BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised on his parents’ farm in Cornwall, in the South West of England, Alastair originally trained in Hotel management. Following his graduation, and five years in the sales and marketing industry, he started to realise his dream to perform when he was chosen to present and host major sales conferences and trainings. This encouraged him to embark on an acting career so he began training at workshops and with a personal tutor.
Within three years he had become a full member of Equity, and had played a wide range of characters in Theatre from “Buttons” in pantomime to “Don John” in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Other roles included “Clive” in the classic Ben Travers farce Rookery Nook, “Constable Hackett” in the thriller Write me a Murder and “Henry Pargiter” in the original London cast of The Thieftaker. He has appeared on UK television in a number of programmes including; The Bill and the BBC’s House Of Cards, and was cast in the Warner Brothers classic film Black Beauty. As well as featuring in many commercials for products from paint to cough medicine he was the presenter for corporate videos, training films, road shows and conferences.
In 1995 he was accepted as a member of the Entertainment Team with the cruise line, Sun Cruises. Within two years he had risen through the ranks to become an Assistant Cruise Director before joining Princess Cruises in November 1997. Eighteen months later he was promoted again to Cruise Director, heading up the Entertainment Department of over 90 staff, and serving on the ship’s Executive Committee. He went on to serve on eight ships within the Princess fleet and was part of inaugural teams on four.
In 2005 he was offered the position of Cruise Director with Cunard Line, and served on the legendary liners Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2. He was appointed as the Entertainment Director on Queen Victoria’s inaugural team and again for the maiden season of the new Queen Elizabeth, named by Her Majesty the Queen in October 2010
Alastair was invited to represent, “Cruise Lines International Association” (C.L.I.A. – the organization representing all the major cruise lines), on media tours in the United States, appearing on network television and radio, promoting the cruise industry. He became the host of the Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth Virtual Tour on the Cunard website, and in 2008 he began hosting the new Cunard Blog, which had a regular following of over 50,000 readers.
Alastair became the face of 12 training videos for Cunard line, Princess Cruises and P&O Australia and is currently featuring on U.S. television, as the presenter for the 26 one hour-long episodes of The Genesis Of Healing, which was filmed in six countries.
In 2011 Alastair resumed a land based presenting career. As well as being the senior journalist for “Telegraph Business Reporter” he is the travel & transport correspondent for “South West London TV” and has covered many events including the 2015 General Election in a live results broadcast. He is also the host of “Health Show Live Surgery” and the new “Health Show Weekly” on the Islam Channel.
He has appeared in commercials including “Maplin”, “Travelodge”, “Portal Financial” and “Go Outdoors”. As a presenter and voiceover artist he has worked with many companies in their corporate and training films including, Ikea, Allianz, Shell, HP, Novotel and HMRC. He also works as an MC, hosting numerous events including awards ceremonies, conferences and charity auctions.
Using his skills as an interviewer, journalist and presenter he now also trains organisations and individuals on confident and effective communication with his “Present Yourself” series of training programmes.
Alastair splits his time between his home in Wiltshire and London but still loves travelling and has been lucky to have work that has recently taken him to Dubai, Slovenia, and Bahrain.