Edward Petherbridge (born 3 August 1936) is an English actor, writer and artist. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in the 1987 BBC television adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers' novels, and Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. At the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980, he was a memorable Newman Noggs in the company's adaptation of Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Career Petherbridge was born in West Bowling, Bradford, the younger son of William and Hannah Petherbridge. He attended Newby Primary school in West Bowling, Bradford, before later attending Grange Grammar School in Little Horton, Bradford, where his favourite subjects were Art and English Literature. The composer Herbert Howells wrote of Petherbridge's boy soprano rendition, at the Wharfedale Festival, of Schubert's 'Trout': "A fine young musician with a fine gift of word delivery." Petherbridge trained as an actor at Esme Church's Northern Theatre School. At the time of national service in the 1950s, he was a conscientious objector. He made his professional stage debut at the Ludlow Festival in 1956, playing Gaveston in Marlowe's Edward II. His first London appearance was at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 1962 as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Petherbridge began his tenure as part of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company in the 1960s, walking on in Olivier's Othello and later creating the role of Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He has been a leading actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre; was a founding member of the Actors' Company in 1972; and with Ian McKellen established the McKellen-Petherbridge Group at the RNT in 1985. He has been praised for both tragic and comic parts, interpreting roles from Feydeau to Euripides. His major roles on stage include Newman Noggs in Nicholas Nickleby; Charlie Marsden in Strange Interlude; Gaev in The Cherry Orchard; the Cardinal in The Duchess of Malfi; Alceste in The Misanthrope; Frank Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Malvolio in Twelfth Night, King Cymbeline in Cymbeline; Dr Dorn in The Seagull; Sir Anthony Blunt in Single Spies; the title role in 'Cyrano de Bergerac'; Krapp in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape; Donner in Tom Stoppard's Artist Descending a Staircase; and Tiresias in Sophocles' Antigone. Petherbridge has performed in stage musicals, including The Woman in White, Lost in the Stars, The Fantasticks, Coco, and, most