John Sessions

John Sessions
Sessions at An Evening with Robert Louis Stevenson in 2012
Born	John Gibb Marshall (1953-01-11) 11 January 1953 (age 64) Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland
Alma mater	Bangor University
Occupation	Actor, comedian
Years active	1982–present
Television	Whose Line Is It Anyway? (UK) Stella Street
Relatives	Maggie (twin sister) Also has an older brother

John Gibb Marshall (born 11 January 1953), better known by the stage name John Sessions, is a British actor and comedian. He is known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?; as a panellist on QI; and as a character actor in numerous films, both in the UK and in Hollywood.

Sessions was born in Largs, Ayrshire. When he was three years old, his father, a gas engineer, moved the family to Kempston, Bedfordshire, and then to St Albans, Hertfordshire. He has a twin sister, Maggie, and an older brother.

Sessions was educated at Bedford Modern School, an independent school for boys (now co-educational), and Verulam School, St Albans, followed by Bangor University, from which he graduated with an MA in English literature. At university, he had begun to appear to audiences with his comedy in shows such as "Look back in Bangor" and "Marshall Arts". He later studied for a PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, although he did not complete the doctorate. This period in his life was unhappy. In a 'Worst of Times' column for The Independent from around 1990, he talked of how the freezing Canadian weather had depressed him, he was smoking 'far too many cigarettes', 'had a couple of disastrous flings' and described his PhD dissertation as '200 pages of rubbish'.