Chris Ioan Roberts

Short Biography

One of London's most subversive and arresting actor-directors, Chris trained at the Victorian College of the Arts (Bachelor of Dramatic Art, 2010) in Melbourne. His new solo comedy and 'poisonous melodrama', Dead Royal, premiered at London's Ovalhouse as part of their 2015 Spring Season to critical acclaim and was recently seen at Brisbane Festival where audiences were both appalled and enthralled. Dead Royal is a twisted black comedy about the converging lives of Wallis, Duchess of Windsor and Lady Diana Spencer on the eve of her wedding to Prince Charles in July 1981. The work was first seen as part of the Ovalhouse FiRST BiTE season in February 2014 and is supported by a grant from Arts Council England.His work includes a critically celebrated performance as troubled teenager Lee in Chris Summer’s play Crossed at La MaMa, Phillip in Declan Greene’s Home Economics at The Store Room, and as Anders Breivik in Tobias Manderson-Galvin’s The Economist for MKA Theatre of New Writing (Berlin). In 2010 he was invited as the sole Australian actor to attend an international summer residency in New York with iconic American director Robert Wilson at the Watermill Centre where he collaborated on projects for La Scala, the National Theatre of Athens and in early 2011 as a Creative Associate with Opéra national de Paris on Wilson's production of Madama Butterfly (Opera Bastille). Other recent work as an actor includes the Soldier in Tongues (Tristan Bates Theatre London), Malvolio/Antonio in Twelfth Night (VCA), Gudgeon in Daniel Schlusser's The Hollow (VCA), Weiskopf in Ghetto, Lucio in Innocence: The Life and Death of Caravaggio (VCA) as well as workshops for new productions of Measure for Measure (with Joe Hill-Gibbins) and Anya Reiss’ adaptation of The Seagull (Actor’s Centre London with Russell Bolam).He lives in Soho and works for the Royal National Theatre.