Ben Willbond is an English actor and screenwriter best known as a member of the British Them There collective, for which he has written and starred in productions including Horrible Histories, Yonderland, and Ghosts.
Along with fellow Them There member Laurence Rickard, he co-wrote the 2015 feature film Bill and 2022 feature-length television comedy We Are Not Alone.
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Early life
Willbond was a Forces child and consequently his family moved around every two years. He was sent to board at Stamford School in Lincolnshire, when he was nine years old. He was bullied whilst attending the school. Willbond, when talking about his experience at the school, said "I don't actually remember that time because it was so shocking". He studied Russian and French at St Catherine's College, Oxford.
Career
Along with Arnold Widdowson, Willbond was part of the comedy duo "Ben & Arn", who won the Perrier Award for "Best Newcomer" in 1999, and formed the self-proclaimed "thinking man's French pop duo" Priorité à Gauche. He then went on to perform his solo character shows at several Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, the last being in 2005 which also starred Katy Brand and Jim Field Smith.
He is perhaps best known for his regular role in CBBC's Horrible Histories, in which he played a wide variety of historical figures, most memorably recurring roles as Henry VIII and Alexander the Great. Along with the five other members of the Horrible Histories starring cast, Willbond is also the co-creator, -writer and -star of Yonderland, a family fantasy comedy series that premiered on Sky One on 10 November 2013. In addition he is the co-writer of Bill, a BBC-produced comedy film based loosely around the early life of William Shakespeare, which involved the same starring troupe.
