Early career On graduation, Kaye designed theatre posters for the King's Head, the
Bush Theatre, and the
Gate Theatre,
Notting Hill. He was a scene painter at the
Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo and illustrated regularly for the
NME,
i-D,
Literary Review,
Time Out and
International Musician magazines between 1987 and 1989. He had two exhibitions of illustration and poster work between 1989 and 1990, firstly at the
Soho House Theatre, and then at
The Drill Hall. Kaye formed and sang in many bands, including the dark psychedelic outfit We Are Pleb, who played extensively in
Camden during 1988–89 (at the same time as
Blur and
Suede) and had a penchant for setting the stage on fire. Kaye was signed to
Go Discs in 1992 with a group called TV Eye (formed with ex-members of the band
Eat), which released two singles, "Killer Fly" and "Eradicator". In 1993, Kaye filmed a prototype Dennis Pennis, interviewing his own band on a late-night indie music show on
Granada TV called
Transmission. After the interview, Kaye then went out with the crew, got very drunk and offended as many people as possible in
Oxford Street. This tape somehow arrived on the desk of producers at
Planet 24 six months later, and they offered Kaye the job of knocking on people's doors at 6.00am on
The Big Breakfast. Kaye turned them down, preferring to stay on
Jobseeker's Allowance and stick with We Are Pleb;
Mark Lamarr eventually took the job. Kaye was a graphic designer for
Tottenham Hotspur. He had an office in
White Hart Lane and designed in-house merchandise for Spurs,
Derby County,
Southampton and
Aston Villa for Danish sportswear brand
Hummel International (doing caricatures of
Paul Gascoigne for school lunchboxes etc.). As an
Arsenal fan, Kaye has said there are subliminal cannons contained within his work for Spurs, including a pen and ink drawing of Tottenham's new stand on a catalogue cover which features a minute cannon in the crowd: 70,000 were printed. Kaye became in-house theatre designer of the Bet Zvi Drama Academy in
Tel Aviv for 12 months in 1994, designing all the in-house productions in their studio theatre. His TV debut was on
The Word being secretly filmed in
Oliver Reed's dressing room. Kaye recalls "Reed had drunk two bottles of vodka, taken all his clothes off and I honestly thought he was going to kill me on live television. I swore in bed that I'd never do a celebrity interview again. Typically, six months later I'd come up with Dennis Pennis." In 1994, Kaye convinced his old friend Anthony Hines (a car mechanic and some time roadie for TV Eye) to help him write Dennis Pennis when he was offered the job on
The Sunday Show. With dyed red hair, gaudy jackets adorned with punk-style badges, and thick glasses, Pennis stood out from the crowd and asked celebrities atypical questions, ranging from playful to cruel. which contained previously unseen footage that couldn't be shown on
The Sunday Show due to the show's pre-watershed slot at lunchtime. When the Pennis character took off, Kaye was afforded a budget large enough to travel to
Cannes, Hollywood, and
Venice to record footage for a two-part special on 9 and 16 August 1996 on BBC2 called
Very Important Pennis. His victims from this point on were more renowned, the most famous of whom were
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Demi Moore,
Kevin Costner,
Morgan Freeman and
Bruce Willis, amid a raft of other Hollywood A-list stars. Kaye later said that he regretted this interview for a while, but nevertheless said, "Anyone who thinks they can improve on
Bilko and
Inspector Clouseau needs a slap, don't they?" A special one hour video-only feature was released in 1997 called
Dennis Pennis RIP: Too Rude to Live, which saw the character killed off, after Kaye decided the rewards were not worth the effort. Kaye also appeared as the singer of a fictional punk band called Spunk in a 1999
mock-documentary of the same name, which appeared as the 'wrath' part of a
Channel 4 series on the
seven deadly sins. In 2000, Kaye starred in the comedy series
Perfect World, a sitcom about a down-on-his-luck marketing manager. He also briefly presented a BBC2 quiz show,
Liar, in which six contestants would all have a supposed claim to fame and the studio audience voted on which one they believed was telling the truth. In the same year, Kaye took a dramatic role alongside
Michelle Collins in
Two Thousand Acres of Sky. In 2004, Kaye played the leading role in the film
Blackball. His role as
deaf DJ Frankie Wilde in the 2005 mockumentary ''
It's All Gone Pete Tong won him the Film Discovery Jury Award at the 2005 US Comedy Arts Festival. He played in two episodes of the BBC drama series Waking the Dead, playing Dr. David Carney in "Shadowplay". Television appearances in 2006 and 2007 included episodes of Hustle, EastEnders and Kingdom''. Kaye was the chief interviewer on rockworld.tv, in which he interviewed up-and-coming punk and indie bands. Kaye appeared in
Hotel Babylon (11 March 2008,
BBC One),
Pulling (Series 2, March 2008,
BBC Three), and as Uncle Gorwel in ''
A Child's Christmases in Wales'' by
Mark Watson (17 December 2009,
BBC Four and 24 December 2009,
BBC One Wales). From November 2010 to January 2011, Kaye played Matilda's father Mr. Wormwood in the
Royal Shakespeare Company's musical
Matilda, based on the classic
Roald Dahl novel of the same name. Kaye reprised the role when the musical transferred to the
Cambridge Theatre in London's West End in October 2011. In April 2012, Kaye was nominated for the
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical. In 2013, Kaye appeared as
Thoros of Myr in the
third season of the
HBO series
Game of Thrones, and as Danno in the
BBC Radio 4 series
Love in Recovery. In 2016, he reprised his role as Thoros of Myr in the
sixth season of
Game of Thrones, and returned for the
seventh season. In 2014, Kaye played Brother Lucian in the movie
Dracula Untold. In 2015 he played a criminal in the BBC drama
The Interceptor. In 2015, he featured as the drunken, haunted Naval Officer Harry Brewer in the National Theatre's revival of ''
Our Country's Good. He also appeared in Doctor Who'' as an alien funeral director. That same year, He played Vinculus in Susanna Clarke's
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Kaye's other television credits include
The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge, an episode of
Reece Shearsmith and
Steve Pemberton's anthology series
Inside No. 9, Netflix's first original TV series
Lilyhammer, the BAFTA winning
Murder in Successville, In 2020, he appeared in the
Netflix drama
The Stranger, as Patrick Katz, and portrayed "The Cowboy" in the HBO miniseries
The Third Day. In 2021, he played Guy Forks in a
Bonfire Night special of
Mackenzie Crook's re-working of
Worzel Gummidge for the BBC. In 2023, Kaye starred in
The Pillowman, staged at the
Duke of York's Theatre, London. ==Personal life==