Kevin Quarmby first appeared professionally at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 1972. He played the title role in the British premiere of Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope at the Tricycle Theatre Kilburn, and Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men at the Swan Theatre, Worcester. For several years Quarmby was a National Theatre player, under the direction of Richard Eyre, appearing in productions of Guys and Dolls, The Beggars Opera and Schweyck in the Second World War; he had already worked with Eyre on Jonathon Pryce's Hamlet at The Royal Court. In the same year, Quarmby appeared at the Old Vic in the infamous Peter O'Toole Macbeth, as well as in The Merchant of Venice starring Timothy West. Quarmby has also played the Duke of Albany in King Lear at the Ludlow Shakespeare Festival, Charles the Wrestler in As You Like It for Birmingham Rep at the Edinburgh Festival, and Camillo in Phyllida Lloyd's groundbreaking A Winter's Tale at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre. In London's West End, Quarmby played the sadistic Lieutenant Schrank in West Side Story, following his appearance in the Lindsay Kemp Company with the tragicomedic Varieté, in which he played the villainous, sadistic and depraved showman Otto Ziegler. In 2006, Quarmby played Harold Macmillan in the British premiere of Eden's Empire at the Finborough Theatre, London. 2008 saw him appearing as the Lecherous Earl in a revival (the first for over 400 years) of Thomas Dekker and John Webster's comedic sex-romp Westward Ho! at the White Bear Theatre, Kennington, whilst in 2009 he played Sir Michael Wright, the official Coroner, in Stockwell: The Inquest into the Death of Jean Charles de Menezes at the Landor Theatre, which, following universal critical acclaim, transferred to the Tricycle Theatre later that year.
Kevin Quarmby in Deadly is the Male, directed by Michael Cvejic, 2009
BIOGRAPHY ACTOR: TELEVISION AND FILM
On television, Kevin Quarmby has played his fair share of coppers and villains in cult TV shows of the 1980s and '90s like The Professionals, Dempsey and Makepeace, The Bill, London's Burning, Wycliffe, Cracker, and Linda La Plante's Trial and Retribution IV. He also caused several deaths as the corrupt sports promoter, Edwin Finney, in Casualty. In the TV movie, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, Quarmby plays the Bosnian terrorist, Kosich, and kidnaps the delightful Morgan Fairchild, only to be shot dead by Christopher Lee as Holmes. Quarmby is equally at home in comedy, playing cameo roles in Hot Metal, Beast, Annie's Bar and The Punt and Dennis Show. Recently he has appeared as the Doctor delivering Soames's daughter Fleur in the acclaimed The Forsyte Saga, a wife-beating farmer in Heartbeat and the shady psychiatrist, Dr Barnes, in Michael Cvejic's 2009 short film, Deadly is the Male.
