John Warnaby

John Warnaby was a British actor whose stage, television and film work followed an earlier career as a regulator. He read theology at Oriel College, Oxford, then worked for the Corporation of Lloyd's until 2000. His breakthrough came in 1988 as the younger Donner in Tom Stoppard's Artist Descending a Staircase, a Tim Luscombe production first seen at the Kings Head in Islington and later at the Duke of York's Theatre. With the RSC in the 1990 and 1991 season, he played Paris in Sam Mendes's Troilus and Cressida and doubled in Gerard Murphy's Edward II. Later stage roles included Napoleon Bonaparte in a 1996 National Theatre adaptation of War and Peace, Freddie in a Peter Nichols play in 2001, and two parts in Plague Over England in 2009. He appeared on television in The Line of Beauty in 2006, and died in 2024.