Mark Williams (born 22 August 1959) is an English actor, comedian, presenter and screenwriter. He first achieved widespread recognition as one of the central performers in the popular BBC sketch show The Fast Show. His film roles include Horace in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and Arthur Weasley in seven of the Harry Potter films. He made recurring appearances as Brian Williams in the BBC television series Doctor Who and as Olaf Petersen in Red Dwarf. Since 2013, Williams has portrayed the title character in the long-running BBC series loosely based on the Father Brown short stories by G. K. Chesterton.
Since 2013, he has appeared as the lead role in the BBC costume drama Father Brown. Williams also featured in the first series of Blandings, the BBC TV adaptation of the P. G. Wodehouse Blandings Castle stories, broadcast in 2013, in which he played Beach, the Emsworths' tipsy butler; he did not return for the show's second series, for which he was replaced by Tim Vine.
Aside from his acting work, Williams has also presented several documentary programmes exploring his passion for industrial history:[7]Mark Williams' Big Bangs on the history of explosives, a follow-up to previous series Mark Williams on the Rails, Industrial Revelations and More Industrial Revelations.
Interviewed in 2014 by the Lancashire Evening Post, when asked if some people still saw him as a comedy actor, Williams replied, "Well, it's only a few people in the BBC. In America, they see me as a major British character actor, but unfortunately, the BBC is pretty parochial and people are institutionalised here."[8]
Personal life
Williams was married,[9] and has a daughter from a previous relationship, born in 2002.[9][failed verification]
Despite playing Father Brown on television, Williams does not consider himself to be a religious man. In an interview with MuggleNet, he revealed: "I was brought up in the Church of England, so that's part of my culture. But I don't practise my religion. Father Brown believes in redemption, and he believes that we're all God's children, and he's a man of faith, so I respect him."[11]