David Haig

David Haig’s screen career includes appearances in Doctor Who (1980), Blake’s 7 (1980), Diamonds (1981), Campion (1990), Inspector Morse (1992), Cracker (1993), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Soldier Soldier (1990s), and the BBC sitcom The Thin Blue Line (1995), in which he starred opposite Rowan Atkinson. He later appeared in Love on a Branch Line, Two Weeks Notice (2002), A for Andromeda, Dustbin Baby (2008), The 39 Steps (2008), Midsomer Murders (2008), The Thick of It (2009), Mo (2009), and Doc Martin (2009). In 2013, he starred as Jim Hacker in the television revival of Yes, Prime Minister and also appeared in Ben Elton’s sitcom The Wright Way. Later screen credits include Killing Eve (2018) and the Downton Abbey film (2019).

Haig is also a playwright and screenwriter. He wrote the play My Boy Jack, later appearing as Rudyard Kipling in the television adaptation alongside Daniel Radcliffe. In 2024, production began on his film adaptation of his play Pressure. In 2023, it was announced that he was adapting Philip K. Dick’s novella The Minority Report for the stage at London’s Lyric Hammersmith.

On stage, Haig won the 1988 Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play for Our Country’s Good at the Royal Court Theatre. His West End credits include Hitchcock Blonde, Life X 3, Journey’s End, Mary Poppins, Donkeys’ Years, The Country Wife, The Sea, Loot, and the stage production of Yes, Prime Minister (2010), in which he played Jim Hacker. He also toured nationally with My Boy Jack and directed a touring production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives in 2005.

Haig has additionally worked extensively in radio. His credits include Strangers and Brothers (2003), Tom and Viv (2008), and Norman Birkett and the Case of the Coleford Poisoner (2010) for BBC Radio 4.


He wrote and starred in Magic, in the role of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2026.