Edwin Flay – Actor, writer, broadcaster.

For details of  my career, aspirations, news, etc please visit www.edwinflay.com . For details of my alter-ego as an internationally renowned escape artist (no, really), please visit www.mrflay.com.

When I was 13 years old, I played The March Hare in a centennial production of Alice In Wonderland at Christ Church College, Oxford, and at that moment I knew I had to be an actor.

I studied Film and Drama at Reading University from 1995 to 1998, during which time I appeared in over a dozen plays and short films, directed two plays (one of which I wrote), and even gained a degree. I took work in a broadcasting capacity at the BBC, and unfortunately, the working hours prevented me from auditioning for plays, but I still needed to be on stage.

To that end, in 2002 I taught myself escapology, and in 2005, took my esoteric skills to the stage. In my capacity as an escape artist, I have performed in Europe, the US and across the UK, with (and for) such luminaries as Barbara Windsor, Tracey Emin, and Scott Mills, and I’ve been interviewed in the Stage, Bizarre Magazine and Run-Riot. I escape from straitjackets, handcuffs, chains, and mailbags, I catch bullets in my teeth, and I can also throw knives, crack a whip and walk on stilts. My juggling’s passable, too.

During this time, my work at the BBC finally started tending towards performance, and from 2008-2010, I appeared on television variously as a reporter, presenter, interviewer, and once even as a carnival barker introducing a holiday edition of BookTalk, the BBC’s political book review show. I also started recording voice-overs, and presenting in-vision continuity for BBC Parliament.

Things finally came to a head in 2010, when I enjoyed a brief feature as a stilt-walker on the upcoming Martin Scorsese film Hugo, and remembered why I was here at all. I left my job to pursue a career as a screen actor, and I have been amassing professional credits ever since. I have just written my first feature length screenplay.