Michael was born in the East End of London and grew up in and Essex village on the edge of Epping Forest.
This year he celebrates 21 years in a career which began, ironically, in a production of Chicago at the Manchester Library Theatre.
He made his West End debut in the acclaimed 1985 revival of West Side Story at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which subsequently transferred to the Manchester Opera House. He went on to appear in a variety of musicals all over the country including Godspell, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and The Boyfriend, followed by a season at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin as Dennis Geoghegan in One of Our Own, a musical adaptation of Lennox Robinson’s The Whiteheaded Boy.
In 1992, after a four-year career break spent travelling the world, he returned to the West End, initially with the wartime musical Radio Times at the Queens Theatre. The following year, at the Palace Theatre, he joined the cast of Les Miserables. It was while playing the role of Javert that he was cast as David Wicks in EastEnders – the role for which he is perhaps best known and which he played for three years. Twenty-two million viewers tuned in to watch his departure from the show, and it was the enormous popularity of the character that led to further leading roles for the BBC. He starred as time-travelling detective Jeff Slade in the cult hit Crime Traveller, cardiothoracic surgeon Nick Jordan in the original cast of Holby City, detective Alex Murchison in The Fabulous Bagel Boys with Denis Lawson, and Ellis Bride opposite Nigel Haver’s Raffles in The Gentleman Thief. Currently his performance as Dr Tom Gilder in the popular Sunday night drama serial Born and Bred, in which he starred alongside James Bolam, has won him a new generation of fans.
In 2004 Michael won a Royal Television Society Best Actor Award for his performance as Hardy Rose in Sons, Daughters and Lovers by Matthew Parkhill, screened during the second series of The Afternoon Play.
Other West End appearances have included the role of Marc in Art at the Wyndhams Theatre with Stephen Tomkinson and James Fleet, and as Jerry in Sacred Heart at the Ambassadors for the Royal Court.
Michael is delighted to be making a return to music theatre with Chicago – thus coming full circle!
