Steve Nallon

Steve Nallon is a writer and performer working in all aspects of the media from film and television to radio and theatre as actor, writer, broadcaster, academic, and voice artist.

Steve began work as a performer in 1976 on the northern working men's club circuit in Yorkshire in northern England. after gaining a degree in Drama and English at the University of Birmingham he went on to became a founder team member of the ITV television series Spitting Image, providing voices for the queen mother, Roy Hattersley, Denis Healey, Malcolm Rifkind, Margaret Thatcher, David Attenborough, Enoch Powell, Bruce Forsyth, David Frost, Ted Heath, Leonard Rossiter, Harold Wilson, Alan Bennett and many more for the next ten years.

As a playwright and comedy writer, Steve has a considerable body of credits to his name, including plays and series for BBC radio, three one-man theatre shows and the satirical book I, Margaret, which he co-wrote with Tom Holt. In 2022 Steve's novel The Time That Never Was, the first book in a new young adult book series called The Swidgers, was published by Luath Press, and the second in the series, The Time They Saved Tomorrow, came out in 2024. Destination Time Travel, an exploration of the story tropes of time travel tales written with British Film Institute archivist Dick Fiddy, was published in 2023. His collection of twelve supernatural tales entitled Steve Nallon's Ghost Stories was published by Scratching Shed in October 2024.

Steve's work as a voice artist covers ADT, animation, film dubbing, looping, video games, commercials and dramatic readings. Television and film credits include hands of a murderer (US TV movie with Edward Woodward), Animal Madness, Pallas, Harry Hill's TV burp (ITV, providing the voices of David Cameron, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Queen among others), In Search of La Che, Wire In The Blood (providing the voice of the serial killer in the ITV crime series), Crossing The Floor, Overlord (numerous voices for the video game), Bullseye! (the comedy movie directed by Michael Winner) and Charlie (the RTÉ 2015 television drama series concerning the life and politics of former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey). Steve has also featured on various records including No Clause 28 with Boy George and the comedy CD release Funny Times with Harry Hill.

As an actor Steve appears in 2015 in the Sci-Fi movie 51 Degrees North as astro-physicist Professor Richards directed by the German born film director Grigorij Richters and with a new and original score by Queen's Brian May. In the short film The Ganzfeld Procedure produced by the BBC and directed by Keith McCarthy Steve played the experimental scientist Professor Edmund Spencer. In the cult TV series Jonathan Creek (BBC) Steve featured as Rupert, Caroline Quentin's 'hot date'. Steve's other film roles include the family doctor in The Girl With Brains In Her Feet, the investigating immigration officer in The Refuge and the journalist Dave in Frankie and Johnny. He also appeared in the award winning short film Number Thirteen as Mrs McCrory, a possessive demonic mother figure, and on television as a Patricia Routledge style character in the comedy series Rory Bremner... Who Else? (C4).

On stage Steve Nallon has performed in several musicals, including the role of Jacque in Carnival (the 'Lost Musicals Season' at the Barbican theatre in London), the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show (Leicester Haymarket), and Ted the Cloggie in The Cloggies (Theatr Clwyd). In 2013 he toured the UK in the highly praised production of Cissie and Ada playing Roy Barraclough/Cissie, a drama centered around the friendship of the actor Roy Barraclough and the comedian Les Dawson and the creation of the comic duo 'Cissie and Ada'. In 2014 Steve fulfilled a life-long ambition and played dame in panto. The pantomime production of Jack and the Beanstalk at the Buxton Opera House, in which Steve starred as Dame trott, garnered universally good reviews and broke box office records.

Steve has worked extensively in BBC radio drama including the lead role of Bobby in Props, the part of Barry, Bradley Walsh's side-kick in the popular BBC sit-com King of the Road, playing former prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan opposite Leslie Phillips in the BBC series Maclean - The Memorex Years, as Jorgen Riise in Believe It! with Richard Wilson and as Attenborough in the comedy series Peoplewatch. Other acting roles in radio include the dramas Prizegiving, A Lovesong for Alfred J Hitchcock, Bedsprings, Remembering Live Aid and the series The Music Machine. In the biographical series Mad Composers Steve played all the character voices, including Beethoven, Satie, Grainger, Gesualdo, Gurney and Ives.

Perhaps two unexpected sides to Steve's professional work have been as a film and television puppeteer and as a computer motion capture performer. Steve is accomplished and much sought after artist in both these fields. His puppeteering and vocal work creating numerous and diverse characters covers over a hundred shows and titles, including Cats' Eyes (BBC), The Spooks of Bottle Bay (ITV), The House of Gristle (BBC), The Wild Bunch (C4), The Pig attraction (ITV), The Dan and Dusty Show (ITV), What's Up Doc? (ITV) and Crazy Cottage (ITV) plus puppet work on the film Muppet Treasure Island. As a computer motion capture performer Steve has worked for the company Centroid and Headcaster on video games and apps. As early as 1988 Steve appeared on the BBC science series Tomorrow's World as a performer in a feature looking at the first experimental work in this area that later was to become known as Mo-Cap (Motion Capture).

Steve has worked as a freelance script editor on both film and theatre development projects. He has worked with new writers in association with the UK's Screen West Midlands and other film development companies. Steve has also written on the subject of film for the magazine The New Statesman and on film theory and genre for the movie trade publication ScriptWriter. He is now often asked to contribute to TV shows looking back and discussing television history and culture, and these have included The Story of Light Entertainment (BBC), Forty Years of ITV, Comedy Connections (BBC), Fifty Years of ITV and Greatest Almost Famous TV Moments (C5).

From 1995 to 2003 Steve was a visiting lecturer at the University of Birmingham drama department lecturing on film and directing courses in stand-up comedy, screenwriting, Greek theatre, Broadway musicals, comedy of manners and story structures. In addition to this work Steve has contributed articles and reviews for periodicals such as Musical Stages and New Theatre Quarterly. He also wrote the chapter on musical theatre in the illustrated Encyclopedia of Music published by Flame Tree Publishing and has regularly appeared on the BBC radio series Soul Music discussing the power of popular music. In 2014 Steve was invited to take part in the television program Britain's Best Loved Double Acts (C5) and discussed and analyzed among others the work of Laurel and Hardy, Hinge and Bracket, Cissie and Ada, and Little and Large. Steve is often called upon to appear on series discussing the voice and these have included BBC radio programs for Open University such as In Other Words and Accents Speak Louder Than Words as well as Speak Out! and Word of Mouth.