Tom Holmes

Tom Holmes (1957-) is a UK based entrepreneur, advertising executive and one-time South African actor.

Biography

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland he spent a large part of his early life in Africa and the Middle East, where his father worked as a doctor. His parents eventually ended up in Swaziland, and having finished his schooling in Reading, he went to Rhodes University, Grahamstown, to complete a B.A. Degree with majors in Psychology and Drama (1977-1979).

Tom obtained an initial six month contract as an actor with CAPAB, and after a two year spell as an actor in Cape Town (1980-1981), he moved into the corporate business world for the next 20 years, working with some of the world’s leading agencies and brands in UK and internationally, including Account Management roles at WCRS and Saatchi & Saatchi, Board Director of The Lowe Group and Executive Vice President of Grey Worldwide.

He is now Founder and Chairman of www.creativebrief.com, a provider of agency intelligence to brand marketers, and, until recently, he was also a Trustee of Rhodes University.

Contribution to South African theatre, film, media and performance

From December 1978 to April 1981 he regularly worked as an actor for the CAPAB (Cape Performing Arts Board), performing in a number of plays in the Nico Malan Theatre, the Grahamstown Festival and the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre. These include Die Plaasvervangers (Pieter Fourie, 1978), Romeo and Juliet (as "Paris",directed by [Leslie French]] and Roy Sargeant), The Shadow Box (Cristofer, 1980 - he played "Steve"), The Government Inspector (Gogol), Faust (Goethe) A Midsummer Night's Dream (directed by Philip Grout) directed by Philip Grout at Maynardville, Macbeth (directed by Philip Grout), Hitting Town (Grahamstown Festival, 1979) and numerous lunch time plays directed by Mavis Taylor at the Nico Malan Theatre, including The Form (Simpson).

While in South Africa Tom appeared in a two plays that were banned by the Government authorities, including Die Plaasvervangers by Pieter Fourie at the Nico Malan Theatre in 1978 and Hitting Town (directed by Andrew Buckland at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, 1979).

Sources

E-mail correspondence with Tom Holmes, 19 December 2015, 26 January, 2016.

Derryn Deavin, "Actor for the moment" in The Argus Argus Tonight, May 29 1980: p.7.

SACD 1980/81

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