Tom Wells | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, England |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2009–present |
Tom Wells is an English actor and playwright. His professional career began after writing breakthrough play The Kitchen Sink in 2011, a play that won him the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. Wells has written numerous critically acclaimed plays, including Me, as a Penguin (2010), Jumpers for Goalposts (2013), Folk (2016), Broken Biscuits (2016) and Drip (2018). As well as being a playwright, Wells has acted in television series including Doctors (2016–2017), EastEnders (2019–2020), Bancroft (2020) and Waterloo Road (2024–present).
Wells was born and raised in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, on a farm. He grew up on a council housing estate. Wells is gay and came out when he was a teenager. An "untraumatic" experience, he has stated that it was fairly obvious that he was gay since he enjoyed playing with Sylvanian Families. [1]
Wells has admitted that he had no interest in theatre growing up, recalling being 14 and having to read out a poem in a school assembly, an experience he hated. After school, he went on to attend the University of Oxford with the intention of writing novels. However, after enrolling, he joined a free theatre scheme there and found it to be his passion. [1] Wells was once walking out of his council estate flat wearing a stripy beanie, which he remarked as the "least gay thing" about him. However, a group of boys ridiculed the hat and Wells himself with homophonic insults, later pulling him into an alleyway and attacking him. [1]
After university, Wells began writing plays, debuting with About a Goth in 2009. [2] He followed it up with Me, as a Penguin. [3] His breakthrough came in 2011 after writing The Kitchen Sink, which played at the Bush Theatre. The play won him the 2011 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, [4] He was inspired by family comedies including The Royle Family and Gavin & Stacey , and due to moving to London for his degree and work, he was missing his family and wanted to explore family themes. [5] The Guardian critic Michael Billington wrote that despite it being too soon to shout Wells' name "from the rooftops", he could see an "authentic comic talent" in him. [6] A year later, Wells made his professional acting debut in the film Betsy & Leonard (2012), as well as appearing in various short films across that time period. [7]
Wells' 2013 play, Jumpers for Goalposts, explored a group of gay characters in a football team. [8] He wanted to steer away from the common media trope of having a "token gay" character, as well as representing gay people more accurately. He told BBC News: "a lot of the gay characters I see on stage are in quite a sexualised environment or a catty environment of a club. My experience of growing up as a gay man is you have mates and you do stuff that everyone does". [4] After an initial run in Watford, it toured across England. [4] That same year, he wrote a new version of Jack and the Beanstalk for pantomime season. [9] It played at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. [10] In 2014, Symphony, a play he co-wrote with Ella Hickson and Nick Payne, debuted. [11] Also in 2014, his play Jonesy was adapted for BBC Radio 4. [12] Later that year, he returned to writing for pantomime season with a version of Dick Whittington and His Cat . [13]
2015 saw Wells' return to pantomime, writing Cinderella , again for the Lyric Theatre. [14] In 2016, Wells debuted the play Folk. He was again complimented by The Guardian, with Alfred Hickling writing that Wells' "knack for imbuing his characters with warmth and dignity lights up this play". [15] Later that year, he debuted Broken Biscuits, a play written about three school-leavers who form a band. [16] 2016 also saw Wells' first mainstream television role after he was cast in the recurring role of Max Bauman in the BBC soap opera Doctors . [17] He appeared until 2017, after which he wrote the musical Drip. [18] It became his debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was developed with youth actors from Hull. [19] Wells and Drip director Jane Fallowfield notably ran workshops with various LGBTQ+ groups for the play. [20]
In 2019, Wells wrote Great North Run for BBC Radio 4, which was billed as BBC's "drama of the week". [21] That same year, Wells was cast in a regular role for the BBC flagship soap opera EastEnders . He was cast as villain Leo King, the son of paedophile Tony King (Chris Coghill), a man who abused Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) as a child. [22] His storyline climaxed in Leo's death at the hands of Whitney, following him becoming obsessed with her and living in her attic to spy on her. [23]
After EastEnders, Wells appeared in the second series of ITV1's Bancroft in 2020. [24] Later that year, he starred in the web series Crying Out Loud. [25] Wells returned to writing plays in 2021, debuting Big Big Sky, which toured the United Kingdom. [26] Then in 2024, he was cast as maths teacher Marc Todd in BBC's Waterloo Road . [27]
| Year | Title | Venue(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | About a Goth | Paines Plough |
| 2009 | Notes for First Time Astronauts | Paines Plough |
| 2010 | Me, as a Penguin | UK tour |
| 2011 | Spacewang | Hull Truck Theatre |
| 2013 | Jumpers for Goalposts | UK tour |
| 2013 | Cosmic | Roots Theatre |
| 2013 | Jack and the Beanstalk | Lyric Theatre |
| 2014 | Jonesy | Nabokov Theatre |
| 2014 | Dick Whittington and His Cat | Lyric Theatre |
| 2016 | Cinderella | Lyric Theatre |
| 2016 | Folk | UK tour |
| 2016 | Broken Biscuits | Paines Plough |
| 2018 | Drip | UK tour |
| 2018 | Stuff | National Theatre Connections |
| 2020 | Lentils | Middle Child Theatre |
| 2021 | Big Big Sky | UK tour |
| 2024 | Brian | Hull Truck Theatre |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Betsy & Leonard | Rory | Film |
| 2014 | Maestra | Andy | Short film |
| 2015 | Broken Eden | Pallas | Short film |
| 2015 | Detach | Samm | Short film |
| 2016 | Bridge High | Doctor Roberts | Main role |
| 2016 | Bearable | Jack (voice) | Film |
| 2016–2017 | Doctors | Max Bauman | Recurring role |
| 2017 | Hunted | Jake | Short film |
| 2017 | Habit | News Reporter | Short film |
| 2017 | Angst | Brother | Short film |
| 2019 | Solus | Cobb | Short film |
| 2019 | Cult | Daniel Love | Short film |
| 2019 | 6 Underground | Ranger Lieutenant Richardson | Film |
| 2019–2020 | EastEnders | Leo King | Regular role |
| 2020 | Bancroft | Adam Mullen | Recurring role |
| 2020 | Murder in the Carpark | Alistair Morgan | Main role |
| 2020 | Crying Out Loud | Thom | Main role |
| 2024–present | Waterloo Road | Marc Todd | Recurring role |