TV ACTOR
Felix Dexter
Since Winning the EMMA Award
Felix Dexter is a British actor, comedian, and writer who starred in the 2006 West End run of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Christian Slater as well as a season of three of William Shakespeare’s plays in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Felix also appeared in Citizen Khan as Omar, a Somali Muslim who works at a mosque in Sparkhill, Birmingham.
Felix sadly died at the age of 52 on 18th October 2013, after a long battle with multiple myeloma, which is an incurable bone marrow cancer. In 2014, he was posthumously awarded Screen Nation’s Edric Connor Inspiration Award. That same year, the Felix Dexter Foundation was founded to fulfil his legacy and celebrate his work by providing education, health, and employment opportunities for underprivileged young people in the UK and St Kitts & Nevis through education scholarships, arts and culture initiatives, and health programmes.
Background (Before 2001)
Born in Saint-Kitts, Felix Dexter moved to Surrey with his family at the age of 7 and studied law at University College London before training as a barrister. He then pursued a comedy career and toured late-night comedy venues such as Jongleurs Club and The Comedy Store. Felix was hired to work with a Black and Asian cast in the BBC TV sketch show The Real McCoy, which was initially based on a stage show Dexter performed at the Hackney Empire Theatre.
Felix’s characterisation and portrayal of Nathaniel spoke to many of the truths of life in the UK at the time: the struggles of those who were African and Caribbean, as well as other migrants, to understand what it meant to be British and how to dress to demonstrate assimilation. Felix later appeared on “Have I Got News for You” in 1996 and became a regular performer on later series of The Fast Show.
