Martin Shaw (born 21 January 1945) is an English actor. He came to national recognition in the role of Ray Doyle in the ITV crime-action television drama series The Professionals (1977–1983). Further notable television parts include the title roles in The Chief (1993–1995), Judge John Deed (2001–2007) and Inspector George Gently (2007–2017). He has also acted on stage and in film, and has narrated many audiobooks and presented various television series.
Shaw was born in Birmingham. His childhood was spent in Alleyne Grove in Erdington and Sutton Coldfield. Shaw attended Great Barr School, where he excelled in English literature and drama lessons. At sixteen, he was offered a scholarship to a Birmingham drama school but declined.
In his youth, Shaw was involved in a drunken brawl with a friend, suffering broken teeth, injuries to his face and a fractured skull, and needed cheekbone surgery.
At age eighteen, Shaw moved to London to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) from which he graduated. He served his apprenticeship in repertory as an assistant stage manager at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch and the Bristol Old Vic.
Shaw took key roles in the first revival of Look Back in Anger (Royal Court/Criterion, 1968); in the National Theatre's Saturday, Sunday, Monday opposite Laurence Olivier (1973); and in A Streetcar Named Desire presented by the Piccadilly Theatre in 1974. He later acknowledged the role of Stanley Kowalski in 'Streetcar' as a point of breakthrough in his career.
In 1985, Shaw played Elvis Presley in Alan Bleasdale's Are You Lonesome Tonight?. It told the story of Presley's last few hours. After a long run in London, the production visited Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia.
Shaw's portrayal of Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband on Broadway earned him a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk award.
After filming finished on the TV series Judge John Deed, Shaw took the role of Thomas More in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons. Shaw's daughter, Sophie, played opposite him as More's daughter, Margaret. The production toured Britain's cities before a run in London at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In summer 2025 he reprised the role at the same theatre for a limited season.
In 2013, in a new production of the classic play Twelve Angry Men at the Garrick Theatre in London, Shaw played the part of the dissenting juror (identified as juror number 8).
In 2016, Shaw toured and returned to the West End again with a production of Hobson's Choice at the Vaudeville. After completing the filming of the final episode of Inspector George Gently, Shaw again toured in 2017 with the UK premiere of Gore Vidal's 1960 political piece The Best Man. Shaw played the part of William Russell, former US Secretary of State.
Shaw began television work in 1967. Parts in one-off plays for Granada Television led to his playing hippy student Robert Croft, Lucile Hewitt's boyfriend, in Coronation Street. Another early role was booze and football-loving Welsh medical student Huw Evans in the television comedy series Doctor in the House. He later guest-starred, playing the same role, in the follow-up series Doctor at Large, now a nervous expectant father in the episode "Mother and Father Doing Well". The actor had been introduced to international audiences via his portrayal of Horatio in the 1970 Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of Hamlet, starring Richard Chamberlain.
Shaw appeared with future co-star Lewis Collins in an episode of The New Avengers. Both played the roles of terrorists. Shaw portrayed Ray Doyle ("Agent 4-5") in the British television series The Professionals (1977–1983), opposite Collins. Shaw played another law-enforcement role in the 1990s ITV production The Chief.
In 1983, Shaw played Robert Falcon Scott in The Last Place on Earth. The series was filmed at Frobisher Bay near the city of Iqaluit on Baffin Island, Canada. In interview at the time, Shaw commented that he generally responded well to the testing physical conditions, particularly when they enhanced the reality of the scene. In the same year he played Sir Henry Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles, an adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He acted opposite Ian Richardson's Sherlock Holmes and Donald Churchill's Dr. Watson.
He played Cecil Rhodes in Rhodes, an eight-part serial that aired in 1996 and was filmed on location in South Africa. Shaw's younger son, Joe, took early leave of his drama school course to play the part of the youthful Rhodes.
Another television acting credit includes the role of Mr (later Prof) Robert Kingsford in Always and Everyone (1999–2002), a British accident and emergency medical series, played alongside Niamh Cusack.
In 2001, he took the title role in the BBC drama Judge John Deed. The character gave an editorial voice to the television writer and producer G.F. Newman's ideas about lifestyle choices such as vegetarianism and alternative medicine as well as issues of social justice. One episode about the safety of the MMR vaccine was banned.
Between seasons of Judge John Deed, Shaw took the role of poetic bespectacled forensic detective Adam Dalgliesh in P.D. James's Death in Holy Orders in 2003 and The Murder Room in 2005. After the sixth season of Judge John Deed had been filmed, Shaw appeared in the series Apparitions, broadcast by the BBC in 2008. This was Shaw's first project as executive director.
From 2007 until 2017 he played the title role in the BBC TV series Inspector George Gently.