Jonathan Holmes (born 28 October 1975, in

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

) is a UK theatre director and writer. Jonathan lives in North London. He is a cousin of army officer William Thomas Forshaw and film director

Cy Endfield Cyril Raker Endfield (November 10, 1914 – April 16, 1995) was an American screenwriter, director, author, magician and inventor. Having been named as a Communist at a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing and subsequently blacklisted ...

Education

He attended

Wath Comprehensive School , motto_translation = Look to Better Things , address = Sandygate , city/town = Wath-upon-DearneRotherham , county = South Yorkshire , postcode = S63 7NW , country ...

The University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

(where he emerged with a first-class degree), and completed a Ph.D. at The

Shakespeare Institute The Shakespeare Institute is a centre for postgraduate study dedicated to the study of William Shakespeare and the literature of the English Renaissance. It is part of the University of Birmingham, and is located in Stratford-upon-Avon. The Insti ...

Career

For six years, he taught Drama at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

, leaving as a Senior Lecturer in 2007. During his time there, he wrote two books: ''Merely Players'' (about the rhetoric of classical acting) and ''Refiguring Mimesis'' (with Adrian Streete, about aesthetics). 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 John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

, and organised the first live performance for four centuries of several of Donne’s songs at

St. Paul’s Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London ...

, in 2005. Performers included Dame

Emma Kirkby Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, (; born 26 February 1949) is an English soprano and early music specialist. She has sung on over 100 recordings. Education and early career Kirkby was educated at Hanford School, Sherborne School for Girls in Dors ...

Carolyn Sampson Carolyn Sampson (born 18 May 1974) is an English soprano in opera and concert. Specialising in historically informed performance, she has sung in Masaaki Suzuki's recording project of Bach cantatas and has appeared at the English National Opera. ...

and

The Sixteen The Sixteen are a United Kingdom-based choir and period instrument orchestra; founded by Harry Christophers, they started as an unnamed group of sixteen friends in 1977, giving their first billed concert in 1979. The group performs early Engl ...

. The event sold out, and the proceeds were donated to the charity Peace Direct. In 2011, he also wrote and directed ''

Into Thy Hands ''Into Thy Hands'' is a 2011 play by Jonathan Holmes on the life of John Donne and in particular his actions during 1611 and his relationships with those involved in translating the King James Version. Its title quotes Psalm 31 and Luke 23:46, f ...

'', a biographical play on Donne. In 2007, he wrote, directed and produced the play ''Fallujah'', starring

Harriet Walter Dame Harriet Mary Walter (born 24 September 1950) is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011 ...

Imogen Stubbs Imogen Stubbs (born 20 February 1961) is an English actress and writer. Her first leading part was in '' Privileged'' (1982), followed by ''A Summer Story'' (1988). Her first play, ''We Happy Few'', was produced in 2004. In 2008 she joined '' ...

and

Irène Jacob Irène Marie Jacob (born 15 July 1966) is a French-Swiss actress known for her work with Polish film director Krzysztof Kieślowski. She won the 1991 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Kieślowski film ''The Double Life of Vero ...

. It ran in a specially tailored space on

Brick Lane Brick Lane (Bengali: ব্রিক লেন) is a street in the East End of London, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, crosses the Bethnal Green Road before reaching the busiest ...

, with a score by

Nitin Sawhney Nitin Sawhney , D.Mus (; born 1964) is a British musician, producer and composer. A recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017, among multiple international awards throughout his career. Sawhney's work combines Asian a ...

, and design by the conceptual artist

Lucy Orta Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Luci ...

. At the time, it was the only significant account of the sieges of

Fallujah Fallujah ( ar, ٱلْفَلُّوجَة, al-Fallūjah, Iraqi pronunciation: ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jew ...

, and is composed entirely of verbatim testimony. In 2008, he collaborated with the choir and period instrument orchestra

and actors

Alan Howard Alan Howard may refer to: * Alan Howard (actor) (1937–2015), English actor * Alan Howard (cricketer) (1909–1993), English cricketer * Alan Howard (engineer) (1905–1966), American engineer * Alan Howard (hedge fund manager) (born 1963), hedge f ...

and

Virginia McKenna Dame Virginia Anne McKenna, (born 7 June 1931) is a British stage and screen actress, author and wildlife campaigner. She is best known for the films ''A Town Like Alice'' (1956), '' Carve Her Name with Pride'' (1958), ''Born Free'' (1966), and ...

in a series of concerts at the

South Bank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...

. He has also written and directed two short films starring

Rebecca Lenkiewicz Rebecca Lenkiewicz (born 1968) is a British playwright and screenwriter. She is best known as the author of ''Her Naked Skin'' (2008), which was the first original play written by a living female playwright to be performed on the Olivier stage of ...

Elliot Cowan Elliot Aidan Cowan (born 9 July 1976) is an English people, English actor, known for portraying Corporal Jem Poynton in ''Ultimate Force'', Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mr Darcy in ''Lost in Austen'', and Ptolemy I Soter, Ptolemy in the 2004 film ''Alexan ...

and

Julian Ovenden Julian Mark Ovenden (born 29 November 1976) is an English actor and singer. He has starred on Broadway and West End stages, in television series in both the United Kingdom and United States, in films, and performed internationally as a concert ...

, and is nearing completion on a feature documentary, ''Perpetual Peace''. This last includes interviews with peacemakers around the world and features contributions by

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

Karen Armstrong Karen Armstrong (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and ...

George Monbiot George Joshua Richard Monbiot ( ; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a regular column for ''The Guardian'' and is the author of a number of books. Monbiot grew up in Oxfordsh ...

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

and

Noreena Hertz Noreena Hertz (born 24 September 1967) is an English academic, economist and author, and has hosted her show, "MegaHertz: London Calling," on Sirius XM's Insight channel since 28 August 2017. She has been Honorary Professor at the Institute for ...

, among others. In 2008, he set up The Jericho House, a movable performance venue specialising in cross-media collaborations around the theme of hospitality. The Jericho House is groundbreaking in its use of sound and music, leading Holmes to set up a partnership with The Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience examining the effect of sound on the brain. In 2009, Jericho produced a critically acclaimed site-specific testimony play about the neglect of New Orleans after the hurricane. It was called simply 'Katrina,’ and the run sold out completely. In 2010, Holmes began a campaign for continuing state support for the arts with an event called ‘What’s the point of art?’ attended by many influential people from the creative industries. The resulting public debate led to all three main parties committing to maintaining arts funding at 2009 levels at the next spending round.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, Jonathan 1975 births Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Alumni of the University of Birmingham English dramatists and playwrights English film directors English theatre directors People educated at Wath Academy Living people English male dramatists and playwrights