For about twenty years, millions of British viewers watched Hugh Quarshie in scrubs as Ric Griffin, the steady, sometimes flawed surgeon of Holby City. Quarshie was born in Accra.
Quarshie was born in the Gold Coast in 1954, three years before it became Ghana, and moved to Britain with his family as a child. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford, and began acting on the stage.
Shakespeare
Quarshie joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and built a reputation as a classical actor. He has played major Shakespearean roles, including Othello, and has spoken and written thoughtfully about the play and its racial history, questioning whether a Black actor should play the role that has so often reinforced stereotypes. His 1999 lecture on the subject, Second Thoughts About Othello, is still read by students.
Film
He appeared in films including Highlander in 1986 and, most famously for many audiences, Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace, in 1999, as Captain Panaka, head of security for Queen Amidala.
Holby City
In 2001, Quarshie joined Holby City, the BBC hospital drama, as Ric Griffin, a consultant surgeon. The character was complex: brilliant and caring but also a gambler with complicated relationships. Quarshie played him on and off until the show ended in 2022, making him one of the longest-serving cast members.
Ric Griffin became one of the most familiar faces on British television, and one of the most prominent Black leading characters in a long-running British drama.
Voice and presence
Quarshie is known for his deep voice and precise diction. He has worked extensively in radio and narration as well as on stage and screen.
Ghanaian roots
His surname is well known in Ghana; the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange in Accra is named after a different Quarshie, the man credited with bringing cocoa to the Gold Coast. Hugh Quarshie has spoken about his Ghanaian origins and his experience as an African-born actor in Britain.
Honours
Quarshie has been recognised for his long career on stage and screen, and he remains a respected figure in British theatre.
Legacy
Quarshie’s career shows the range of a classically trained actor: Shakespeare at the RSC, a Star Wars blockbuster and a long-running television drama.
He left Accra as a boy. For two decades, British television audiences trusted him with their fictional surgery.
