Rowan Atkinson was born on the Twelfth Night of Christmas 1955. His middle name is Sebastian.

A budding Electrical Engineer with degrees from Newcastle and Oxford Universities, Rowan attracted wide critical notice at the Edinburgh Festival in 1977. After mounting his own Revue at London's Hampstead Theatre in 1978, he became a founder member of the BBC's 'Not the Nine O'clock News' team - this was an experiment which turned into really rather a success with four series, Platinum and Gold LP 's, many best - selling books, a Silver Rose at Montreux, an International EMMY, the British Academy Award and him becoming BBC Personality of the Year.

In 1981 Rowan became the youngest performer to have a one-man show in London's West End - the sell-out season at the Globe Theatre won him the Society of West End Theatre's Award for Comedy Performance of the Year. In 1983 Rowan embarked with writer Richard Curtis on their situation tragedy 'Blackadder' for the BBC. Over the ensuing five years the four series won three British Academy Awards, an International EMMY, three ACE awards and personal awards for his performance, including Best Entertainment Performance. Once again Rowan was voted BBC Personality of the Year.

On stage he took the lead in Larry Shue's 'The Nerd' at the Aldwych Theatre in 1985. In the following year he mounted a new one-man show in the West End and after a sell-out season it was transferred to Broadway, where it was described by the New York Post as 'hilarious' and by the New York Times as 'stunningly predictable'. This show went on to tour successfully in Australia, New Zealand, the Far East and the UK. In 1988 he undertook a six month run in the West End, starring in 'The Sneeze', a collection of humorous one-act plays by Anton Chekov.

Rowan's next major television undertaking was the creation of the silent comedy series 'Mr Bean' for ITV and HBO. The pilot programme won the Golden Rose of Montreux and was nominated for an International EMMY. Subsequent episodes have continued to win plaudits, including an International EMMY, two BANFF Awards and an ACE Award for best Comedy in 1995. The programmes have been sold to a hundred countries. It is the highest rated comedy show of the decade on commercial television, and produced by the production company Tiger Aspect, of which he is a partner and for whom he has also appeared in a number of highly successful documentary programmes on subjects ranging from comedy to his passion, the motor car.

In 1995 Rowan starred as the lead role, Inspector Raymond Fowler, in the first series of Tiger Aspect's number one rating situation comedy 'The Thin Blue Line' written by Ben Elton. A second series was produced in the summer of 1996.

For HBO and the BBC Tiger also produced 'Rowan Atkinson on Location in Boston', a one hour special featuring highlights from his stage shows. The production won an ACE Award ( 1993 ).

He has appeared in a number of films, including 'Never Say Never Again' with Sean Connery, 'The Tall Guy' with Jeff Goldblum, Nick Roeg's 'The Witches', and Steven Wright's 'The Appointments of Dennis Jennings' for HBO which won the 1989 Oscar for best short film. Other film appearances include 'Hot Shots - Part Deux', 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' and the voice of Zazu in 'The Lion King'.

Most recently Rowan appeared in ‘Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie’(1997). The Polygram film, produced by Working Title in association with Tiger Aspect, has been a huge international hit.

Rowan has just completed production on a half hour film entitled ‘Blackadder Back & Forth’ to be shown in SkyScape at the Millennium Dome.