Tim's Potted Biography

I.D. Photos 1971-1985

I was born on a sheep station in Tasmania on June 1st 1953. My father had given up being a talks producer at the BBC for a life of adventure in the New World. He ran out of conversation after five years and he, my mother, my two older sisters, Sorrel and Anna, and I came back to England when I was two and lived in Berkhamsted, Herts until 1974.

I went to Berkhamsted Prep School where I was good at gym, languages, acting, swimming and getting beaten, and worked on farms throughout my childhood.

After a difficult start at Harrow School (1966-1971) (my mother died in my second term) I followed the family tradition of swimming fast and captained the invincible school team for two years. Ended up with A Levels in English, German and French.

I bummed round Europe for the best part of a year before going to the University of East Anglia from 1972 to 1975. Got a BA (Hons.) in History of Art, but spent most of my time in the Drama Society and water-skiing.

I worked in America for six months for TrekAmerica driving minibuses full of mostly Australian and British tourists round the States. Helped my father and stepmother set up and run an organic self-sufficient smallholding in Devon (this time he'd given up being a producer at J. Walter Thompson for 'The Good Life').

After a spell trying to sell a diesel Mercedes to Moroccan taxi drivers in Tetuan, I decided an actor's life was for me so I got an HGV licence in order to never have to be on the dole and went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School 1976 to 1978 at the end of which I won the Carleton Hobbs radio award and joined the BBC Radio Rep.

I married Judith Emerson in 1979 and we bought a house in Bristol. After renovating it pretty much single-handedly, we moved to London in 1982 and bought a crumbling Victorian semi in Islington. If you've ever read "Diary of a Nobody", it's the Pooters' house, an early Victorian semi-detached 'villa' with wonderful pretensions to its betters in the west. 21 years later it's ready for the Forth Road Bridge job, but it is pretty much all my own work. Plumbing and finish plastering are the only things I don't attempt but we really could do with a shower.

My acting career has been based in voice work - David Archer in The Archers since 1982 (if you're a fan, try Archers Addicts), and a solid base as a successful voice-over artist, with a load of theatre - regional, fringe and West End, and forays into TV stardom - Tom Lacey in "By the Sword Divided", Nigel Barrington in "Square Deal", Steve Nicholson in "Made in Heaven" and Wng Cmdr Raikes in "Strike Force". Episodes of "Casualty" and "The Bill" and Chris Barrie's business manager, Mark Fitzherbert in the sitcom "Prince Among Men", the U-Boat Commander in "Enigma", the voice of Chow Yung Fat in the English version of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the voice of James Bond in the computer game of "The World Is Not Enough". See Curriculum Vitae for details.

Apart from rebuilding the house and trying to secure the family's future by inventing The Hippo, I was surprised to find that curiosity had made me rather good at programming, with two voiceover agencies running their businesses on my software, and a shareware program that converts everything for the Psion 3a/3c/3mx/Siena/S5/Revo making a name (and a bit of money) for myself on the Internet. Writing these and playing Myst and Doom took over for a while from my previous obsession of writing and recording music.

Computer life's got more serious now, five commercial websites completed at
Speak-easy, Castaway, Judy Bentinck Millinery, John Green TEFL Tapes, Eve Karpf Voices, Brian Bowles Voices, Catherine Bott, Opera Singer (work in progress) and a website in honour of my late father, Henry Bentinck. I've also just recently got back into writing songs - Judy gave me a banjo two years ago and the album is almost finished!

I've also written a radio play that won a BBC competition for new writers and was shortlisted for a Sony Award, another called "The Viagrans" that's still under consideration, three film treatments, a children's book, a sitcom, half a TV play and a one man radio play for live theatre. I've got a book deal on a comic work written by me and Albert Welling, fingers crossed that the copyright problems go away. My literary agent is Lisa Eveleigh - tel: 020 7404 0342.

Now I'm doing the Archers, voiceovers, commercial web sites, playwriting, songwriting and doing the family tree. Gedcom file of this available for download.

The last three years have seen a return to your TV screens, see my CV or watch the videos. Thankfully I still have time for the most important thing in my life, my family. My wife Judy is a brilliant milliner, but also an artist, costumier, reflexologist, teacher, mother and all round gorgeous girl. William was born in 1984, is a maths genius and at the moment is being a croupier at the Golden Nuggett, Shaftesbury Avenue. Jasper was born in 1988 and has just finished his A levels. Jasper survived being born six weeks premature with Listeria Meningitis, but is now a beautiful, bright and healthy boy, just like his brother - Will wants to be a Philosopher, Jasper is aiming for Rock Deity.

Site Established 1993

Click here if there is no toolbar on the left