Jack Holden (actor)

Jack Holden is an English actor, writer and producer from Tonbridge in Kent, who graduated from the Bristol Old Vic theatre school in 2011.^[1] He is most notable for playing the lead role in the West End play War Horse,^[1] and in the ITV series Lewis.^[2] He is represented by Lindy King of United Agents.^[2]

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.^[3]

His performance as Bobby in an adaptation of Awkward Conversations With Animals I've F*cked by Rob Hayes during the 2014 Edinburgh Finge received further critical acclaim.^[4]

Holden has also performed frequently with the Royal Shakespeare Company in such productions as The Shoemaker's Holiday by Thomas Dekker,^[5] and in the world première of Tim Morton Smith's Oppenheimer^[6] 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.^[7]

Holden recently recorded several episodes of the BBC Radio drama Home Front,^[8] 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.^[9]

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^[10] 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.^[11] Holden is also appearing in the 2017 film Journey's End.

More recently Holden was in the Almeida Theatre's production of Ink by James Graham and in 2019, the Bath Theatre Royal production of My Cousin Rachel (the play by Joseph O'Connor based on the Daphne Du Marier 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 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 Stone which premiered at BFI Flare 2018.

In May 2021 Holden performed in his self-written one-man show Cruise at The Duchess Theatre, one of the first West End shows to be opened post-COVID lockdown, telling 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.

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