Enn Reitel

Reitel's family arrived in Scotland as refugees from Estonia. He trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Acting:

In 1982, Reitel starred in The Further Adventures of Lucky Jim, a sitcom on BBC Two written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Reitel played Jim Dixon, based on the character created by Kingsley Amis.

He appeared on stage in Me and My Girl at the Adelphi Theatre in 1986. On television he worked as an impressionist on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image and starred in the ITV sitcom Mog as a burglar who spent his days in a psychiatric hospital, pretending to be insane.

He played the lead role in the UK television comedy series The Optimist which ran from 1983 for two series. The programme was almost entirely silent. In each episode 'The Optimist' wandered through life doing his best to look on the bright side. He was usually thwarted in his endeavours by the people he encountered. He also appeared in the first series of the UK comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Reitel also appeared in a number of BBC radio comedy programmes in the 1980s, including Dial M For Pizza and the radio adaptation of the cartoon strip The Fosdyke Saga.

In 2001, he appeared in a short film called Coconuts with Michael Palin, in which they did a demonstration on how coconuts can be used in place of horses. This film can be seen on the second disk of the collector's edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

He played the lead role in the 2007 film Trust Me, a comedy about a pair of con men.

Reitel was the second choice to play Del Boy Trotter in Only Fools and Horses (behind Jim Broadbent aka Roy Slater in the series), but was busy with other projects (the role ultimately went to David Jason).

He also played two roles in different episodes of long-running sitcom One Foot in the Grave. In the first Christmas special, he played "Mr. Starkey", a down and out who holds Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson) and his neighbour Pippa's father, Reverend Croker (Geoffrey Chater) at gunpoint to wait for Armageddon on Christmas Day. In the second episode of series 3, "Dreamland", he played a tramp who took a fancy to Victor's shoes, but drew the line at his Noel Edmonds-esque sweater.

Voiceovers:

Reitel does voiceovers for The X Factor. He played the Town Crier and The Maggot in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and played Auric Goldfinger in the 2004 video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. It is his voice that provides the vocals on Lemon Jelly's "Nice Weather for Ducks" in 2002. He narrated the in-game promo spot for the Praying Mantis PMC in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. He also does Lorenzo Belli's voice from Capcom's survival horror game Haunting Ground. He was also the voice of Billy the ventriloquist dummy in James Wan's movie Dead Silence. He also provided voice performance for the audiobook of the sixth book in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series, The Time Paradox.

Reitel also provided the voice for Delvin Mallory in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the Wizard Zabodon in The Big Knights. He also provided the voice of Ost Ordura in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Telltale Series (2016), as well as its sequel Batman: The Enemy Within (2017). He also played Male Altmer and Dunmer in The Elder Scrolls Online. He also provided voices of The Time Keeper in Skylanders: Swap Force, Laufey in Hulk and the Agents of S. M. A. S. H., Master Ding in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Sebastian Oliver in Adr1ft, Olgan in Baten Kaitos Origins, Bootstrap Bill Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, A Male Pedestrian in Infamous, Deraegis in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Five Leaf Clover Guy, Japanese Deputy, Robertson, Boss Guraji and Fox in TripTank, Edwin Jarvis in Marvel Heroes, An English Spy in American Dad!, Billy in Dead Silence and The Dreamer in The Secret World.

In May 2014, Reitel replaced Ade Edmondson as the voice of the Animal in the Peperami adverts.