Colin McFarlane
British actor
Colin Andrew Ignatius Peter McFarlane (born 15 September 1961) is a British actor, narrator and voice actor. He is known for his roles in film and television including comedy sketch show The Fast Show, Gillian B. Loeb in two films of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2008) and Ulysses in the STARZ series Outlander (2018–2020). McFarlane's voice roles include JJ in Bob the Builder (2002–2005), Bulgy and Beresford in Thomas & Friends (2017–2020) and PC Malcolm Williams in Fireman Sam (2020–). He was the voice of The Cube (2009–2021) in the ITV game show, and is currently voicing Suds from Milo (2021–present).
Early life
McFarlane was born on 15 September 1961 in Upper Clapton, London, to Jamaican parents. His father, Sidney McFarlane, served in the RAF and his mother, Gwendolyn McFarlane, worked in the NHS. His father was appointed an MBE in 1999 for voluntary service to the community and for service with the Ministry of Defence. The family subsequently moved several times before settling in Lincoln in the East Midlands, where McFarlane grew up. He attended the Perse School, Cambridge, and later read drama at Loughborough University, graduating in 1983.
Career
Television
McFarlane's first professional television role was in 1985 with a three episode guest stint, as Detective Sergeant Watson, in ITV's hit police procedural Dempsey and Makepeace. From there, he would go on to feature in London Weekend Television's made-for-TV film Dutch Girls, alongside Colin Firth and fellow Outlander alumni Bill Paterson.
The public source identifies “Colin McFarlane” as british actor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Colin, McFarlane and British.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1108562. VIAF identifies the subject as 3273152331603403260009. The Library of Congress control number is no2006013691. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2005, 2008 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colin McFarlane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.