David Oakes

David Oakes (born Rowan David Oakes; 14 October 1983) is an English film, television and theatre actor known for his roles in The Pillars of the Earth, The Borgias, and The White Queen.

He was born in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England, the son of a Church of England canon and a professional musician.

Oakes was head boy at Bishop Wordsworth's School, in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he was also heavily involved with the Salisbury Playhouse and their youth theatre, Stage 65. He graduated with a first in English Literature from the University of Manchester.

He attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School from 2005 to 2007.

He played the villainous William Hamleigh in the television miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010), produced by Ridley Scott's production company. David was present to accept the Jury Prize at the 2011 Romy Awards in Vienna alongside Donald Sutherland and Natalia Wörner.

The following year, Oakes was cast in the television miniseries The Borgias (2011), airing on Showtime. He played Juan Borgia opposite Jeremy Irons. Whilst shooting the second season, David performed a cameo in the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End (2012).

Continuing a career on television playing morally dubious characters, Oakes had a role in The White Queen for BBC One and Starz playing George, Duke of Clarence. It was broadcast in mid-2013.

In 2015, Oakes guest-starred in the limited series' The Living and the Dead with Colin Morgan, as well as an episode in the third season of Endeavor with Shaun Evans.

The role of Prince Ernest, brother of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, went to Oakes in 2016 in the ITV series, Victoria. The role reunited Oakes with his Trinity co-star, Tom Hughes, and Pillars of the Earth co-star, Rufus Sewell. It aired on PBS in The United States in 2017, and will continue for a second season.

Later in 2017, Oakes will be seen in Cold Skin in his first lead film role.

Television

Film

Radio

• Oakes has performed with The Fitzrovia Radio Hour
• 2008: A Dance to the Music of Time as Charles Stringham (BBC Radio 4)

Stage

• In 2006, David performed a 90-minute abridged version of Much Ado About Nothing as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Complete Works" festival along with his final year graduates from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
• Since appearing at Shakespeare's Globe at the outset of his career, David has frequently performed in numerous rehearsed readings as part of their "Read Not Dead" initiative. Including their landmark 200th reading of Philip Massinger's A New Way To Pay Old Debts; David played Wellborn alongside a cast including Benjamin Whitrow, Alan Cox and Nicholas Rowe.
• Other performances between 2008 and 2013 for "Read Not Dead" include: An early quarto edition of Henry IV: Part One as Prince Hal oppopsite Benjamin Whitrow's Falstaff, Calderon's Life is a Dream (La Vida Es Sueno) as Segismundo, Taming Of A Shrew as Aurelias, The Spanish Tragedy as Lorenzo, The Return from Parnassus as Ingenioso, Bassianus as Geta, Gorboduc as a "smooth, almost oily" Arostus, John Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis as Montanus and Thomas Middleton's Your Five Gallants as Tailby.
• Oakes set up a theatre company called Dog Ate Cake with a long term theatrical collaborator, Henry Bell
• David was nominated for both WhatsOnStage and Broadway World awards for his performance in Shakespeare in Love in 2015. The production was also nominated for an Olivier Award.
• In 2015 David starred as Banquo in a charity fundraiser for the Shakespeare Schools Festival. The event was largely improvised by the actors and lawyers involved, but based on a framework written by Jonathan Myerson. The cast also included Christopher Ecclestone as Macbeth, Haydn Gwynne as Lady Macbeth, Patterson Joseph as MacDuff and Pippa Bennett-Warner as one of the Weird Sisters. The event interrupted the events of Shakespeare's play following the death of Duncan and placed Macbeth on trial for Murder with David, Patterson and Haydn appearing as witnesses for the prosecution and Christopher and Pippa as witnesses for the defence. The event was overseen by High Court Judge, Sir Michael Burton, the QC's were John Kelsey-Fry, Jonathan Laidlaw, Dinah Rose and Ian Winter, and the foreman of the Jury was Jeremy Paxman.

Theatre Direction

Oakes has directed a number of theatre pieces alongside his acting career. In 2003 he took a stage adaptation of The Wicker Man to the Epping Forest Theatre Festival. Rehearsing in and around his home town of Salisbury, Oakes "got kicked out of the [Cathedral] Close for rehearsing pagan rituals for [his] open-air production of The Wicker Man."

At University he directed numerous plays including Martin McDonagh's Beauty Queen of Leenane, Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter and Anthony Minghella's Whale Music

Also whilst at University, in 2005 Oakes assisted director Natalie Wilson on a production of "Smilin' Through" which was co-produced by the Truant Company, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Contact Theatre, Manchester Later that year, Oakes once again turning to literary adaptation, took a production of Stephen King's The Boogeyman to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

With his and Bell's theatre company, Dog Ate Cake, in 2009 Oakes directed a small tour revival of John Maddison Morton's Box and Cox

Oakes frequently directs at Shakespeare's Globe extending their Read Not Dead Series, a study devoted to performing fully staged readings of the entirety of the Early Modern Canon of Drama: Most recently Oakes directed Robert Greene's The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and Lewis Theobald's "Happy Ending" version of John Webster's Duchess of Malfi, "The Fatal Secret".

David recently directed an extract of Robert Daborne's A Christian Turn'd Turk as part of a special Read Not Dead event at Shakespeare's Globe. Four directors with four scholars were teamed up with actors and presented their arguments and selected scenes at a special hustings event on Thursday 29 May 2014

Oakes plays both the clarinet and bass clarinet, and is a strong bass singer.

He is an avid follower of folk music, and continues to support the Bristol folk group Sheelanagig.

He has an extensive collection of canoes and is currently developing a comedy pilot based on this interest. His preferred canoe method is kayak but he also enjoys Canadian canoeing.

Art

Oakes is an avid fine line sketcher. He is increasingly known for sketching on-set animals upon coloured pages of script reissues and giving them to production members. In May 2015 he exhibited as part of the Dulwich Artists Open House Festival alongside artist and designer Sarah Hamilton. He has also contributed a chapter on Charity Cards for Sarah Hamilton's book, "House of Cards".

David, following his infant niece being diagnosed with a lung condition, has been heavily involved with raising awareness for and fundraising on behalf of the British Lung Foundation.

In 2013, Oakes collaborated with his The Borgias cast mate, Holliday Grainger, to make the short comedy film "Goblin". Directed by Christian James, the film was screened at the 2014 Film 4 Fright Fest in their Shorts Showcase, and all profits from the sale of this film were donated to the British Lung Foundation.

Later in 2014, Oakes ran the length of the country to raise awareness for infant lung diseases for both the British Lung Foundation and ChILD Lung Foundation UK. More recently he joined with the BLF to promote their new Children's Hub to provide families with information and support. Alongside this, in 2016, he created the charity's christmas card.

Since 2014, Oakes has also been a patron of Anno's Africa, an arts-based charity working with Kenyan orphans and slum children, and has supported the UK based Shakespeare Schools Festival, most notable with and surrounding their "Trial of Macbeth".