[1] Before breaking into film and television work, Peck was a regular actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) alongside Ian McKellen, Donald Sinden and Judi Dench.

[3] He made a memorable appearance on stage in the RSC production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, originally by Charles Dickens, playing two characters: the boisterous Yorkshireman John Browdie and the predatory Sir Mulberry Hawk, and repeated these roles on Broadway and when the production was filmed for television in 1982.

This crime drama/political thriller follows Peck's character as he attempts to unravel the truth behind the murder of his daughter, portrayed in the series by Joanne Whalley.

Peck also voiced all the male characters in the children's live action TV series combined with stop motion animation, Forget Me Not Farm on the BBC in 1990.

He also appeared in Screen Two, Screenplay and A TV Dante, as well as in the television films, The Black Velvet Gown and An Ungentlemanly Act.

In the later years of his life and career, Peck appeared in more films, portraying the roles of Captain Sebastian Belger in Merisairas, Françoise's father in Surviving Picasso, Ravn in Smilla's Sense of Snow, Harry Briggs in FairyTale: A True Story and Denton (based on Lancelot Dent) in the film The Opium War (Chinese: 鸦片战争; pinyin: yapian zhanzheng).

He was said to be undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy and his agent claimed that he was making a recovery, but he died at his home in Kingston-upon-Thames, London, on 4 April 1999, at the age of 53.

[7] His funeral took place in London, and his close friend and Edge of Darkness co-star Ian McNeice read a eulogy at the service.