DATE OF BIRTH : 6th November 1963
HEIGHT : 5ft 11
BORN : London
FAMILY : The 5th of 7 children, of his Jamaican bus driver father (who now lives in Deptford) and mother – who moved to the USA, when he was 9. She died of lung cancer, aged 43, when Patrick was 16. His cousin is footballer/ presenter Ian Wright.
PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS : Split from Janis, a social worker, met at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They married on a beach in the Seychelles – their only guests being Robson Green and his then wife, Alison.
CHILDREN : Three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Sadie and one son Jordan.
STUDIED : He studied architecture, but gave up on it, when he got a job at a theatre group. He met Julie T Wallace, who pushed him into drama school, he was awarded a place at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He was then hired by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AT SCHOOL : At 15, Patrick had to choose between trials with Southampton Football Club or his drama classes, which were held on the same day – he chose drama, and hasn’t regretted it, but says he had to ‘think long and hard!’
BEFORE CASUALTY : Patrick toured Africa with the RSC in 1990, ‘Returning to chilly Britain just before Christmas I was fed up, I thought I was about to learn the truth about actors ‘resting’. He then got a call from ‘CASUALTY’ and was delighted.
HATES : Patrick hates hospitals, and refuses to be ill incase he needs to go to one! His fear came from when he was younger, and he almost lost his teeth playing hockey, ‘I had to hang around for hours with my lip hanging off, I sat there looking like a zombie’. Since then, some of the only times he has been to hospital is to attend the birth of his children, ‘It was Janis who was the focus, anyway I knew I had to get used it . Also a day before Ash’s wedding, Patrick injured his hand dislocating two fingers, by playing football. He went up the aisle with a big bandage on his hand!
ON RACISM : ‘Racism I something I deal with everyday, and something that Ash deals with all the time. Normally Ash ignores the taunts, but this time (referring to Hitchins incident) he just snapped’.
HOBBIES : Sport, especially football, and also rollerskating – he organised a street hockey on skates for London children (his team Ashmead Cruisers were almost unbeatable).
FOOTBALL TEAM : Supports Arsenal
NICKNAME : was known as ‘Pat’ on Set.
TELEVISION CREDITS : Julius Caeser; Casualty; Who dares Win; Family Affair; Shakespeare Shorts; Harpur & Iles; Back to the Wild; Windrush; Daylight Robbery; Dodgems; The Man; Pig Heart Boy; A Many Splintered Thing; This is Your Life (on himself); Headless; Shadow Play; The Story of Tracy Beaker; The Bill; Strictly Come Dancing; Mount Pleasant
FILM CREDITS : The Man; Monument; Driven; Belly of the Beast
THEATRE CREDITS : King Lear; Wuthering Heights; Macbeth; The Country Wife; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?; Dangerous Corner; Class Enemy; They Shoot Horses, Don’t They; Much Ado About Nothing; Twelfth Night; All Gods Children’s Got Wings; The Great White Hope; Hawatha; Richard III; Henry VI; Mappa Mundi; Festen; Gem of the Ocean; Peacemaker; Merchant of Venice; Winters Tale; The Rover; Romeo & Juliet; War Horse; Waiting for Godot
COMMERCIALS : Lunpoly; Kodak
BOOKS : Appears in ‘CASUALTY : The Inside Story’ by Hilary Kingsley, ‘CASUALTY : Behind the Scenes’ by Rachel Silver, and ‘One Day at a Time’ by Mike Walker – a novel based on Ash’s character.
AUDIO TAPES : Patrick also read for the book, ‘One Day at a Time’.
AGENT : Shepherd Management Ltd, 4th Floor, 45 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PE.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Patrick directed a short film for HTV on slavery
- While at the RSC, he was the first black person to play Romeo in ‘Romeo & Juliet’
- While he was working on Casualty, he shared a flat with Janis, and Robson Green
- Patrick reached the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013
