Tom Rosenthal (actor)

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Tom Rosenthal
Tom Rosenthal 2010 (cropped).jpg
Rosenthal in August 2010
Birth nameThomas Alan Smith Rosenthal
Born (1988-01-14) 14 January 1988 (age 34)
London, England
Medium
  • Stand-up
  • television
Years active2007–present
Relative(s)Jim Rosenthal (father)
Oscar Levy (great-grandfather)
Websitetomrosenthal.net

Thomas Alan Smith Rosenthal (born 14 January 1988) is an English actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for his television roles as Jonny Goodman in Friday Night Dinner (2011–2020) and Marcus Gallo in Plebs (2013–present). He has written and performed three stand-up comedy shows: Child of Privilege (2011), благодаря (2013), and Manhood (2019–2020), the latter of which received critical acclaim at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Early life[]

Thomas Alan Smith Rosenthal was born in the Hammersmith area of London on 14 January 1988, the son of Newsnight producer Christine (née Smith) and television sports presenter Jim Rosenthal.[1] He is of German-Jewish descent through his father,[2][3][4] with one of his paternal great-grandfathers being German-Jewish physician and writer Oscar Levy.[5] He was once dubbed a "super-smart child of privilege" by the London Evening Standard.[6] He grew up in Cookham, Berkshire,[1] and read philosophy at King's College London.[7] His early comedic influences were the TV shows Spaced, Brass Eye, and Da Ali G Show.[8]

Career[]

In 2011, Rosenthal was cast as Jonny Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner,[9] alongside with Simon Bird, Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, and Mark Heap.[10] The sitcom focused on the weekly Shabbat dinner in the middle-class secular Jewish Goodman family in North London. Rosenthal played the younger son and he and Greig are the only two cast members who have Jewish roots in real life. The sixth and final series set the record for the highest audience for any comedy on Channel 4 or E4 for 16-to-34 year olds with a 49.3% share, and the average audience for the series was 3.9 million viewers.[11] Following the death of Ritter in 2021, it was announced that the show would not continue.[12][13][14] To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the start of the show, an anniversary special was aired in May 2021.[15]

In 2013, he was cast as Marcus in the ITV sitcom Plebs. The sitcom is a comedy set in Ancient Rome, following the main characters of Marcus, Stylax, and Grumio.[16] In 2020, it was announced that a sixth series would not be commissioned and instead a feature-length special would be released.[17]

In 2014, he created and starred in a comedy pilot for BBC iPlayer with Naz Osmanoglu, entitled Flat TV, which was later commissioned into a mini-series.[18]

In 2015, he played a brief role as Gary Thorp in the ITV drama series Broadchurch.

In 2019, he played Private Pike in Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes, a recreation of three missing episodes of the BBC sitcom Dad's Army. That same year, his third stand-up show Manhood received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[19]

Personal life[]

Rosenthal is an avid fan of Arsenal FC.[8]

Rosenthal said of his Jewish roots in 2011, "I get called a Jewish comedian and I'm totally fine with that, but I can't really inform either of the performances I've done this year with a Jewish background. But I have learnt a lot about the culture and it has given me great pride to do so."[20]

In 2019, Rosenthal began to speak out about his negative experience with circumcision and his opposition to it,[21] as well as speaking about how the experience intersected with his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder.[21] He stated, "The truth is that my parents were put in charge of my welfare and they did something to me that can never be remedied. [...] The last proper Jew in our family was four generations back. My dad was circumcised for medical reasons, which is another bloody rabbit hole because a lot of those cases are misdiagnosed. [...] The aim is to recognise that if this has happened to you and you feel fine about it, that's great. But if you don't feel fine, which I don't, then you're justified."[21]

Achievements[]

  • Laughing Horse New Act of the Year Commended Finalist 2008
  • Amused Moose Laugh-Off Finalist 2008
  • Paramount Funniest Student Winner 2009 (video available)
  • Chortle Student Comedian of the Year Finalist 2009
  • Nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Breakthrough Act of 2011, alongside Greg Davies, Micky Flanagan and Angelos Epithemiou.
  • Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year (Joint winner with Ben Target) 2011[22]

References[]

  1. ^ a b James Dunlop (20 February 2010). "Television football presenter Jim Rosenthal's son lands plum Channel 4 role". This is local London. Retrieved 2 May 2012.
  2. ^ Barker, Nicolas (13 November 2005). "ICSM Online Journal Obituaries; Albi Rosenthal". The Jewish Music Institute. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
  3. ^ Nicolas Barker (22 January 2008). "Maud Rosenthal: Oscar Levy's 'daughter-secretary'". The Independent. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
  4. ^ Simon Round (2 February 2008). "How Jewish is Jim Rosenthal?" (PDF). The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 2 May 2012.
  5. ^ Chris Kearney. "Levy Maud Ruth genealogy". blankgenealogy.com. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
  6. ^ "My ridiculously successful career: the super-smart child of privilege". Evening Standard. 14 January 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  7. ^ "My ridiculously successful career: the super-smart child of privilege". www.standard.co.uk. 15 January 2014.
  8. ^ a b Amira Hashish (15 January 2014). "My ridiculously successful career: the super-smart child of privilege Tom Rosenthal". The Evening Standard. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  9. ^ "Tamsin Greig and Pulling's Paul Ritter to star in Channel 4 comedy". The Guardian. 12 February 2010.
  10. ^ "Friday Night Dinner (TV Series 2011-2020)". IMDb. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  11. ^ "Channel 4 announce Friday Night Dinner (w/t)". Channel 4. 14 January 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  12. ^ "No More Episodes Of Friday Night Dinner Are Currently Planned". www.ladbible.com. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  13. ^ Toby Moses (6 April 2021). "Paul Ritter: Friday Night Dinner star dies of brain tumour at 54". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  14. ^ Rachel Aroesti (26 May 2021). "Farewell Friday Night Dinner: the joyous Jewish sitcom that became a national treasure". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  15. ^ Ella Kemp (13 May 2021). "'Friday Night Dinner' anniversary special to air later this month". NME. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  16. ^ Luke Holland (20 September 2014). "Plebs: 'Ancient Rome allows us to bring in gladiators and orgies'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  17. ^ Lauren Morris (30 April 2020). "ITV2's Plebs will end with a feature-length special". The Radio Times. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  18. ^ "Flat TV". BBC iPlayer. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  19. ^ "Manhood Tour Dates". Tom Rosenthal professional web site.
  20. ^ Kari Rosenberg (16 June 2011). "Tom turns into a political football". TotallyJewish.com. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 2 May 2012.
  21. ^ a b c Ryan Gilbey (13 August 2019). "'Whenever you have sex, it's on your mind': Tom Rosenthal on turning circumcision into comedy". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  22. ^ "Mercury Rising: Marissa Burgess reviews the Leicester Comedian of the Year". Chortle. 20 February 2011.

External links[]

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