Alan Cox (actor)

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title: "Alan Cox (actor)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1970-births", "english-male-child-actors", "english-male-television-actors", "living-people", "english-people-of-irish-descent", "english-people-of-scottish-descent", "male-actors-from-london", "people-from-westminster", "english-male-film-actors", "people-educated-at-st-paul's-school,-london", "20th-century-english-male-actors", "21st-century-english-male-actors", "actors-from-the-city-of-westminster"] description: "British actor" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox_(actor)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British actor ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Alan Cox
birthname	Alan Douglas Cox
birth_date
birth_place	Westminster, London, England
occupation	Actor
yearsactive	1976–present
parents
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| image = | caption = | name = Alan Cox | birthname = Alan Douglas Cox | birth_date = | birth_place = Westminster, London, England | othername = | occupation = Actor | yearsactive = 1976–present | parents =

Alan Douglas Cox (born 6 August 1970) is a British actor. He is known for portraying a teenage Dr. Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985.

Life and career

Cox was born in Westminster, London, and is the son of Scottish Emmy Award-winning actor Brian Cox and his second wife, actress Caroline Burt. Cox was educated at St Paul's School in London. He has a sister, Margaret, and two half-brothers, Orson and Torin.

Cox portrayed the young John Mortimer the 1982 TV adaptation of his play A Voyage Round My Father, starring opposite Laurence Olivier. He is probably most widely known for his role in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), where he played a teenage version of Dr. Watson. Other films include An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), Mrs. Dalloway (1997), and The Auteur Theory (1999). In 2011, Cox also co-starred as a nudist named Cory Beck in the independent comedy Act Naturally.

Filmography

Film

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1976	A Divorce	Jason	TV film
1981	If You Go Down in the Woods Today	Cub Scout
1982	A Voyage Round My Father	Son as a Boy	TV film
East Lynne	William Carlyle	TV film
1984	Man of Letters	Kenton	TV film
1985	Young Sherlock Holmes	John Watson
1995	An Awfully Big Adventure	Geoffrey
1997	Mrs Dalloway	Young Peter
1999	The Auteur Theory	George Sand
2000	Cor, Blimey!	Orsino	TV film
Weight	Henry Salmon
2002	Die Wasserfälle von Slunj	Donald Clayton	TV film
The Dinosaur Hunters	Richard Owen	TV film
2003	Justice	Palm Sunday
2004	Ladies in Lavender	Obsequious Man
Not Only But Always	Alan Bennett	TV film
2006	Elizabeth David: A Life in Recipes	Cuthbert	TV film
Housewife, 49	Dennis	TV film
2008	August	Barton
2009	Margaret	Gordon Reece	TV film
2010	The Nutcracker in 3D	Gielgud	Voice role
2011	Act Naturally	Cory Beck
The Speed of Thought	Alexei
2012	The Dictator	BP Executive
2018	Staging the Knack and How to Get It	Interviewer	Short film
Say My Name	Father Donald Davies
2019	Act Super Naturally	Cory Beck
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Television

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1978	The Devil's Crown	Young Henry	Episode: "The Earth Is Not Enough"
1979	Penmarric	Young Jan-Yves	Episode: "Series 1, Episode 7"
1980	Shoestring	John	Episode: "The Dangerous Game"
1983	Jane Eyre	John Reed	Episode: "Gateshead"
1990	Casualty	Joshua	Episode: "Results"
1991	The Bill	Steve Doyle	Episode: "Stress Rules"
1992	Screen One	Seth Bade	Episode: "Adam Bede"
Spatz	Graham	Episode: "Poetry & Music"
London's Burning	Richard Sidwell	Episode: "Series 5, Episode 3"
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles	Dimitri	Episode: "Petrograd, July 1917"
1994	The Bill	Connor	Episode: "Creating a Market"
1995	Crown Prosecutor	David Ellery	Episode: "Series 1, Episode 8"
1996	Ellington	Tadeusz Zbinkiewicz	Episode: "No Holds Barred"
The Thin Blue Line	Bob Tough	Episode: "Fly on the Wall"
1997	The Odyssey	Elpenor	Mini-series
2004	Midsomer Murders	Stephen Bannerman	Episode: "The Maid in Splendour"
2007	The Wild West	Mark Kellogg	Episode: "Custer's Last Strand"
2008	M.I. High	David DeHaverland	Episode: "It's a Kind of Magic"
John Adams	William Maclay	Episode: "Unite or Die"
2009	The Bill	Phil Reaney	Episode: "Fall Out"
2013	Lucan	Ian Maxwell-Scott	Mini-series
2014	The Good Wife	Douglas	Episode: "Goliath and David"
2015	The Sonnet Project		Episode: "Sonnet #30"
2021	New Amsterdam	Lyle	Episode: "More Joy"
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Theatre

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Year	Title	Role	Theatre
2025	Churchill in Moscow	Archie Clark Kerr	Orange Tree Theatre
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Bibliography

• Holmstrom, John. The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995. Norwich, Michael Russell, 1996, p. 381.

References

References

1. Gordon, Bryony. (30 October 2021). "Brian Cox Unleashed". [[National Post]].
2. Jury, Louise. (21 April 2015). "Boris the inspiration for satire's wannabe PM". [[Evening Standard]].
3. James, Clive. (7 March 1982). "Television: Better than ever". The Observer.
4. Maslin, Janet. (23 July 1995). "A look at Hugh Grant before his big success". [[The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, Louisiana).
5. Mills, Nancy. (4 December 1985). "Taking the Cloak off Young Sherlock". [[Los Angeles Times]].
6. Macor, Alison. (13 October 2000). "Now Playing at the Austin Film Festival: The Auteur Theory". [[Austin American-Statesman]].
7. World premiere. [[Howard Brenton]]'s dramatisation of the [[Moscow Conference (1942)]].
8. [https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/about/news/full-cast-announced-for-the-world-premiere-of-churchill-in-moscow/ "Full cast announced for the world premiere of Churchill in Moscow"], Orange Tree Theatre website News section. Accessed 12 March 2025

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