William Tulloch Paterson (born 3 June 1945) is a Scottish actor with a career in theatre, film, television and radio. Throughout his career he has appeared regularly in radio drama and provided the narration for a large number of documentaries. He has appeared in films and TV series including Comfort and Joy (1984), Traffik (1989), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986), Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), Wives and Daughters (1999), Sea of Souls (2004–2007), Amazing Grace (2006), Miss Potter (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Doctor Who (2010), Outlander (2014), Fleabag (2016–2019), Inside No. 9 (2018), Good Omens (2019), and Brassic (2020). He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Scottish BAFTAs.
Early life
William Tulloch Paterson was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1945. Paterson was raised in Dennistoun by his father, a plumber, and his mother, a hairdresser. He states that his interest in acting began with a school trip to the Citizens Theatre in the Gorbals in 1961. However, after school he chose to initially pursue a career based on an interest in architecture and spent three years as a quantity surveyor's apprentice before deciding to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Career
1967–1977: Theatre debut and early roles
Paterson made his professional acting debut in 1967, appearing alongside Leonard Rossiter in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. In 1970, Paterson joined the Citizens' Theatre for Youth. He remained there as an actor and assistant director until 1972, when he left to appear with Billy Connolly in the musical comedy The Great Northern Welly Boot Show at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972. Paterson would work with Connolly again, some years later, when he performed in Connolly's play . After having seen Paterson perform at the Festival, John McGrath invited him to join his theatre company, 7:84, touring the United Kingdom and Europe with plays such as The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil. He was a founding member of 7:84, and made his London debut in 1976 with the company. He appeared in the Edinburgh Festival and London with John Byrne's first play, Writer's Cramp.
1978–1989: TV and film debuts
He first appeared in the West End when he took over the lead role in Whose Life Is It Anyway? at the Savoy Theatre in 1979. Paterson's career began to centre as much on television than the theatre. His first appearances in 1978 were as a police Sergeant of Scotland Yard in The Odd Job and then in BAFTA award winning drama Licking Hitler. He then played King James in the UK television serial Will Shakespeare the same year. Paterson would later recall that the biggest regret of his career was during this period, when in 1978 he failed to attend an audition for a role in the film Alien. He provided the voice of the Assistant Arcturan Pilot in Episode 7 of the original BBC Radio 4 version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1978. He played Lopakhin in the BBC production of The Cherry Orchard in 1981. Paterson did not, however, entirely neglect the theatre, and in 1982, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance as Schweyk in another Brecht play, Schweik in the Second World War at the National Theatre. He was in the original National Theatre production of Guys and Dolls (1982).
The early 1980s also saw Paterson beginning to appear in films, including The Killing Fields, Comfort and Joy and A Private Function (all 1984). Other film credits include Dutch Girls (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1987).
In television, his extensive and award-winning TV career includes a memorable portrayal of property villain Ally Fraser in series 2 of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986). He also appeared in Smiley's People (1982), The Singing Detective (1986), Traffik (1988).
1990–2009: Career actor
Paterson performed in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court and Duke of York's (1991–92). Other theatre roles in this period include Ivanov at the Almeida, London and Maly Theatre, Moscow (1997).
In 1990, he performed the role of Mr Jenkins, father to a child who gets turned into a mouse in, The Witches (1990). He went on to act in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), Chaplin (1992), Sir Ian McKellen's Richard III (1995). In 1997, he appeared as Brian, a cafe owner who knows the Spice Girls, in Spice World. He also performed in The Crow Road (1996), a miniseries from the novel by Iain Banks and Doctor Zhivago (2002).