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Nigel is a technician at the college. Deaf and in his late 30s, he loved hanging out with the students in the first series. Sadly, they didn't always feel the same – he tended to get in the way and to misunderstand situations. But deep down all the students had a soft spot for him, even though he was the butt of many jokes. In series two, we saw another side to Nigel as he got into difficulties with gambling debts. In a desperate attempt to raise money, he tried to blackmail Michael about his relationship with a student, but Michael refused to be Nigel's victim.
'Becoming Nigel was great in that I stopped brushing my hair and grew a moustache (unfortunately not in the same league as Salvador Dali!),' says Ilan Dwek. 'Nigel is a man of many contrasts, making it great fun for me to try and analyse the inner turmoil of his conflicting emotions. In the first series of RUSH, he flirted with Maya, and made an ass of himself with crappy jokes. In the second series, he got into bad company and bad debt.'
According to Ilan, 'The number one enjoyment about filming RUSH was the abundance of Milky Way bars in the Green Room on location!' Ah, so that's where they all went.
Ilan, who is 38, studied mathematics at university and used to be a computer programmer. In 1992, he felt a calling to the stage, and he hasn't looked back since. His theatre credits include Paloochi in Spirit of a Clown (Unicorn), Barry Morgan in A Minute of Silence (Upstairs at Highgate), The Ancestor in Fall of the House of Usher (Graeae), and several Forum Theatre performances. TV roles include Milo in the BAFTA-award-winning Dream On and Arthur in Where The Heart Is.
Ilan's unusual claim to fame is that he's done lip-reading work on football clips, on one occasion for the BBC's They Think It's All Over. When not acting, he runs occasional drama workshops.
'My ambition is simply to carry on acting,' he says, 'and then to drop dead on stage, which would be a dramatic finale – and perhaps a nice epitaph for me!'