David Oakes

Oakes was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1983,{{Cite web|url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=WfrRSjoRKAn9ngL3K8rDcg&scan=1|title=Index entry|access-date=19 July 2020|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2022}} the son of a Church of England canon.{{cite web|title=Interview for 1883 Magazine from 2011|url=http://www.1883magazine.com/film/film/david-oakes|access-date=2 Dec 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701074318/http://www.1883magazine.com/film/film/david-oakes|archive-date=1 July 2015|url-status=dead}}

His first cousin twice removed is RAF night fighter ace, John 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham.

Oakes grew up in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.{{cite web|last=Davies|first=Ceri|title=Interview for Emma Hartley entitled "Desert Island Folk Discs"|url=http://theglamourcave.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/borgias-actor-david-oakess-desert.html|access-date=2 Dec 2012|website=1883 Magazine|date=26 November 2012 }} He was head boy at Bishop Wordsworth's School, in Salisbury. His first job was backstage at the Salisbury Playhouse. Oakes graduated with a First in English Literature from the University of Manchester. He graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2007.{{cite web|title=List of graduates from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School since 1984 |url=http://www.winterbourne.freeuk.com/BOVTSgraduates.html |access-date=5 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100508203133/http://www.winterbourne.freeuk.com/BOVTSgraduates.html |archive-date=8 May 2010 |df=dmy }}

Oakes began his career at Shakespeare's Globe, before taking roles at the Almeida Theatre and the Old Vic. Since appearing at Shakespeare's Globe at the outset of his career, Oakes has frequently performed in numerous rehearsed readings as part of their "Read Not Dead" initiative, including their landmark 200th reading of Philip Massinger's A New Way To Pay Old Debts; Oakes played Wellborn alongside a cast including Benjamin Whitrow, Alan Cox, and Nicholas Rowe.{{cite web |title=The 200th Read Not Dead |url=http://storify.com/the_globe/200th-read-not-dead-with-globe-education |access-date=24 Mar 2013}}

In 2006, Oakes performed a 90-minute abridged version of Much Ado About Nothing as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Complete Works" festival along with his final year graduates from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He alternated between playing Claudio and Verges alongside fellow graduate Matt Barber.{{cite web |title=UK Theatre Database: RSC's Much Ado About Nothing |url=http://www.ltdb.co.uk/play/much-ado-about-nothing-2 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130421005349/http://www.ltdb.co.uk/play/much-ado-about-nothing-2 |archive-date=21 April 2013 |access-date=24 Mar 2013}}

File:ROMY2011 b07 David Oakes in 2011.jpg, Hofburg Imperial Palace, Vienna, 2011]]

Oakes was present to accept the Jury Prize at the 2011 Romy Awards in Vienna alongside Donald Sutherland and Natalia Wörner.

Oakes came to prominence when he played the villainous William Hamleigh in the television miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010). The following year, Oakes was cast in the television series The Borgias (2011), airing on Showtime.{{cite news|last=Vlessing|first=Etan|title=David Oakes, Holliday Grainger join 'Borgias'|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i67674dc7019130a5f456bdbbe219c95a|access-date=3 July 2010|newspaper=The Hollywood Reporter|date=10 June 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613052714/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i67674dc7019130a5f456bdbbe219c95a|archive-date=13 June 2010|df=dmy-all}} Whilst shooting the second season, Oakes performed a cameo in the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End (2012).

Between 2010 and 2013, Oakes had several roles playing villains on television—such as William Hamleigh in The Pillars of the Earth (2010), Juan Borgia in The Borgias (2011), and George, Duke of Clarence in The White Queen (2013).{{cite news |date=24 June 2013 |title=Brief Encounter with David Oakes |newspaper=Whats On Stage |url=http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/06-2013/brief-encounter-with-david-oakes-the-open-air-thea_31102.html |access-date=3 Feb 2017}} When he played Mr. Darcy in an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice at Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 2013, he said, "I've been playing bad guys back to back, so Darcy's a bit of an antidote!" In 2014, he starred in the original West End production of Shakespeare in Love at the Noël Coward Theatre as Christopher Marlowe. Oakes was nominated for both WhatsOnStage and Broadway World awards for his performance in Shakespeare in Love in 2015.{{Citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Other performances between 2008 and 2013 for "Read Not Dead" include an early quarto edition of Henry IV: Part One as Prince Hal opposite Benjamin Whitrow's Falstaff, Calderon's Life is a Dream (La Vida Es Sueno) as Segismundo, Taming Of A Shrew as Aurelias, The Spanish Tragedy as Lorenzo, The Return from Parnassus as Ingenioso, Bassianus as Geta, Gorboduc as a "smooth, almost oily"{{cite web |title=The Marlowe Society Research Journal - Volume 05 - 2008 |url=http://www.marlowe-society.org/pubs/journal/downloads/rj05articles/jl05_05_wooding_gorboduc.pdf |access-date=24 Mar 2013}} Arostus, John Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis as Montanus, and Thomas Middleton's Your Five Gallants as Tailby.{{cite web |title=David Oakes' Spotlight CV |url=http://www.spotlight.com/interactive/cv/9133-9054-1093 |access-date=24 Mar 2013}}

In a return to TV period dramas in 2015, Oakes guest-starred in both the third season of Endeavour with Shaun Evans and in BBC's limited series The Living and the Dead with Colin Morgan. He played Prince Ernest, brother of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, in the 2016 ITV series Victoria. The role reunited Oakes with his Trinity co-star Tom Hughes, and Pillars of the Earth co-star Rufus Sewell.

In 2017, Oakes starred in the film adaptation of Albert Sánchez Piñol's novel Cold Skin, directed by Xavier Gens and co-starring Ray Stevenson and Aura Garrido. He also starred as Thomas Novachek in the London West End premiere of David Ives's play Venus in Fur at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. This production was directed by Patrick Marber and co-starred Natalie Dormer as Vanda.[https://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/natalie-dormer-will-star-in-erotically-charged-west-end-production-of-venus-in-fur-a3537246.html "Natalie Dormer will star in erotically charged West End production of Venus in Fur"] by Alistair Foster, The Evening Standard, 12 May 2017

Oakes played Earl Godwin in Vikings: Valhalla, the spin-off of the show Vikings, for Netflix.

Oakes set up a theatre company called Dog Ate Cake with a long-term theatrical collaborator Henry Bell.{{cite web | title=Interview for Fault Magazine 2011 | url=http://banastacio.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/david_oakes_fault.jpg | archive-url=https://archive.today/20130110064454/http://banastacio.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/david_oakes_fault.jpg | url-status=dead | archive-date=10 January 2013 | access-date=2 Dec 2012 }}

In 2015 Oakes starred as Banquo in a charity fundraiser for the Shakespeare Schools Festival.{{cite web |url=https://www.innertemplelibrary.com/2015/02/event-the-trial-of-macbeth/ | title=EVENT: The Trial of Macbeth | date=26 February 2015 | publisher=Inner Temple Library |access-date=July 12, 2021}} The event was largely improvised by the actors and lawyers involved, but based on a framework written by Jonathan Myerson. The cast also included Christopher Eccleston as Macbeth, Haydn Gwynne as Lady Macbeth, Paterson Joseph as MacDuff, and Pippa Bennett-Warner as one of the Weird Sisters. The event interrupted the events of the original play following the death of Duncan, placing Macbeth on trial for murder. Oakes, Joseph, and Gwynne appeared as witnesses for the prosecution while Eccleston and Bennett-Warner played witnesses for the defence. The event was overseen by High Court Judge Sir Michael Burton; the QCs were John Kelsey-Fry, Jonathan Laidlaw, Dinah Rose, and Ian Winter, and the foreman of the jury was Jeremy Paxman.{{cite web| title=Guardian - Trial of Macbeth | website = TheGuardian.com | date = 13 February 2015 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/feb/13/jeremy-paxman-heads-jury-in-trial-of-macbeth-noel-coward-theatre |access-date = 21 Feb 2016}}

In 2019, Oakes played Hamlet at Shakespeare's Rose Theatre, York. The Stage wrote that he "plays Hamlet with natural ease: he is clearly comfortable with the cadences of the language and he conveys meaning well."{{cite web |last=Douglas |first=Natalie |date=July 4, 2019 |title=Hamlet review at Shakespeare's Rose Theatre, York – 'a production of clarity' |url=https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2019/hamlet-review-at-shakespeares-rose-theatre-york-a-production-of-clarity/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704172135/https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2019/hamlet-review-at-shakespeares-rose-theatre-york-a-production-of-clarity/ |archive-date=July 4, 2019 |access-date=2 August 2019 |website=The Stage}} Both WhatsOnStage and the British Theatre Guide praised Oakes' performance, particularly his rapport with the audience, despite the production's more light-hearted take on the play.{{cite web |last=Simpson |first=Ron |date=4 July 2019 |title=Review: Hamlet (Shakespeare's Rose Theatre, York) |url=https://www.whatsonstage.com/york-theatre/reviews/hamlet-shakespeares-rose-david-oakes_49392.html |access-date=2 August 2019 |website=WhatsOnStage}}{{cite web |last=Ballands |first=James |title=British Theatre Guide, Hamlet Review |url=https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/hamlet-shakespeare-s-r-17779 |access-date=2 August 2019 |newspaper=British Theatre Guide|date=25 June 2019 }}

Oakes has directed a number of theatre pieces alongside his acting career. In 2003 he took a stage adaptation of The Wicker Man to the Epping Forest Theatre Festival. Rehearsing in and around his hometown of Salisbury, Oakes "got kicked out of the [Cathedral] Close for rehearsing pagan rituals for [his] open-air production of The Wicker Man."{{cite web|title=Interview for Wiltshire Life 2010 |url=http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/dyn/inthenews/articleinwiltshirelifemagazinenov2010-canonssonactsevil.pdf |access-date=11 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318035329/http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/dyn/inthenews/articleinwiltshirelifemagazinenov2010-canonssonactsevil.pdf |archive-date=18 March 2013 |df=dmy }}

While at university, Oakes directed numerous plays including Martin McDonagh's Beauty Queen of Leenane, Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter and Anthony Minghella's Whale Music.{{cite web| title=Theatre Credits Prior To Drama School | url = http://members.madasafish.com/~shakespeare/salisbury.htm |access-date = 11 June 2013}}

Also whilst at University in 2005, Oakes assisted director Natalie Wilson on a production of Smilin' Through that was co-produced by the Truant Company, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and Contact Theatre, Manchester. Later that year, Oakes once again turned to literary adaptation, taking a production of Stephen King's The Boogeyman to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

With his and Bell's theatre company, Dog Ate Cake, in 2009 Oakes directed a small tour revival of John Maddison Morton's Box and Cox.{{cite web| title=Dog Ate Cake | url = http://www.rowandavidoakes.co.uk/dac/duel.htm |access-date = 11 June 2013}}

Oakes frequently directs at Shakespeare's Globe extending their "Read Not Dead" series, a study devoted to performing fully staged readings of the entirety of the Early Modern Canon of Drama. Most recently Oakes directed Robert Greene's The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay{{cite web| title=Bacon and Bungay Review | date = 9 June 2013 | url = https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/bardathon/2013/06/09/friar-bacon-and-friar-bungay-read-not-dead-shakespeares-globe-park-street-rehearsal-room/ |access-date = 11 June 2013}} and Lewis Theobald's "Happy Ending" version of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, "The Fatal Secret".{{cite web| title=Globe Read Not Dead 2014 | url = http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/events/performances/read-not-dead |access-date = 19 January 2014}}

Oakes recently directed an extract of Robert Daborne's A Christian Turn'd Turk as part of a special "Read Not Dead" event at Shakespeare's Globe. Four directors with four scholars were teamed up with actors and presented their arguments and selected scenes at a special hustings event on Thursday 29 May 2014. Winning the event, teamed with Dr Emma Smith of Oxford University, Oakes directed the full play on Sunday 5 October 2014 in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

In 2020, Oakes narrated an episode of Historic Royal Palaces' Outliers podcast.{{cite web| title=Outliers: Seal of Fate | url = http://outliers.libsyn.com/s2e11-seal-of-fate |access-date = 14 Jan 2020}} He appeared as Thomas Phelippes, a spy and code breaker in the court of Elizabeth I plotting the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Oakes is the presenter of the natural history podcast Trees A Crowd. The first episode was released on 25 February 2019 and featured Mark Frith.

Oakes has been in a relationship with actress Natalie Dormer since 2018 whom he met while appearing in Venus in Fur. Dormer gave birth to their daughter in 2021.{{cite web |last=Earp |first=Catherine |date=28 April 2021 |title=Game of Thrones' Natalie Dormer announces she's secretly welcomed a baby girl |url=https://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/a36274877/game-of-thrones-natalie-dormer-baby-girl/ |access-date=29 May 2021 |website=Digital Spy}} The couple entered into a civil partnership in February 2023 in Bath, Somerset.{{cite web|url=https://uk.style.yahoo.com/natalie-dormer-david-oakes-civil-200000579.html|title=Natalie Dormer and David Oakes say 'I do' to civil partnership|date=6 March 2023|website=Yahoo!|access-date=7 March 2023}}

Oakes plays both the clarinet and bass clarinet, and is a bass singer. He is an avid follower of folk music, and continues to support the Bristol folk group Sheelanagig.

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Oakes, following his infant niece being diagnosed with a lung condition, has been heavily involved with raising awareness for and fundraising on behalf of the British Lung Foundation.

In 2013, Oakes collaborated with his Borgias castmate Holliday Grainger to make the short comedy film Goblin. Directed by Christian James, the film was screened at the 2014 Film 4 Fright Fest in their Shorts Showcase,{{cite web |date=22 January 2015 |title=Goblin Film Four Fright Fest Review |url=http://mjsimpson-films.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/goblin.html |access-date=25 Jan 2017}} and all profits from the sale of this film were donated to the British Lung Foundation.{{cite web |title=BLF Patrons |url=https://www.blf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-supporters |access-date=25 Jan 2017}}

Later in 2014, Oakes ran the length of the country to raise awareness for infant lung diseases for both the British Lung Foundation and ChILD Lung Foundation UK.{{cite web |date=10 September 2014 |title=David Oakes Runs for Charity |url=https://www.blf.org.uk/your-stories/david-oakes/ |access-date=25 Jan 2017}} In 2016, he joined with the BLF to promote their new Children's Hub to provide families with information and support.{{cite web |date=8 December 2016 |title=Josie was the Strongest |url=https://www.blf.org.uk/your-stories/josie-was-the-happiest-and-chirpiest-of-all-of-us |access-date=25 Jan 2017}}

File:David Oakes as Phao - ShaLT 2013.jpg

Since 2014, Oakes has also been a friend of Anno's Africa,{{cite web |title=Anno's Africa Patrons |url=http://www.annosafrica.org.uk/patrons/ |access-date=25 Jan 2017}} an arts-based charity working with Kenyan orphans and slum children, and has supported the UK based Shakespeare Schools Festival, most notably with and surrounding their "Trial of Macbeth" and "Trial of Richard III". In 2019, Oakes helped organise, and alongside Michael Palin, Twiggy and others, appeared in the "Just A Book" poster campaign on the London Underground. The campaign was created to support independent businesses and bookshops on British highstreets and also to raise funds for Anno's Africa.{{cite web |title=Just A Book at The Bookseller |url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/palin-and-dormer-back-indie-bookshop-campaign-1022501 |access-date=17 Jun 2019}}

Since 2019, Oakes has been an Ambassador for the Woodland Trust.{{cite web |title=Official Twitter for the Woodland Trust |url=https://twitter.com/WoodlandTrust/status/1146415796618440705 |access-date=3 Jul 2019}} On 9 October 2019, Oakes hosted a discussion at the 70th Cheltenham Literature Festival on the subject of "The Art of Trees".{{cite web |title=Chelt Lit Festival Website Details |url=https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature/whats-on/2019/the-art-of-trees/ |access-date=10 Oct 2019 |archive-date=10 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191010165734/https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature/whats-on/2019/the-art-of-trees/ |url-status=dead }}

Writing in an editorial for the Sunday Times on 2 November 2019, Oakes said:

{{Blockquote| Trees give us so much: if you can come up with a better technology and material that is cheap, enhances wellbeing, stimulates happy childhood memories, sequesters CO2, boosts biodiversity and even just looks as pretty as a copper beech, a hawthorn or a horse chestnut, then I’ll bow to you.{{cite news|title= Conkering hero David Oakes on planting trees |url= https://www.thetimes.com/article/3eef4444-fc02-11e9-9b76-dbaeb2096b1a |access-date = 2 Nov 2019|last1= Oakes |first1= David }}}}

On 30 January 2020, Oakes was a co-signatory, with the CEOs of The Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the RSPB, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Buglife and Butterfly Conservation, and other notable environmental ambassadors and activists, on a letter written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and published in The Times, to get the UK government to rethink its stance on the second UK High Speed Rail Link along environmental and biodiversity lines.{{cite web |title=HS2 should not get the green light in current form |date=30 January 2020 |url=https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/patience-thody/hs2-should-not-get-green-light-current-form |access-date=30 Jan 2020}}

On 21 June 2020, Oakes co-hosted the live-stream event The Big Wild Quiz for The Wildlife Trusts as part of their "30 Days Wild" campaign.{{cite web |title=Big Wild Quiz |url=https://m.facebook.com/wildlifetrusts/videos/283635762828113/ |access-date=26 June 2020 |website=Facebook}} Nine days later, on 30 June, alongside environmentalists and activists, including Chris Packham and Ellie Goulding, Oakes took part in the Climate Coalition's mass virtual lobby to focus the MPs to put people, climate and nature at the heart of the British nation's recovery.{{cite web |title=Climate Coalition Virtual Lobby |url=https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/virtual-lobby |access-date=9 July 2020}} He also hosted The Big Wild Quiz in 2021.

On 26 November 2020, Oakes became an ambassador for The Wildlife Trusts.{{cite web |title=The Wildlife Trusts welcome Liz Bonnin as new president |date=26 November 2020 |url=https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/wildlife-trusts-welcome-liz-bonnin-new-president |access-date=27 Nov 2020}}

Following a visit to a Rhino Conservation project in Namibia, one supported by David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, on 29 June 2023 Oakes was made a Conservation Ambassador for the charity.

In 2024, it was announced that Oakes was serving as a Trustee for the Badger Trust.{{cite web |title=About the Badger Trust |url=https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/about |access-date=26 Jul 2024}}

• Oakes has performed with The Fitzrovia Radio Hour{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}
• 2008: A Dance to the Music of Time as Charles Stringham (BBC Radio 4)
• 2017 - 2021: Seasons 1 to 4 of Foiled as Richie (BBC Radio Wales)—written by David Charles and Beth Granville, based on the Edinburgh Fringe show of the same name.

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• Ed Begley Jr.—American actor and environmentalist

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category}}

• [http://www.davidoakes.co.uk/ davidoakes.co.uk], Oakes's official website
• {{IMDb name|2845631}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170915162250/http://dogatecake.co.uk/ Dog Ate Cake] Official Website
• [https://davidoakesprints.squarespace.com/ David Oakes Prints]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110402113532/http://www.ltdb.co.uk/node/8599 David Oakes] at the London Theatre Database

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Category:20th-century English male actors

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Category:Alumni of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Category:Alumni of the University of Manchester

Category:English environmentalists

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male musical theatre actors

Category:English male stage actors

Category:English male television actors

Category:English male voice actors

Category:Living people

Category:People educated at Bishop Wordsworth's School

Category:People from Fordingbridge

Category:English male Shakespearean actors

Category:1983 births

Category:Male actors from Salisbury

Category:Male actors from Hampshire

Category:Actors from New Forest District