Rhys Thomas

Rhys Thomas (born 12 December 1978) is a BAFTA and EMMY award winning British director, producer, actor, comedian and writer.

He is most famous for writing, directing and creating the BBC/NBC Comedy drama series Dodger, a prequel to Oliver Twist and his roles in Star Stories, The Fast Show, Sirens and Nathan Barley. He also appears as Gary Bellamy on Radio 4's Down the Line and its television spin-off, Bellamy's People. Thomas was nominated for the Breakthrough Talent Award at the 2013 BAFTA Awards for producing and directing the feature-length documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender and subsequently won Best Arts Documentary in both the 2013 Rose D'Or and International Emmy Awards. He co-wrote, produced, directed and co-starred in the spoof music documentary series The Life of Rock with Brian Pern on BBC Four and BBC Two.

Rhys Thomas also wrote, produced and directed the comedy The Kemps: All True for BBC Two starring Gary and Martin Kemp which returned for a sequel, The Kemps: All Gold on BBC Two in December 2023.

Early life Thomas, who has a Welsh father and English mother, grew up in Wickford, Essex. While in the sixth form at Beauchamps High School in Wickford, Thomas made comedy videos with friends, forming a comedy group called Stay Alive Pepi with Stephen Burge, Tony Way and Glynne Wiley. Thomas began his TV career when he phoned the production company for Shooting Stars to ask for studio audience tickets. When they told him that they did not have any he asked if he could be given work experience. They happened to need a runner and employed him, sometimes filling in for George Dawes on the drums during rehearsals for the show. His breakthrough came when he showed Charlie Higson and Bob Mortimer some of his comedy tapes and Higson recruited Thomas as a supporting cast member on The Fast Show, in which he made recurring appearances, notably as Paul, the young assistant to the Charlie Higson character, oily used-car-dealer "Swiss Toni".

Thomas has appeared in several other comedy series including Happiness, Monkey Trousers, Nathan Barley, the Channel 4 comedy Star Stories playing Jude Law, Andrew Ridgeley, Warren Beatty, Gary Glitter, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kiefer Sutherland and The Fonz amongst others. He wrote for and appears in the Channel 4 sketch show Blunder. writing four episodes and co-writing others. He also toured with The Fast Show for its farewell tour in 2002. He subsequently appeared on several panel shows and talking head programmes including Fanorama with David Mitchell (2001/2), Does Doug Know with Daisy Donovan on Channel 4 (2002), Law of the Playground (2006), Comedian's Comedian (2005), Nathan Barley (2005), 8 Out of 10 Cats (2006), FAQ U (2005), Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (2006), Tittybangbang (2005) and Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2007). The programme was the 2007 winner of the Broadcasting Press Guild Radio Programme of the Year Award and in 2008 it received the Sony Gold Award for Best Radio Comedy. He also produced the critically acclaimed two-part Queen documentary Days of Our Lives, which was broadcast on BBC2 in May 2011.

In 2012 Rhys wrote a draft of the Freddie Mercury / Queen biopic which was due to star Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury. When the project stalled, he turned his script and many elements into his Emmy award winning documentary The Great Pretender, released in September.

In 2009 Thomas appeared in a mockumentary film Beyond the Pole starring with Stephen Mangan, Helen Baxendale and Mark Benton. A second series was broadcast on BBC Two, and a third series was broadcast on BBC Four in early 2016. A final one-off special aired in spring 2017. The series were memorable for the number of cameos and guest appearances by real life musicians, actors and personalities who appeared.

He was the lead in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 comedy-drama Sirens, first broadcast in June 2011.

In November 2013 Thomas appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

From 2016 to 2020, Thomas wrote and directed an annual comedy review show on BBC Four A Year in the Life of a Year reviewing the happenings of the previous year.

In 2019 Rhys Thomas and Lucy Montgomery wrote and starred the BBC One comedy special BUMPS also starring Amanda Redman, Clarke Peters and Lisa McGrillis. The show follows a 62 year old woman (Redman) who decides to have a baby with a donor. Series was indefinitely postponed due to COVID.

His latest project, Dodger, a prequel to Oliver Twist first aired on BBC One on 13 March 2022. Rhys directed all ten episodes, acted as showrunner and co wrote the series with Lucy Montgomery. The series won BAFTA, RTS and Writer’s Guild Awards and has sold all over the world.

Three new specials were filmed in the summer of 2022. The programme won a BAFTA and RTS Award for Best Scripted Children's Programme in 2022.

The latest Dodger, a 60 minute Christmas Special called ‘Coronation’ aired on BBC One at Christmas 2023 starring Christopher Eccleston as Fagin with Toby Stephens, Simon Callow, Paul Whitehouse, Nicola Coughlan and Lenny Rush. Four specials then followed, ‘Train’ in November 2022, ‘Christmas’, ‘Bag Egg’ an Easter Special in April 2023 and a Christmas special, also in 2023.

Thomas also wrote and directed the critically acclaimed mockmentary THE KEMPS: ALL TRUE, starring Martin and Gary Kemp as themselves in the hit BBC mockumentaries in 2020 and the sequel,THE KEMPS: ALL GOLD in December 2023.

He and Lucy Montgomery are currently writing three new comedy drama projects for ITV, SKY and the BBC.

Personal life Thomas is married to actress Lucy Montgomery. He is a member of the British show business charitable organisation the Grand Order of Water Rats.