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Nigel Havers has forged a career playing quintessential, charming, good-looking, well-educated Englishmen. The younger son of one-time Lord Chancellor Sir Michael Havers, Havers Jr opted against Eton, moving into theatre, radio and briefly training as a wine merchant, before finding fame as the lead of the 1977 BBC adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, and opposite Bob Hoskins in 1978 Dennis Potter BBC musical drama, Pennies from Heaven.
By the time he was cast in 1981’s Chariots of Fire, Havers was a familiar face on British television. Here, he got to play his first lord – Cambridge student Lord Andrew Lindsay – and run, barefooted and in slow motion, across West Sands beach in St Andrews, earning him a Bafta nomination in the process. Roles soon followed as the public school-educated but class-conscious Ronnie Heaslop in 1984 epic period drama A Passage to India, and as father figure Dr Rawlins in Steven Spielberg’s 1987 war film Empire of the Sun. He also plays David Niven in 2004’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
Havers has spent the most recent part of his career on television, continuing the well-educated/peerage theme. His roles as lords (we count four) include Lord Hepworth in Downton Abbey and his portrayal of the beaten-down-by-the-bad-guys Lord Whitecroft in Guy Ritchie’s 2024 Netflix series, The Gentleman – one of his most “is it Nigel or is he acting?” parts to date. As doctors (we count five), he most famously played Dr Tom Latimer in all six series of the 80s BBC sitcom Don’t Wait Up, and as Dr Jonathan Paige in ITV medical drama, Dangerfield. This February, he played his own grandfather, Sir Cecil Havers QC, in ITV drama A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story. He was gentleman escort Lewis Archer in Coronation Street for a decade. And you might also have caught him on stage in Art and Noel Coward comedy Private Lives, and in panto in Dick Whittington, Aladdin, Jack and The Beanstalk or more.
With a penchant for everything from the gee-gees to the ladies to, erm, going to the tip on a Sunday, there’s plenty to ask Havers as he sits for the Guardian reader interview. He’s certainly in the mood to chat, as he’s currently halfway through his first ever live tour – Nigel Havers Talking Bollocks – where he promises to … well, the clue seems to be in the title. But is he really Too Posh to be Privileged, like those adverts he did in the 2000s?
Having played so many lords and sirs, is he disappointed he hasn’t been made one himself yet? Does he have Chariots of Fire in his headphones when he goes for a jog? And who was his favourite co-barger in Celebrity Carry On Barging – Simon Callow, Lorraine Chase or Debbie McGee? Find out by getting your questions in by 6pm Tuesday 22 April and reading his answers online and in Film&Music on Friday 25 April.
Nigel Havers Talking Bollocks is at Harrogate Royal Hall 25 April, Liverpool Playhouse 26 April, and Shrewsbury theatre Severn 21 May
