Neil John Pearson (born 27 April 1959) is a British actor, known for his work on television. He was nominated for the 1994 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for Between the Lines (1992–1994). His other television roles include Drop the Dead Donkey (1990–1998), All the Small Things (2009), Waterloo Road (2014–2015), and In the Club (2014–2016). His film appearances include all three of the Bridget Jones films. He is also an antiquarian book dealer who specialises in the expatriate literary movement of Paris between the World Wars. Early life Pearson grew up in Battersea and Balham, London. His father, a panel beater, left home when he was five; his mother was a legal secretary. He was a boarder at Woolverstone Hall School near Ipswich, Suffolk, where he first learned to act. He attended the Central School of Speech and Drama from 1977 to 1980. Stage, television and film work One of Pearson's early appearances was in 1984 alongside Leonard Rossiter in Joe Orton's play Loot at the Lyric Theatre in London; Rossiter died in his dressing-room during a later performance. He won a part in Hat Trick Productions' sitcom Chelmsford 123 and also appeared with Hat Trick executive Jimmy Mulville in That's Love. Pearson narrated Colin Wyatt's animated series The Poddington Peas in 1986. It was in the roles of associate editor and office lothario and gambling addict, Dave Charnley, in the sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey - another Hat Trick show - and of Detective Superintendent Tony Clark in the thriller Between the Lines (1992–94), that he made his greatest impact on the viewing public. Since then he has appeared in such varied roles as Dr Jameson in Rhodes (1998), Jack Green in the children's serial The Magician's House (1999), Trevor Heslop in Trevor's World of Sport (2003) and John Diamond in A Lump in My Throat (2003). He has also been in several films, including The Secret Rapture (1993), Fever Pitch (1997) and Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). He played Major Steve Arnold, the American interrogator, in Taking Sides at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in 2003. He played Rob in The Booze Cruise (2003), and then also in the second and third sequels in 2005 and 2006. He appeared in the 2006 Radio Four series Vent as Ben. He played the choirmaster Michael Caddick in the BBC drama All the Small Things in 2009. He also appeared in