Rhys Thomas (comedian)
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| Rhys Thomas | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 December 1978 Essex, England UK |
| Occupation | Actor Comedian |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Spouse | Lucy Montgomery |
Rhys Thomas (born 12 December 1978 in Essex) is an English comedian and actor.
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[edit] Career
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This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2011) |
His breakthrough came while working as a runner on Shooting Stars, when he showed Charlie Higson and Bob Mortimer some sketches he had performed in college. Higson recruited Thomas as a supporting cast member on The Fast Show, and he has since appeared in several comedy series, including Fun at the Funeral Parlour, Happiness, Monkey Trousers, and Nathan Barley, as well as co-writing and performing in the Fast Show spin-off Swiss Toni, and script editing the later series of Shooting Stars. He currently plays the host of BBC Radio 4's spoof late-night phone-in, Down the Line, and writes for and appears in Channel 4 sketch show Blunder. Thomas has also appeared in the Channel 4 comedy Star Stories playing Jude Law, Andrew Ridgely, Warren Beatty, Gary Glitter, Daniel Day Lewis, Kiefer Sutherland and The Fonz amongst others.
He has worked as a runner on Shooting Stars, sometimes filling in for George Dawes on the drums during rehearsals. At the time, still in lower Sixth Form, he formed comedy group called Stay Alive Pepi with Stephen Burge, Tony Way and Glynne Wiley. Filmed a BBC Two pilot with Ulrika Jonsson called It's Ulrika written by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer in 1997. In the sketch, written by Thomas, Way and Burge.
In 1998 Thomas starred in Shooting Stars and The Fast Show Live at the Hammersmith Apollo, then sketch show Barking for Channel 4 alongside Mackenzie Crook, Catherine Tate, Peter Kaye and David Walliams. In 1998, Stay Alive Pepi wrote and performed their one and only ever Edinburgh Show at the Assembly Rooms. He also appeared in a Sir Bernard Chumley's Stately Homes and pilot Crazy Jonathan's with Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
Rhys was a presenter on the XFM breakfast show in 1999, alongside Natasha Desborough.
After a stint as team writer on series one of the The 11 O'Clock Show in 1999, Rhys wrote a pilot script for Fun at the Funeral Parlour in 1999 at the age of 20. Producer Simon Lupton was impressed, and submitted it to Stuart Murphy, then controller of BBC Choice and a series was filmed summer 2000 and a second series 2001. Guest stars included Tom Baker, Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Bill Oddie, Christopher Cazenove, Phil Cornwell, Mitchell and Webb, Lucas and Walliams, Simon Day, Mark Williams, Anita Dobson, Art Malik and Dudley Sutton. Music was specially composed by Brian May of Queen.
In 2002/4, he co-wrote and starred in two series of Swiss Toni, penning four episodes himself and co-writing others. He also toured with The Fast Show for their farewell tour in 2002. At this point he started making a name for himself on panel shows/talking head led programmes. He appeared as team captain on panel show Fanorama with David Mitchell (2001/2) and then team captain on Does Doug Know with Daisy Donovan on Channel 4 (2002). Since then he has also appeared on Law of the Playground (2006), Comedian's Comedian (2005), Nathan Barley (2005), 8 Out Of 10 Cats (2006), FAQ U (2005), Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (2006), Tittybangbang (2005) and Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2007).
In 2006, Boyd Hilton of HEAT Magazine labelled him a "Comedy Genius" following his various roles in the Comedy Award Winning Star Stories.
2007 Performers Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson and Rhys Thomas were awarded "Radio Programme of the Year" for Down The Line by the Broadcasting Press Guild and in 2008 the show won a Sony Gold for Best Radio Comedy.
Thomas has worked closely with the rock band Queen, of whom he is a major fan, producing seven of their DVDs: Queen Greatest Video Hits (2001), Queen Live at Wembley (2002), Queen: Greatest Video Hits II (2003), Queen Jewels (Japanese release) (2004), Queen On Fire: Live at the Bowl (2004), Queen + Paul Rogers: Return of the Champions and 'A Night At The Opera - 30th Anniversary DVD', making documentaries and directing new videos, including "I Was Born to Love You". In 2003 he wrote, starred and co-directed (with Simon Lupton) a commercial for Queen Greatest Video Hits II also starring Roger Taylor and Brian May. In July 2010, Thomas was asked by Jim Beach, manager of Queen to write the sleeve notes for all 15 studio albums by the band, due for re-release in 2011 to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of Queen.[1] He also produced the critically acclaimed two-part Queen documentary Days of Our Lives, which aired on BBC2 in May 2011.
Thomas has completed his first feature film Beyond the Pole. Starring alongside Stephen Mangan, Helen Baxendale and Mark Benton, the film premiered at the Prince Charles Cinema as part of the London Film Festival on Dec 5, 2009, and was released nationwide in February 2010. Some behind the scenes footage leaked on the internet featuring Thomas and co-star Alexander Skarsgard dancing topless to "A Kind of Magic" gained huge hits and attention on the internet in Summer 2010, over 1,000,000 hits combined.
In April 2009 Thomas appeared in BBC switch's show, "Winging it", playing the character of a music mogul and wrote and starred in "Above Their Stations" a sitcom pilot about Police Community Support Officers for BBC Three, also starring Simon Day, Dudley Sutton and Denis Lawson. He also created, co wrote/co produced Brian Pern a series of online spoof blogs starring Simon Day as Brian Pern, loosely based on Peter Gabriel/Eno and other intelligent, politically active rock musicians of that ilk.
In January 2010 Bellamy's People (starring and co-written by Rhys Thomas as Gary Bellamy) launched with exceptional reviews across the board many, including The Radio Times, praising Thomas for his straight man role and the ability to make those around him seem even funnier, Andrew Collins claiming that he was "amazing" as Gary Bellamy and The Independent stating that he was "excellent". He was also listed in The Radio Times as one of the Top Ten faces of 2010 alongside Matt Smith, Chris Evans and Carey Mulligan.
In February 2010, Above Their Station was broadcast on BBC3 and despite the lack of publicity, it gained an impressive 415,000 viewers, followed by another 250,000 in its repeat slot at midnight, beating many of the other BBC3 shows that week. Despite that, a series was not commissioned by Controller Danny Cohen who deemed the pilot to be a little too mainstream for BBC3. Ironically, the pilot broadcast in the same slot the following week at 9.30, "This Is Jinsy" was commissioned though it only gained a fraction of the audience, 100,000.
He is also the lead in the new Channel 4 comedy-drama Sirens, which began airing in June 2011.
Thomas is working on a film script for Warp Films called Pharang, set in Thailand, as three brothers go in search of their father who has gone missing, and a science fiction sitcom pilot for the BBC.
On the 31st of December 2010, Thomas appeared on and won Celebrity Mastermind with a specialist subject record score of 21 points and a total 36 points. His specialist subject was, quite appropriately, Queen.
[edit] Personal life
Rhys Thomas is married to actress Lucy Montgomery. They have two daughters, Polly (b. 2008) and Rosie Rae (b. 2010), and live in East London.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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