He was born in Leeds on the 12 April 1957, and moved with his parents Ken, a telephone engineer, and Maureen, a solicitor's secretary to North Shields on 1st April 1966, where he was educated at Whitehouse Primary School, Marden High School, where he got involved in school musical productions and Tynemouth Sixth Form College where he was in the O level drama group appearing in plays and pantomimes. He trained as a teacher at Bretton Hall College near Wakefield but decided he would rather act and made his stage debut in 1981 in Bouncers with the Hull Truck Theatre. He moved to London in 1986 and finally settled in York where he lives with his actress wife Andrina Carroll and son Elliott who was born in 1995.