Lee Ingleby

Lee Ingleby
Born	Lee David Ingleby (1976-01-28) 28 January 1976 Burnley, Lancashire, England
Alma mater	London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1997–present

Lee David Ingleby (born 28 January 1976) is an English actor who first gained attention with his leading role in the BBC Two miniseries Nature Boy (2000). His other notable roles include Detective Insp. John Bacchus on the BBC's Inspector George Gently (2007–2017), Paul Hughes in The A Word (2016–2020), Det. Tony Myerscough on Netflix's Criminal: UK (2019–2020), and DCS Jim Hobson in ITV's The Long Shadow (2023). Ingleby was the voice of Bob the Builder in the show of the same name from 2015 to 2018. His film credits include Ever After (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).

Early life

Ingleby was born in Burnley, Lancashire, son of Gordon Ingleby and Susan M Hoggarth, and lived in nearby Brierfield during the early part of his life, attending Edge End High School, as did fellow actor John Simm. Both were taught by the same drama teacher, Brian Wellock, who encouraged them to enter professional theatre. He then studied at Accrington and Rossendale College before progressing to LAMDA in London.

Career

Ingleby's first major role was as the young lead in the 2000 BBC miniseries Nature Boy alongside Paul McGann. He played Smike in a 2001 television film version of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Also in 2001, he starred in and wrote the screenplay for the short film Cracks in the Ceiling, which he appeared in with his father, Gordon Ingleby. In the 2002 theatrical release Borstal Boy, based very loosely on the life of Irish poet-activist Brendan Behan, Ingleby played a bully in an English boarding school for juvenile offenders.

Ingleby has also made one-off appearances in television programmes such as Hustle, Clocking Off, No Angels, Fat Friends, Jonathan Creek, Spaced, Dalziel and Pascoe, Cadfael (Pilgrim of Hate) and The Bill. He has had supporting roles in films such as Gustave in Ever After alongside Drew Barrymore and as Hollom in the 2003 Peter Weir film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

In 2004, Ingleby had a small role in the Orlando Bloom vehicle Haven, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival but was not commercially released until 2006 following heavy re-editing. He also guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure Terror Firma.

In 2006 Ingleby appeared in Jimmy McGovern BBC TV series The Street, where he played abusive husband Sean O'Neill alongside Christine Bottomley. Another project during 2006 was the television adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, in which he played Mole. It also starred Bob Hoskins as Badger, Matt Lucas as Toad and Mark Gatiss as Ratty. He also appeared in a modernised BBC adaptation of Rapunzel for the Fairy Tales series. Ingleby also played the important role of Vic Tyler, the father of John Simm's character Sam Tyler, in an episode of Life on Mars.

In 2007 Ingleby was cast as DS John Bacchus (later promoted to inspector in series 7, 2015) in the BBC police drama Inspector George Gently.

Ingleby headed the cast of the 2008 three-part television crime drama A Place of Execution as DI George Bennett as he was in the 1960s determined to close the case of a missing girl. When not working in films and television, Ingleby remains active on the stage, where his credits include Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, Alexander in Nicholas Wright's Cressida and Katurian in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman. He performed in the play Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek at the Cottesloe Theatre from September 2009 to January 2010 as Zygmunt.

In 2011, Ingleby appeared in the television series Being Human as Edgar Wyndham, a menacing vampire elder, and also in Luther as serial killer Cameron Pell.

In 2013, Ingleby took on the voice role of Phillip De Nicholay, the Sheriff of Nottingham, in a new audio production of the Robin Hood legend, produced by Spiteful Puppet. He returned to the role in the follow-up "HOOD – The Scribe of Sherwood". In the same year, two more feature length audio stories (Warriors' Harvest and King's Command) have been produced by Spiteful Puppet with Ingleby once again playing the role of "De Nicholay".

In 2015 Ingleby first played Bob in the UK version of the new computer-generated series Bob The Builder - a role that continued until 2018. That same year he provided spoken word narration on the progressive rock album Please Come Home which the British musician John Mitchell released under the project name Lonely Robot.

In 2016 Ingleby first appeared in the role of Paul Hughes, father of autistic child Joe, in BBC drama series The A Word, which ran until 2020.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Ever After	Gustave
2000	Borstal Boy	Dale
2001	Cracks in the Ceiling	Lad
	The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby	Smike
2003	Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World	Midshipman Hollom
2004	Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban	Stan Shunpike
	Haven	Patrick
2005	The Headsman	Bernhard
2006	The Wind in the Willows	Mole
2007	The Last Legion	Germanus
2008	Post-It Love	Boy
2009	Doghouse	Matt
2012	Best Laid Plans	Deano
2013	The Arbiter	John
2017	Bob the Builder: Mega Machines	Bob (voice)	UK version
2022	The Lost King	Richard Taylor

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1997	Soldier Soldier	Kevin Fitzpatrick
1998	Killer Net	Gordon
	In the Red	Paul
	The Bill	Ian	Episode: "Puzzled"
	Cadfael	Walter
1999	Junk	Rob
	The Dark Room	Bobby Franklyn
	Dalziel and Pascoe	Kieron Cumming	Episode: "The British Grenadier"
2000	Jonathan Creek	Derek Spratley	Episode: "The Three Gamblers"
	Nature Boy	David
2001	Spaced	Romford Thug Leader	Episode: "Gone"
2002	Impact	Peter Stamford
2002	Clocking Off	Steven Dugdale
	Fat Friends	Craig	Episode: "Sticky fingers"
2004	No Angels	Nurse Carl Jenkins
	Blue Murder	Roger Boersma	Episode: "Up in Smoke"
	Early Doors	Dean
2005	Hustle	Trevor Speed	Episode: "The Lesson"
	Coming Up	Gabriel	Episode "Karma Cowboys"
2006	Life on Mars	Vic Tyler
	The Street	Sean O'Neill
2007–2017	Inspector George Gently	Detective Sergeant John Bacchus
2007	The Worst Journey in the World	Birdie Bowers	Docudrama
2008	Fairy Tales	Jimmy Stojkovic	Episode: "Rapunzel"
	Place of Execution	Detective Inspector George Bennett	1960s scenes
	Agatha Christie's Marple	Colin Hards	Episode: "Nemesis"
	Crooked House	Ben
2011	Being Human	Edgar Wyndham
	Luther	Cameron Pell
2012	White Heat	Alan
	Sinbad	Riff
2014	Quirke	Leslie White
	Our Zoo	George Mottershead	Main cast
	The Crimson Field	Pte Wilfred 'Dad' Tyrell	Episode #1.4
2015–2018	Bob the Builder	Bob (UK)	Main role, succeeding Neil Morrissey
2016–2020	The A Word	Paul Hughes	Main cast
2016	The Five	Slade
2017	Line of Duty	Nick Huntley	Series 4
	Warship	Narrator
2018	Innocent	David Collins
	Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago	Narrator
	Watership Down	Campion
2019–2020	Criminal: UK	Detective Tony Myerscough
2022	Crossfire	Jason
	The Serpent Queen	Henri II (older)
2023	The Hunt For Raoul Moat	Neil Adamson	Main role
	Screw	Patrick Morgan	Series 2
	The Long Shadow	DCS Jim Hobson
2024	The Cuckoo	Nick	Main role

Radio

• Cry Hungary (as Peter Kovacs), BBC Radio 4, 2006
• Radio Head, Up and Down the Dial of British Radio by John Osborne, Book of the Week, BBC Radio 4, 2009
• A Kind of Loving (as Vic Brown), BBC Radio 4, 2010
• Boots on the Ground (as Marks), BBC Radio 4, 2013
• Hood: Noble Secrets (as Phillip De Nicholay – Sheriff of Nottingham), Spiteful Puppet, 2013
• House of Ghosts: A Case for Inspector Morse (as Inspector Lewis), BBC Radio 4, 2017
• Morse: In The Shallows (as Inspector Lewis), BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Programmes, 2018

External links

• Lee Ingleby at IMDb
• Lee Ingleby on X
• Lee Ingleby Fan Info on X