Biography
This biography is not official. Although great care has been taken to make this as accurate as possible, the information has been gathered from many different and not necessarily 100% reliable sources.
Tom Goodman-Hill was born in Enfield on 21st May 1968, but grew up in Newcastle. He read Drama and English at Warwick University in order to become a primary school teacher, in which time he became heavily immersed in extra-curricular theatre. After graduating, he became a supply techer and taught around Coventry.
As he taught, Tom’s best friend, Mike Punter - a playwright and director, continued to sidetrack him from fulltime teaching positions and convinced him to work as an actor professionally. Together with Punter and Julian Rhind-Tutt (probably best known for playing Mac in “Green Wing”), the three of them formed a theatre company devoted exclusively to doing Punter’s plays.
All three of them moved on professionally - Punter was taken on by a literary agency and Rhind-Tutt finished his training at Central. Tom got a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to do a two-year acting course where he joined his wife, Kerry, who was already there reading a course in stage design. He finished the course in 1995 with a massive debt, despite selling most of his possessions and doing as much bar work as he could, but very quickly moved into his first professional acting job.
That same year, he joined the Garrick Theatre in the West End for its return production of “An Inspector Calls” in the role of Eric Birling.
Since then, Tom has done lots of classical work with many theatre companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company – his largest role being that of Valentine in the 1998 production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”. In 2007, he was nominated for the “Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical” Olivier Award and won the “Best Supporting Actor in a Musical” Theatregoer’s Choice Award both for his roles as Lancelot and other characters in “Spamalot”.
Tom has also done lots of television and film work, including working with Sean Connery in the 2003 film “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” as Sanderson Reed. His television work is vast including lead roles in the ITV drama serial “Catherine Cookson’s A Dinner of Herbs” as Hal Royston and in the Channel 5 mini-series “Perfect Day” as Tom. He has also had many guest roles in mainstream television, including Ray in “The Office” and Reverend Golightly in “Doctor Who”.
As well as his theatrical, television and film work, Tom also does a lot of voice work on the radio. He has appeared in many plays, books and readings on Radio 4 and other smaller series, but his largest roles to date have been those of Anton Peterson, the right hand man to the title character in several series of “The House of...” and “Another Case of Milton Jones” and the Geordie Marxist Archie in the popular sitcom, “Hut 33”.
On top of his acting career, Tom still finds the time for his wife, Kerry, and his two children, Joe and Ellen.