Alan Ford

Alan Ford (born 14 March 1935) is an English actor. Ford was trained at East 15 Acting School. He is perhaps best known today for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime capers Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and guest starring in The Bill. He also appeared in Exorcist: The Beginning and, much earlier, as ‘Roosta’ in the original radio version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, along with a small speaking role in the British gangster film The Long Good Friday. Ford has also recently appeared in the 2010 music video ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Felon’ by Welsh rockers Lostprophets.

Ford played Clifford Harding in G.F. Newman’s Law & Order in 1978, then had a brief role in the film An American Werewolf in London, where he plays the taxi driver who says the line, “It puts you in mind of the days of the old demon barber of Fleet Street, doesn’t it?” in response to the recent wave of murders around London. He has also proved himself a comic actor. He was involved in the Armando Iannucci production Knowing Me, Knowing You… with Alan Partridge, playing a boxing promoter called Terry Norton; and he worked again with Iannucci playing the ‘East End Thug’ in The Armando Iannucci Shows. He later appeared as a priest in every episode of the Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher created sketch show, Snuff Box. He has also had a role in radio adverts for Virgin Media.

Alan Ford has also written a novel, Thin Ice (2006) and provided voice acting to the video game Fable 2 as Arfur, a wanted criminal living in Bowerstone.

Alan Ford is famed for his very prominent east London Cockney accent, which adds to his ‘mobster’ roles. The majority of these roles portray a hard, no-nonsense gangster type character. He is a vegetarian. His voice is featured in the dubstep song Cockney Thug by Rusko (clips from the Iannucci Show), Crunch by Flux Pavilion and Datsik, the death metal song A Child Is Missing from the Illdisposed album The Prestige, the song “I am the Doctor” by TMF, the deathgrind song Iron Lotus from the Whorecore EP The Mundane Corruption, and the hip-hop song Sinister by Aesop Rock, Vast Aire and Yeshua from the 2001 Centrifugal Phorce compilation, Euphony. 2011 sees him starring as crime boss Carter in the British film noir Jack Falls alongside his Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels co-stars Jason Flemying and Dexter Fletcher .