Michael Thomas, who has died aged 66, was an accomplished stage and television actor. Rufus Norris, who in 2004 directed him in Festen at the Almeida, called him “a wonderful man, who … helped to make [Festen] one of the highlights of my career”.
Michael appeared in more than 100 plays. At Chichester he was the tough, loyal Kent to David Warner’s Lear (2005) and Sebastian, the central character in Rattigan’s In Praise of Love (2006). At the Old Vic he played Reverend Parris in Yael Farber’s acclaimed revival of The Crucible (2014). At the RSC Michael was Exeter in Ed Hall’s Henry V (2000). At the National his roles included the schoolmaster in Pillars of the Community (2005), de Stogumber in Shaw’s Saint Joan (2007) and Lafew in All’s Well That Ends Well (2009).
As well as Festen, at the Almeida he appeared to critical praise in Waste (2008), directed by Samuel West, and Before the Party (2013), directed by Matthew Dunster. West observed that he was “consistently the best thing in most of the jobs he did”. His last performance, in 2018, was a hilarious Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals at the Water Mill, Newbury.
Television included a Catherine Cookson drama serial, The Mallens (1980), and two popular series, Life Without George (1987-89) and Head Over Heels (1993). His final TV performance, as the Duke of Gloucester in The Crown, will be broadcast this autumn.
Michael was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where his father, Daniel Thomas, owned a draper’s business, and his mother, Norah (nee James), was a teacher. At Bishop’s Stortford college he was head boy and got hooked on acting. After reading English at Queens’ College, Cambridge, he started in rep with Manchester Library theatre, and soon made his mark in a wide range of roles including, in 1979, as Romeo, opposite Janet Maw, with the Prospect Theatre Company at the Old Vic.
While making the transition from handsome juvenile to middle age, Michael set up his own company, Imaginary Forces, and successfully toured Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet.
Michael’s commitment to the stage was matched by his passion for sailing. He was an expert skipper who sailed his 32ft Westerly Fulmar (I was his sailing partner) along the east and south coasts of England, Holland and its inland waterways, the Normandy coast and the Channel Islands. The scores of cruises, more often than not with his wife, the actor Selina Cadell (whom he met when they were in The Life of Galileo at the National and married in 1985) and friends, were enjoyable social occasions with meals aboard cooked by Michael (who had once worked in a Provençal kitchen). Michael was always fun to be with.
Nine years ago, when he was diagnosed with myeloma and two days before a cell transplant, Michael sailed to Ostend and back, crossing strong currents while negotiating sandbanks and avoiding container ships. It would have been a demanding passage even with a crew, but he did it single-handed.
A second stem-cell donation, from a research student, Jeremy Brice, extended Michael’s life way beyond the original prognosis, and enabled him to carry on acting and sailing until a few weeks before he died.
He is survived by Selina, their son, Edwin, and daughter, Letty.
