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Reece Shearsmith

Date of birth: 27-08-1969

Hull-born Reece Shearsmith is a quarter of The League Of Gentlemen alongside Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson (who writes, but does not perform)

They net at Bretton Hall drama school in their late teens, and began performing a sketch show at London’s Cockpit Theatre in 1995, soon afterwards landing a residency at the Canal Café pub theatre, which compelled them to create new material at a fast pace.

In 1997 they won the Perrier, and their subsequent radio series On the Town with The League of Gentlemen, set in the fictional town of Spent, won a Sony Award.

In 1999 the League moved to television – and Royston Vasey – with subsequent series in 2000 (including a typically sinister Christnmas special) and 2002; plus a feature-length film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, in 2005.

On stage, they toured large regional theatres in 2000, had a six-week run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2003, and toured a pantomime-themed show The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You in 2005.

Outside of the League, Shearsmith played the insane villain Tony in the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer comedy Catterick; Robot-Wars obsessed TA soldier Dexter in Spaced; and neurotic Dr Flynn in BBC Two hospital sitcom TLC.

On the West End, he appeared in Art in 2003, alongside his League Of Gentlemen costars, in As You Like It at the Wyndhams in 2005, and in The Producers as Leo Bloom in 2006.

Reece Shearsmith joins Will Sharpe's Prodigies

Meera Syal and Lolly Adefope too

Reece Shearsmith, Meera Syal and Lolly Adefope have joined the cast of Apple TV’s forthcoming series Prodigies.

The show has been created and written by Will Sharpe, as recently seen in White Lotus and Lena Dunham’s Too Much. He also stars as one of two former child prodigies now in a relationship, with The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri playing the other.

Also joining the cast is Sophia Di Martino, who came to prominence in Sharpe’s 2106 Channel 4 comedy Flowers, alongside Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt.

Other actors signing up include Yumi Aso, who played Prince Philip in The Crown, Kaos’s Nabhaan Rizwan and Japanese actress Yumi Asō.

Details of the new cast’s roles have not been released, but Hollwood trade website Deadline says the show is ‘one of Apple’s hottest upcoming shows’.

According to the official logline, the central characters of Didi and Ren are ‘two ex-child prodigies who have been together since they were children. Now in their early 30s, they are starting to question whether their very ordinary existence is living up to the extraordinary promise of their childhood. Inevitably, they find themselves asking the same questions of their relationship. As individual hopes and needs feed into and conflict with their shared lives, the series challenges the fallacy at the heart of romantic storytelling — that the tale is over when the heroes get together. In life, surely, that is just the beginning?’

Prodigies is being made by from Black Doves production company Sister.

Published: 6 Aug 2025