ABOUT
Rhys Thomas is a BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning writer, director, producer and actor whose career spans comedy, drama, documentary and music.
He is the creator, writer, director and showrunner of the acclaimed BBC comedy-drama Dodger, a prequel to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Starring Christopher Eccleston as Fagin, the series has won BAFTA, Royal Television Society and Writers’ Guild awards and has been sold around the world. Rhys directed the entire series and its subsequent specials, co-writing them with Lucy Montgomery.
Born and raised in Wickford, Essex, Rhys began his television career while still at school. At 17, he secured work experience on the BBC’s Shooting Stars with Reeves and Mortimer, initially working as a runner before becoming a writer, performer and script editor.
While studying at sixth form, Rhys was also writing and filming comedy sketches with his friends Tony Way and Steve Burge. He gave their tapes to Charlie Higson and Bob Mortimer, who liked what they saw and gave him work on The Fast Show and Bang Bang It’s Reeves and Mortimer, directed by Mark Mylod.
At 19, Rhys had his first sitcom, Fun at the Funeral Parlour, commissioned, making him the youngest person to have his own sitcom on the BBC. The series was made for BBC Choice, which later became BBC Three.
Since then, Rhys has created, written and directed a wide range of original comedy, including The Life of Rock with Brian Pern, The Kemps: All True, The Kemps: All Gold and the BBC Four specials A Year in the Life of a Year.
Rhys was also a co-writer and star of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 comedy Down the Line, playing the straight-faced radio host Gary Bellamy. Built around an improvised phone-in format, the series featured a cast of comedians playing fictional callers. It became a major radio success, winning the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Radio Programme of the Year award and a Sony Gold Award for Best Radio Comedy. The format was subsequently adapted for television as Bellamy’s People, again starring Rhys as Gary Bellamy.
Across his work, Rhys has collaborated with an extraordinary range of talent, from some of Britain’s leading comedy performers to major names in film, television and music.
Alongside comedy, Rhys has developed a substantial career in music and documentary filmmaking. His long-standing creative relationship with Queen has seen him direct and produce documentaries, music films and DVD releases, working closely with Brian May and Roger Taylor. He produced the acclaimed BBC documentary Queen: Days of Our Lives and directed and produced Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender. The latter earned him a BAFTA nomination and won both the International Emmy Award and the Rose d’Or for Best Arts Documentary.
As a performer, Rhys’s credits include The Fast Show, Star Stories, Harry & Paul, Death in Paradise, Nathan Barleyand Swiss Toni. He also played the lead in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 comedy-drama Sirens, alongside Kayvan Novak and Richard Madden. His broadcasting work includes presenting the XFM Breakfast Show and The Wall with Alexa Chung, as well as winning Celebrity Mastermind.
Rhys now concentrates primarily on writing, directing and producing. He is currently developing a new comedy for the BBC.
For writing/directing contact Cathy King at 42 Management
For acting Ness Evans at 42 Management