Back to those with connections to Sheffield, although this one remembers little about our city, and was brought up in very different circumstances to most of us.
Julian Mark Ovenden, actor and singer. Born Sheffield in 1975, the son of Rev. Canon John Ovenden, who was a vicar in these parts for two years. He moved away as a baby when his father took up a position at Ely, Cambridgeshire, and ended up living in North London after his father was appointed Chaplain to the Queen at Windsor Castle.
He knows the Queen, and when Julian wanted to research Noel Coward for a school project, he popped around to see the Queen Mother to discuss her love of Coward’s music. He ended up playing the piano, she sang.
As a youngster, Julian sang in St. Paul’s Choir and received a music scholarship to Eton College before reading music at New College, Oxford.
We know him for appearing in five series of Foyle’s War (as Andrew, the RAF fighter pilot son of Christopher Foyle) and in two seasons of Downton Abbey. In America, he’s appeared in Person of Interest.
Away from TV, Julian regularly appears in leading roles in the West End and Broadway, including Merrily We Roll Along, Finding Neverland and All About Eve. He’s also appeared at the Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall.
“I don’t really have any memories, sadly, of Sheffield. I do feel, when I come back up north, at home here, and I do love the people. But it would be stretching it to say I feel a northerner or a true Sheffield native. It’s a great city and culturally it’s thriving.”
He’s married to opera singer Kate Royal and has two children, Johnny Beau and Audrey.
sheffielder.net 