Jack Holden (actor)
Jack Holden is an English actor, Olivier-nominated writer and producer from Tonbridge in Kent, who graduated from the Bristol Old Vic theatre school in 2011. He is most notable for roles in "Marriage" with Sean Bean and Nicola Walker and in "Ten Percent" ("Call My Agent," UK) as well as playing the lead role in the West End play "War Horse", immediately upon graduating from BOV. He is represented by Lindy King of United Agents. In 2014 Holden played the role of Joe Bonham in the UK première of the play "Johnny Got His Gun", based  on the novel by Dalton Trumbo. His performance received a positive review from "The Independent". His performance as Bobby in an adaptation of "Awkward Conversations With Animals I've F*cked" by Rob Hayes during the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe received further critical acclaim. Holden has also performed frequently with the Royal Shakespeare Company in such productions as "The Shoemaker's Holiday" by Thomas Dekker, and in the world première of Tim Morton Smith's "Oppenheimer" directed by Angus Jackson and starring John Heffernan as Robert Oppenheimer. In the latter, he portrayed Robert R. Wilson, the youngest member of the Manhattan Project  team. Holden recorded several episodes of the BBC Radio drama "Home Front", and played the part of Meus in the BBC Radio 4's broadcast premiere of Orson Welles' unproduced screenplay of Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness", starring James McAvoy. From February 2016, Holden was back with the Royal Shakespeare Company taking the part of Lysander in a national tour of "Midsummer Night's Dream" which visited 12 venues including Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Blackpool, Truro, the RSC's homes at the Barbican Centre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. The BBC planned to film the production which  involved actors from 12 different amateur theatre companies. Holden also appeared in the 2017 film "Journey's End". Holden was in the world première of "Ink" by James Graham at the Almeida Theatre from June to August 2017, and in 2019 he was in the Bath Theatre Royal production of "My Cousin Rachel" (the play by Joseph O'Connor based on the Daphne du Maurier novel) with Helen George and Simon Shepherd. In 2020 Holden was the producer of "Sunnymead Court", with Defibrillator in association with The Actors Centre at the Tristan Bates Theatre. Written by Gemma Lawrence and directed by  James Hillier, the play featured Lawrence and Remmie Milner and dealt with a couple that meet during the Covid lockdown. It was also produced under strict COVID-safe conditions and was also live-relayed and streamed to a home audience. It gained positive reviews as a 'fleet 45 minutes of wonderful creativity' and as capturing 'our thirst for connection during lockdown'. Holden also runs Watersmeet Productions with Alastair Mavor which produced "Blood Out of a Stone" which premiered at BFI Flare 2018. In May 2021 Holden performed in his self-written one-man show "Cruise" at The Duchess Theatre, and  the play was nominated for an Olivier award as best new play. It was one of the first West End shows to be opened post-COVID lockdown and tells a story of queer life around Soho in the late 1980s affected as it was at the time with the AIDS crisis. The piece was developed with John Elliot of The Little Unsaid. It received excellent reviews from The Telegraph, Variety which called it an 'exultant, high energy and impressive debut' What’s On Stage, The Guardian and Gay Times which described it as an 'incredible tour de force' and many  other positive reviews. The play was directed by Bronagh Lagan and produced by Lambert Jackson and Aria Entertainment. A film version, produced before the stage show, was streamed by Stream.Theatre. The script of "Cruise" was published during the West End run under the Methuen Drama Modern Plays imprint.