John Gibb Marshall (born 11 January 1953), better known by the stage name John Sessions, is a Scottish 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, and spent some of his earliest years in Kempston, Bedfordshire and St Albans, Hertfordshire. He has an elder brother and a twin sister. Sessions is openly gay. His name change occurred when he became a performer, owing to the presence of a John Marshall on the Equity register already. He graduated with an M.A. in English literature from Bangor University, where 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
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