Born in Heswall, Cheshire in 1941, I grew up in post-war London, where my stage debut was in a primary school play at the age of 10, but it was many, many years before I got truly bitten by the acting bug.
After marrying and migrating to Australia in 1976, for the next 20 years I worked for periods in music retailing, resort sales and vocational training, whilst also fronting a country music band and singing in a large community choir.
It was only after I retired from business in 1998 that I decided that pursuing a new career in theatre might be a good way to keep mind and body active. So I became involved in community theatre, working backstage, attending acting classes, doing occasional walk-on parts and appearing in short films.
Out of the blue, in 1999 Brisbane's ShowBriz Theatre Company offered me the lead role in an original musical play, "Bless 'Em All", which provided a fantastic kick-start to a new career.
That experience was followed with principal and supporting roles in a diverse range of community and professional productions, including drama, comedy, musicals, pantomime, dinner theatre and an arena spectacular.
While living on the Gold Coast I worked mainly with community theatre groups Spotlight, Gold Coast Little Theatre, Javeenbah and North Shore, in pro-am productions for the Gold Coast Arts Centre, The Gold Coast Production Company, Mercury's Wings Theatre Company, Front Row Theatre (Brisbane) and Ozworks Productions' "Phar Lap" arena spectacular, and professionally in Brisbane with Show-Briz Theatre Company, StageDoor Dinner Theatre and Crossbow Productions at the Powerhouse.
Most recently, since moving to the Moreton Bay area in 2015, I've appeared with Inside-Outside Theatre (Sunshine Coast) and Guys n' Dolls Revue (Brisbane).
A full listing of these productions, together with a tv commercial hero appearance, short film lead roles and feature film support/extra roles, can be found here.
Treading the boards came comparatively late in life, but a part-time music career had much earlier roots. As a teenager with an enthusiasm for 50s-60s rock 'n' roll, I bought a guitar, learned the basic chord progressions, joined a couple of "groups" - as bands were then known - with moderate local, but little financial, success, so I spent the next 20 or so years employed in advertising & PR, the airline industry, tourism consultancy and travelling the world as an aviation and travel industry journalist.
Having settled in Australia I joined "Magnum", a country rock band which through the mid-1980s played weekend pub gigs around S.E. and Western Queensland until it became necessary to spend more time attending to my other business interests.
After retirement, character roles in theatre kept me busy but I missed the buzz of playing live music. So in 2011, under the inspired pseudonym, "Mike Thomas", I formed and fronted Gold Coast rock 'n' roll band, "Rockit". After a busy and rewarding four years we disbanded in 2015 when I relocated to the Moreton Bay area, but I continued musical activity filling in on vocals and guitar with a couple of local bands and a spell playing rhythm guitar with a national touring tribute act.
My main activities these days centre around my specialist entertainment website consultancy,
Responsive-Website-Design-Qld.com.au, and providing editorial assistance to a local monthly newspaper.