Early Life
Martin Shaw was born on January 21, 1945, in Birmingham, England. He grew up in the suburbs of Erdington and Sutton Coldfield, where his parents' amateur dramatics gave him his first taste of performing. He was on stage at the age of three, in one of their productions.
At Great Barr School he did well in English literature and drama. At sixteen he was offered a scholarship to a Birmingham drama school and turned it down. At eighteen he moved to London to train at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
He served his apprenticeship in repertory theatre as an assistant stage manager at the Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch and the Bristol Old Vic. That work taught him every part of putting on a play, a long way from the spotlight he would later occupy.
Early Career & First Roles
Shaw's screen career began in 1967 with an appearance on 'ITV Play of the Week'. Guest roles followed and he became a familiar face on British television. He played the hippy student Robert Croft in 'Coronation Street' and the Welsh medical student Huw Evans in the comedy series 'Doctor in the House' and its sequel 'Doctor at Large'.
The parts covered both light comedy and serious drama. In 1970 he played Horatio to Richard Chamberlain's Hamlet in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production.
Major Roles
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Martin Shaw has played a long line of authority figures: agents, chief constables, judges and detectives.
Ray Doyle in 'The Professionals' (1977–1983)
It was the role of Ray Doyle in 'The Professionals' that made Martin Shaw nationally famous. As Agent 4-5 of CI5, Doyle was the sharp-dressing, quick-thinking and hot-headed counterpart to Lewis Collins's more methodical Bodie. Doyle was a government-sanctioned tough guy, but Shaw gave him wit and a sense of street justice.
Shaw's chemistry with Collins was the engine of the show, and the two of them made a convincing double act. He gave Doyle a physicality and an emotional range that went past the usual action hero. He played the chases and the fistfights, and he played the quiet moments. The series became a hit.
The show's impact on the action genre, in the UK and abroad, was clear. For Shaw, the role's popularity was a mixed blessing: it typecast him as the action hero in the public eye. His later career choices were a deliberate attempt to change that. Ray Doyle remains the part he is most identified with.
Inspector George Gently in 'Inspector George Gently' (2007–2017)
Inspector George Gently ran for a decade and eight series, with Shaw in the title role. Based on the novels by Alan Hunter, Gently is a Metropolitan Police detective superintendent who relocates to Northumberland in the 1960s, a man out of time in a country changing fast.
Shaw plays him quietly. Gently is principled and tired, and Shaw uses stillness where another actor would shout. The relationship with his young, ambitious sergeant, John Bacchus (played by Lee Ingleby), forms the emotional core of the series, and it moves from exasperated superior to mentor and almost paternal figure.
The show is as much a social history of 1960s Britain as it is a crime procedural, and Shaw's Gently is the decent, steady centre of it.
Other Notable Work
Between those roles, Shaw has chosen parts that are hard to categorize. He followed 'The Professionals' by taking over the lead in 'The Chief' (1993-1995), arriving as Chief Constable Alan Cade in its third series, after Tim Pigott-Smith. Then came the maverick, liberal-minded judge in 'Judge John Deed' (2001-2007), a part full of complex legal and ethical dilemmas.
He has worked on stage throughout his career, including as the dissenting Juror 8 in a 2013 West End production of 'Twelve Angry Men' and as Sir Thomas More in 'A Man for All Seasons'. The stage work draws on his classical training and on the live drama that first got him into acting.
Acting Style
Martin Shaw underplays. He listens and reacts more than he declaims, and he holds still where another actor would fill the space. He plays a man of action and a man of thought with the same restraint.
He can suggest a character's history through small gestures and expressions rather than exposition. That suits roles of authority, where power usually shows itself through restraint rather than outbursts. His voice is measured and resonant, and it carries both steel and compassion. He has deliberately taken varied parts, which is how he avoided typecasting.
Personal Life
Martin Shaw keeps his private life apart from his public one. He lives in a historic Quaker house in Norfolk. He holds his faith seriously, and he converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.
His faith is a central part of his identity and shapes how he sees the world and his work. Away from acting he is a licensed pilot, and he owns and flies a vintage Boeing Stearman biplane. He has been in a long-term relationship with Karen Da Silva since 2003, and he is a father. He keeps his distance from the press and the celebrity circuit to protect his private life.
In closing...
Martin Shaw's career shows what talent and deliberate choices can do. He handled early fame on his own terms, moving from action hero to one of British television's most respected dramatic actors. His work, and Inspector George Gently in particular, is built on moral authority and restraint.