Michael

Michael was a deaf tutor at the college at which the friends met and always did his best to be a counsellor and friend as well as a teacher. Sharp and witty, he has always been a passionate campaigner for Deaf rights. At the end of the first series, he came out as gay.

John Wilson, who plays Michael, got into acting 'a bit later in life than most'. He has also directed and worked as a television presenter. John's route into drama was through a deaf club, where he acted in the first two signed musicals in the UK, The Boyfriend and West Side Story. He enjoyed this so much that he gave up his day job at the British Museum (he qualified as an anthropologist) and decided to go professional. Since then he's played a wide range of roles, from Shakespeare to rep including projects such as a celebrity fund-raiser at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith alongside Dawn French, Matthew Kelly and others.

John's day job is deaf arts officer for Shape, London, where his task is to promote access to the arts for deaf audiences and practitioners. His latest success is raising funds for a National Deaf Theatre project to make it possible for more people from the Deaf community to get involved in dramatic arts.

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