James Fleet
James Fleet
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James Fleet

James Edward Fleet (born 11 March 1952) is a British actor of theatre, radio and screen. He is most famous for his roles as the bumbling and well-meaning Tom in the 1994 British romantic comedy film Four Weddings and a Funeral and the dim-witted but kind-hearted Hugo Horton in the BBC sitcom television series The Vicar of Dibley. Since 2020, he has played King George III in the Netflix series Bridgerton.

Fleet was born in Bilston, to a Scottish mother, Christine, and an English father, Jim. His mother was a cleaner and his father a tool-maker; the family lived in Bilston, West Midlands. Fleet's father died aged 49 from muscular dystrophy, when his son was ten; James and his mother then moved to Aberdeenshire. He studied engineering at university in Aberdeen, where he joined the university dramatic society. Afterwards, he studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.

Fleet began his career in the RSC, appearing in several plays in the early 1980s. He has since appeared in touring productions of, among others, Habeas Corpus and In the Club, as well as in Festen and Mary Stuart and others in the West End. In 2000 he appeared in David Pugh and Sean Connery's production of the French play "Art" by Yasmina Reza at the Wyndham's Theatre in London. He played Serge alongside Stephen Tompkinson as Yvan as Serge and Michael French as Marc. He also played Alderman Fitzwarren in Dick Whittington in 2002.

In 2003, he played Kulygin in Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters alongside Kristin Scott Thomas who played Masha.

In 2009, he portrayed Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the RSC Production of Twelfth Night. In 2011 he was in Richard Bean's The Heretic directed by Jeremy Herrin at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Starting in November 2011, he was in the original line-up of The Ladykillers as Major Courtney at the Gielgud Theatre.

Between 2000 and 2006, Fleet played the painfully upright and decent Captain Brimshaw in Revolting People, a BBC Radio 4 comedy set in pre-revolutionary America. He also appeared in the radio legal sitcom Chambers, which later moved onto television. As of 2005, he has starred as Duncan Stonebridge MP in the topical radio sitcom The Party Line.[citation needed] He also appeared as the Captain on the BBC Radio 7 series The Spaceship. He also plays the part of Sir John Woodstock in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom The Castle and Inspector Lestrade in the first, third and fourth series of The Rivals. Fleet played John Aubrey in the 2008 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour production by Nick Warburton of Aubrey's Brief Lives.

From 1999–2001, Fleet was the voice of "Dog" in the children's TV show Dog and Duck. Probably his most famous role is that of Hugo in The Vicar of Dibley; he appeared in all 20 episodes, broadcast between 1994 and 2007. In 2004, he appeared in an episode of Monarch of the Glen. In 2005, he played a leading role in an episode of the long-running ITV murder mystery series Midsomer Murders. In 2007, he was a guest star in one episode of the sitcom Legit. He appeared as Frederick Dorrit in the BBC's 2008 production of Little Dorrit. When Fleet appeared on the quiz show School's Out, it was revealed that one of his teachers at Banff Academy had written in his school report that "[James] is the stupidest boy I have ever had to teach, out of all the stupid boys I have ever had to teach," and that he was the only student in his sixth form not to have been made a prefect. Despite his apparent lack of scholastic ability, he still won the show. In 2009, Fleet appeared in a cameo role in the third series of Skins.

Earlier in his career, Fleet was seen in a 1983 episode of Grange Hill as a teacher at the eponymous school's upmarket rival Rodney Bennett. In 1992, he played Paul Morgan in an episode of The Bill 'Runaway'. In 1999, he starred in the sitcom Brotherly Love.

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