Bertie Carvel plays men you have been told to dislike so that you cannot quite manage it. His Simon Foster is the clearest case: genial, boyish, hands in pockets, and readable two ways in every scene for longer than the plot deserves.
Fi1m perspective
Simon Foster develops property, calls his wife darling and kisses her on the forehead on his way out of the door. He is genial and boyish and keeps his hands in his pockets, and in Doctor Foster (2015) Bertie Carvel plays him so that every scene can be read two ways: a good husband being persecuted, or a liar who has got comfortable. He keeps both readings going for longer than we thought he could, and longer than the plotting deserves. That is what Carvel does. He takes the character the audience has already made its mind up about and makes it think again.
He came to television late. After RADA, which he left in 2003, he spent a decade on stage, and the part that made his name was Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical (2011), a headmistress played by a man as something large and frightening rather than as a joke. Then 2015 brought two leads at once: Jonathan Strange in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Simon in Doctor Foster, the second written by Mike Bartlett, who has now written for him twice. Rupert Murdoch in Ink (2017) followed on stage, then Adam Dalgliesh in Dalgliesh from 2021 and Tony Blair in The Crown (2022). Set them side by side and the pattern is plain: villains, tycoons, prime ministers, people the audience has already judged.
Carvel has said he likes "characters who are massively chipped because it’s easier to find the gnarly bits that make them feel satisfyingly real", and Simon is the proof. He thought the man read as too obviously bad on the page, and what he did about that is why the series holds. The moment Gemma pulls the blonde hair from his scarf and looks at it, our stomach went, and it went because Carvel had spent two episodes making us believe in the house and the marriage enough to mind. Suranne Jones has the showier job; Carvel's is to be worth suspecting.
The habit has a cost. On stage his body has sometimes run ahead of his voice, and The Hairy Ape (2015) drew complaints that he could not be heard. The two-ways-at-once approach also needs a script that keeps the question open. The second series of Doctor Foster, from 5 September 2017, is louder and less careful, and he is still worth the time in it, but with less left to hide. Dalgliesh is a detective, which means for once the audience is meant to be on his side. We would like to know whether he is as interesting with nothing to conceal.
Biography
Bertie Carvel is a British actor. He was born on 6 September 1977 in Marylebone, London. He studied English at the University of Sussex and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 2003.
Carvel has worked extensively in theatre. He won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for playing Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical and a further Olivier Award, along with a Tony Award, for his performance as Rupert Murdoch in Ink.
On television he is known for playing Simon Foster in the BBC series Doctor Foster (2015–2017), Jonathan Strange in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015), Adam Dalgliesh in Dalgliesh (2021–2024) and Tony Blair in The Crown (2022–2023). His film roles include Bamatabois in Les Misérables (2012) and Banquo in The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).
