mole - The Wilderness Years. In addition to
performing the role on radio, he toured the
Following
completion of his theatrical training at
Theatre work at
that time included international tours of Saint Joan and The Tempest
with the late Sir Anthony Quayle's company, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's
Dream (Stafford Castle), Orlando in As You Like It, Elyot Chase in Private
Lives, and Leonard in Alan Ayckbourn's Time and Time Again (all at
Eye Theatre, Suffolk), Greg in Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking
(touring the United Arab Emirates), John Godber's Teechers (Lowestoft
Theatre), Building Blocks (Southwold Theatre), Steven Newman Doesn't
Eat Quiche (Edinburgh Festival), numerous London productions including Nemesis…,
Watcher In The Rain, Frozen Chicken Parts, Anouilh's Antigone
(Etcetera Theatre) and Sara (a new version of Chekhov's Ivanov)
at the Bridewell Theatre, as well as the West End productions of Candida
(Arts Theatre), and The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (directed by and
starring Charlton Heston).
In addition to
his work as an actor, Nick has directed successful productions of The
Fantasticks (Denning Hall, Croydon & Canal Cafe), Take It Up The Octave (Talk of London) and a charity concert of Jesus
Christ Superstar in
Nick saw in the
new millennium with the
In 2004, Nick
moved permanently to
Nick then spent
an extended period down in Raleigh, North Carolina playing both Petruchio as
“Steve Irwin on steroids” in Burning Coal’s Zen-inspired production of The Taming of the Shrew and the
alcoholic writer Joe in their revival of Jerry Oster’s 90 in 90; he also spent a few days holed up in a mobile-home as the
retarded romantic Bill in Second Avenue,
the debut feature about love, loss and gnomes from writer/director Greg
Winters; meanwhile his voice was to be heard extolling the virtues of the Spamalot Original Cast Recording on
television sets across the country. Back in New York he has played John
Worthing in The Importance of Being
Earnest; a smooth spin-doctor turned Manhattan headmaster in Shadow; one of the tragic talking-heads
in a new play about the redevelopment of a Welsh valley In The Pipeline, and the deceitful chemist Otto (and his
pseudo-Spanish dinosaur-hunting alter-ego Lopez) in Carl Djerassi’s comic drama
Phallacy.
2007 was a
landmark year for Nick: he made his Broadway debut at the historic (and
allegedly haunted) Belasco Theatre in the acclaimed revival of R C Sherriff’s
World War One drama Journey’s End.
In addition to the rave reviews it received: “who says perfection is not within
human reach? go see Journey’s End and learn
otherwise.” -- John Simon, Bloomberg.com; and being part of “a terrific ensemble as fine as Broadway has
seen in many a year” -- Clive Barnes, New York Post, the production swept the
boards winning Best Play Revival awards from the Drama Desk, the Drama League,
and the Outer Critics Circle, a special New York Drama Critics citation and
ultimately the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play 2007.
Unfortunately the
size of the audience never matched the overwhelming critical response and the
show ended its limited run after four months, but not before winning another
prize; “Journey Boys – The Underdogs of War” was a comedy skit co-written by
Nick and performed at the Minskoff Theatre as part of the annual Easter Bonnet
Competition to raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Spoofing the
show’s inability to draw a bigger crowd, “We have an intimate relationship with
the audience: 11 of us, 11 of them!”, it was awarded first place and the cast
were presented with their commemorative plaque by Vanessa Redgrave and David
Hyde Pierce in a ceremony that was just as thrilling as going onstage at Radio
City Music Hall to receive the Tony Award. The rest of Nick’s celebratory 35th
year in showbusiness included a more sedate time playing Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes – The
Final Adventure, Steven Dietz’s new take on the world’s greatest detective,
both upstate in
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