David Haig Collum WardMBE (born 20 September 1955) is an English actor and playwright. He has appeared in West End productions and numerous television and film roles over a career spanning four decades.
Haig's second play The Good Samaritan was also first staged at the Hampstead Theatre, opening on 6 July 2000. His third play Pressure premiered at the Chichester Festival in 2014, before being revived in 2018 on a UK Tour and then in the West End at the Ambassadors Theatre. In 2018, he portrayed Bill in the critically acclaimed BBC America thriller series Killing Eve (2018).
Haig was born on 20 September 1955 in Aldershot, Hampshire,[2] the son of opera singer Shirley R. C. (née Brooks) and army officer (and later director of the Hayward Gallery) Francis W. He had a younger sister who died at 22 of a brain aneurysm when he was 26. He grew up in Rugby, Warwickshire where he attended Rugby School.[3]
Career
Film and television
Haig appeared in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral,[2] and had a supporting role in the BBC television sitcom The Thin Blue Line (1995),[2] playing Inspector Grim, the inept foil to Rowan Atkinson's Inspector Fowler. He also appeared in Love on a Branch Line, a TV series broadcast by the BBC in four episodes. In 2002 he played the brother of Four Weddings' co-star Hugh Grant in the romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice.[2] In 2007, he appeared in a Comic Relief sketch called "Mr. Bean's Wedding" as the bride's father, reuniting with Atkinson.
In January 2013, Haig started appearing as Jim Hacker in a re-make of classic 1980s comedy series Yes Prime Minister, broadcast on Gold TV in the United Kingdom.[2]
In 2012 a new sitcom pilot, starring Haig and written by Ben Elton, was filmed for the BBC.[4] Filming for a full six-part series of the sitcom, The Wright Way (formerly known as Slings and Arrows) was completed in March 2013, and began airing on BBC One on 23 April.[5]
An August 2018 announcement indicated that Haig would be among the new cast to join the original actors in the Downton Abbey film which started principal photography at about the same time.[6] In September 2018 he appeared as Bill alongside Jodie Comer in the BBC America thriller series Killing Eve.[2]
In September 2024, production started on his film adaptation of his play Pressure.[7]
Radio
In 2008, he played Maurice Haigh-Wood in the BBC Radio adaptation of Michael Hastings' play Tom and Viv, and 2010 he starred as Norman Birkett in "Norman Birkett and the Case of the Coleford Poisoner" on BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play series. He also played the narrator and the older Lewis Eliot in C. P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" on Radio 4 in 2003, repeated on Radio 4 Extra every few years.
^Spencer, Charles (24 January 2012). "The Madness of George III". Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
^Benedictus, Leo (25 May 2010). "Yes Prime Minister". Guardian.co.uk. London. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 24 October 2012.