Michael Colgan (actor)

Colgan was educated at Saint Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh and did his undergraduate studies in English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, then completed a MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, followed by a PhD at London Metropolitan University.{{cite web |title=Michael Hughes |url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/staff/hughesm.html |website=www.qmul.ac.uk |language=en}} He also studied at l'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and has lived in London.

Colgan, who uses his birth name of Michael Hughes in his academic career, taught both Creative Writing and English Literature at his alma mater London Metropolitan University and also taught Creative Writing as a Visiting Lecturer at Roehampton University and the University of Hertfordshire, then Lecturer in Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast, before joining Queen Mary University of London as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing.{{cite web |title=Michael Hughes |url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/staff/hughesm.html |website=www.qmul.ac.uk |language=en}}

A notable early performance in Saint Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh was the role of Harpagon in Molière's L'Avare, which was performed entirely in French. After theatre school in Paris, he went back to Ireland to work with his younger brother, film director Enda Hughes, in 1996 in the feature film The Eliminator.

He starred in the 2002 feature film This Is Not a Love Song directed by Bille Eltringham. He also spent a year working in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and has appeared in several television productions, including Rebel Heart and Sunday (2002) for the BBC.{{cite web|title=Charisma on the Stand: An Interview with Michael Colgan by Rada Djurica|work=Wild Violet| url=http://www.wildviolet.net/summer2/michael_colgan.html|accessdate=30 June 2009}}

Colgan has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in productions at the Royal Exchange, the Abbey Theatre, the Lyric Players' Theatre, Belfast, the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, the Young Vic and the Tricycle Theatre.

In 2009 he was appearing at the Young Vic in Rupert Goold's critically acclaimed production of King Lear starring Pete Postlethwaite.{{cite web| title=Case study: Michael Colgan, actor| work=Creative Choices| url=http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.2681| accessdate=30 June 2009| url-status=dead| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004201708/http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.2681| archivedate=4 October 2011}}

In 2013, Colgan played Richard Webb in the drama series What Remains. In 2014 he appeared in the first episode of the Channel 5 detective drama Suspects (TV series).

In 2016, Colgan published his first novel, The Countenance Divine, under his real name Michael Hughes.{{cite web|title=John Murray acquires 'ambitious, genre-blending' British debut| url=http://www.thebookseller.com/news/john-murray-acquires-ambitious-british-debut-323816| accessdate=9 October 2016}} His second novel, Country, was published in August 2018.{{cite web|title=John Murray acquires Irish reimagining of Homer's Iliad| url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/john-murray-acquires-hughes-reimagining-homers-iliad-780671| accessdate=4 July 2018}}

Colgan has appeared in two separate depictions of the Chernobyl Disaster. The first being BBC's Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster from 2006 in which he appears as Leonid Toptunov, senior reactor control chief engineer of Reactor 4.{{Citation|title="Surviving Disaster" Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster (TV Episode 2006) - IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775665/|language=en|access-date=2019-12-25}} The second was HBO's 2019 mini-series Chernobyl in which he depicts Soviet Minister of Coal Industry Mikhail Shchadov.{{Citation|title="Chernobyl" Open Wide, O Earth (TV Episode 2019) - IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9166672/|language=en|access-date=2019-12-25}}

In 2020, Colgan starred as Rory Maguire in the third series of Nordic noir detective series Marcella.{{Cite web|title=Marcella Season 3 Is Coming To ITV In Early 2021|url=https://www.tyla.com/entertaining/tv-and-film-marcella-season-3-anna-friel-spoilers-cast-plot-hugo-speer-release-itv-20201111|access-date=2021-01-13|website=www.tyla.com|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Giannetti|first=Charlene|date=2020-06-24|title=Anna Friel returns in Season Three of Marcella|url=https://www.womanaroundtown.com/sections/playing-around/anna-friel-returns-in-season-three-of-marcella/|access-date=2021-01-13|website=Woman Around Town|language=en-US}}

In 2024, he depicted older Gerry Adams in the last three episodes of Say Nothing.{{Cite web |date=2024-11-16 |title=Why Does 'Say Nothing' Have a Disclaimer About Gerry Adams at the End of Every Episode? |url=https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a62764745/say-nothing-hulu-gerry-adams-ira-disclaimer-explained/ |access-date=2025-02-13 |website=Town & Country |language=en-US}}

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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Category:Living people

Category:Male film actors from Northern Ireland

Category:Male stage actors from Northern Ireland

Category:Male television actors from Northern Ireland

Category:People educated at St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh

Category:People from Keady

Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members

Category:Actors from County Armagh

Category:Writers from County Armagh

Category:Novelists from Northern Ireland