Carolyn Tomkinson
- Biography
- Reviews
- Photos
Carolyn studied drama as a post-graduate student at Drama Studio, London. She was chosen to represent the school in the William Poel Memorial Festival at Shakespeare’s Globe where she played Beatrice in The Changeling.
More recently, the national press acclaimed her performance as Michelle in Dennis Kelly’s Debris at the BAC (Time Out Critic’s Choice Season) and the Traverse in Edinburgh (see reviews). Other theatre roles have included Adriana in The Comedy of Errors and Hermione/Perdita in The Winter’s Tale both for the Oxford Shakespeare Company; Karen in Extraction (Old Vic – reading); Anne in Matches For Monkeys (Chelsea Theatre); Victorine in Modern Man (New End); Susan in Five Kinds of Silence (Old Red Lion); Regan in Lear’s Daughters (Gulbenkian, Newcastle); Anna in Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens (Edinburgh Fringe); Yitzak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Cochrane Theatre) and a number of readings at the Soho Theatre.
Carolyn’s TV, film and radio work includes Angela Hardy (guest lead) in The Bill; Louise in BBC Radio 3’s The Colony; Laura in Marilyn and Helena in Can You Take It? She was recently seen on BBC 2 playing the lead in Disconnected, a short for Talking Dog Films. A fine dramatic actress, she also has brilliant comic timing and a great mezzo soprano voice.
Debris – BAC & Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
…as Michael and Michelle, Daniel Harcourt and Carolyn Tomkinson are superb. Tomkinson…blends unquestioning, child-like wonder with flashes of acute insight.
Sam Marlowe – The Times
…beautifully performed in Tessa Walker’s production by Daniel Harcourt and Carolyn Tomkinson……It’s a beautifully acted piece.
Paul Taylor – The Independent
…excellently acted production.
Lyn Gardner – The Guardian
…lovely eye-opening performances from Daniel Harcourt as Michael and Carolyn Tomkinson as Michelle.
The Stage
…Tomkinson, in particular, moves us effortlessly through fractured accounts of her childhood and teenage years simply by altering her expression.
Fiona Mountford – The Evening Standard
…(Debris) demands intense, bold acting and in Daniel Harcourt and Carolyn Tomkinson it gets just that. They give astonishingly committed performances that suck us into this abusive and guileless world with warmth and no little wit….Marvellous.
Madeleine North – Time Out – Critic’s Choice Season at the BAC
Daniel Harcourt and Carolyn Tomkinson are little short of superb, completely embodying their unlikely creation.
The Scotsman
Harcourt and Tomkinson both have an arresting stage presence and deliver this blackly humorous story with a mesmerising intensity and a gift for mimicry.
The Metro – Critics Choice
…Harcourt and Tomkinson’s interactions simply sparkle …Thanks to Tomkinson’s open manner in playing this little girl, it’s almost impossible not to take this character at her word – even after one suspects one should know better.
The British Theatre Guide
Matches For Monkeys – Chelsea Theatre
…fine performances from Mary Duddy…Gary Shelford…and Carolyn Tomkinson whose unhinged, infantile Anne can be heart-breakingly hilarious or just plain heart-breaking.
Sam Marlowe – The Times
Tomkinson is absolutely brilliant as the delusional drunk. Her incessant drinking wreaks havoc with her medication and she is adamant that there is a man in her settee.
Indie London
Mary Duddy as the maternal recluse, Gary Shelford as Declan and Carolyn Tomkinson as Anne make a plausible trio of misfits.
Michael Billington – The Guardian
Five Kinds of Silence – Old Red Lion
Helen Kirkpatrick and Carolyn Tomkinson are excellent as the daughters: touchingly arrested, painfully polite and dressed in the old-fashioned style of their mother.
Paul Taylor – The Independent
