Ellis Jones (actor)

Ellis Jones (born 15 November 1943) is a British director and actor. In recent years he has been involved in training and directing, for sixteen years as a resident director at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and subsequently as a guest director for other leading drama schools in London and abroad, including the Royal Central School, and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He became known for his role as the young apprentice "Hal Adden", in the 1970s children's comedy series Pardon My Genie. He went on to appear in many other television productions, such as The Squirrels, 1914 All Out, King Lear and Measure for Measure Having worked extensively in recent years in theatre training, directing and producing, Ellis Jones recently made a cautious return to performing, as understudy to Kenneth Cranham in London's West End and on tour in Florian Zeller's award-winning play "The Father".

Jones was born in Petersfield, Hampshire. After graduating from the Drama Department of Manchester University, he worked as an actor, director and writer in theatre, radio and television, and was awarded an Arts Council Associate Director's Bursary in 1984. He has directed at many British regional theatres, and from 1990 to 1993 was Artistic Director of the Century Theatre, Keswick, the precursor of the Theatre by the Lake.

He joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as Head of Acting in 1993, was the Academy’s Vice Principal from 1998 to 2003, and Creative Director of RADA Enterprises from 2003 to 2009. In 2003 he created a programme of classic plays featuring RADA graduates on board the Cunard ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2 which is still a popular feature of transatlantic crossings. Since leaving RADA Enterprises Ellis Jones has been involved in a range of free-lance projects. He is Lecturer in London Theatre for the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and during 2010-11 was consultant Director of Acting Programmes for Tisch Asia, Singapore. He is also a guest director at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, China, and in October 2010 directed there the first-ever Chinese-language version of an Alan Ayckbourn play, "Taking Steps". In the autumn of 2012 he directed Rodney Ackland's "Absolute Hell" with final-year students at the Royal Central School, London. In 2015 before joining the cast of "The Father" Ellis directed two public rehearsed readings of a new play co-written with Martin Wimbush" "Miss Wilson"s Waterloo" at the Finborough Theatre London, delivered lectures and workshops at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and instigated a new training programme for graduate trainees in arts management at the University of Beijing (PKU), where he is Visiting Lecturer in Communications Skills.

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