Jonathan Holmes

Who is Jonathan Holmes?

Jonathan Holmes is a UK theatre director and writer. He attended Wath Comprehensive School, The University of Birmingham and completed a Ph.D at The Shakespeare Institute. He is a cousin of army officer William Thomas Forshaw and film director Cy Endfield.

For six years he taught Drama at Royal Holloway, University of London, leaving as a Senior Lecturer in 2007. During his time there he wrote two books: Merely Players and Refiguring Mimesis. He also set up a new degree programme in Drama and English.

During this first career he became an expert in the work of John Donne, and organised the first live performance for four centuries of several of Donne’s songs at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 2005. Performers included Dame Emma Kirkby, Carolyn Sampson and The Sixteen. The event sold out, and the proceeds were donated to the charity Peace Direct. In 2011 he also wrote and directed Into Thy Hands, a biographical play on Donne.

In 2007 he wrote, directed and produced the play Fallujah, starring Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs and Irène Jacob. It ran in a specially tailored space on Brick Lane with a score by Nitin Sawhney and design by the conceptual artist Lucy Orta. At the time it was the only significant account of the sieges of Fallujah, and is composed entirely of verbatim testimony. In 2008 he collaborated with the choir and period instrument orchestra The Sixteen and actors Alan Howard and Virginia McKenna in a series of concerts at the South Bank Centre.