These are some selected projects on TV, film and stage that the Cormoran Strike actor, Tom Burke, has been in since 2014.
TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS
The Musketeers
The Musketeers was a BBC drama series between 2014 and 2016 inspired by Dumas’s legendary characters. The setting for the series was the streets of 17th century Paris. Tom Burke portrayed the slightly mysterious and flawed character, Athos, a natural leader of men and talented swordsman of great integrity who commands respect and bears the scars of a tumultuous past. He eventually captains the Musketeers.
All three series of The Musketeers can be viewed on Prime Video. The series can be purchased on Amazon.co.uk.
War and Peace
This 6-episode TV series, which aired in 2016, covers the Russian conflict at its peak with Napoleon and the lives of five aristocratic families who face the possibility of their lives being changed forever. Tom plays the role of Fedor Dolokhov, a rogue who makes trouble for those around him. His philosophy is “Don’t get married — only have affairs with married women”.
War and Peace can be viewed on Prime Video. The DVD is also available to purchase through Amazon.co.uk.
The Crown
Tom Burke played the role of Derek “Dazzle” Jennings in series 4, episode 7: “The Hereditary Principle” (2020). Episode 7 focuses on Princess Margaret, her brief affair with “Dazzle” — who leaves her to become a Catholic priest — and Margaret uncovering a family secret.
Watch all seasons of The Crown on Netflix. All of the seasons’ DVDs are available to purchase through Amazon.co.uk.
Modern Love
Modern Love was a series of 6 episodes that each featured a different aspect of love. Tom starred as a character named Michael in Season 2, Episode 1: “On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down”, with Minnie Driver and Don Wycherley, shown in 2021. The episode sees Stephanie (played by Minnie Driver) coming to terms with her first husband’s death (Michael) and finding out whether she is ready to move on.
All episodes of Modern Love can be viewed on Prime Video.
The Lazarus Project
Burke plays Redbrov, one of the key roles in The Lazarus Project, a Sky Television science-fiction action drama series that aired in summer 2022. The Lazarus Project is a secret organisation that has the ability to turn back time to prevent mass extinction events. A second series is underway; filming started in late 2022, and it will likely return to our screens in 2023.
The Lazarus Project can be viewed on Sky TV, Sky Max.
FILMS
The Hooligan Factory
The Hooligan Factory is a 2014 spoof film about football hooliganism. Jason Mama plays Danny, who longs to live up to the image of his hooligan father who is in prison. Danny and the Hooligan Factory travel the length of Britain to establish their hooligan ways; however, the police are closing in on them. Tom Burke plays a character called Bullet, who is Danny’s right-hand man.
The Hooligan Factory is available on Prime Video and Apple TV and can be purchased on DVD through Amazon.co.uk.
The Souvenir
The Souvenir is a film released in 2019 that sees Tom Burke as a character called Anthony — a complicated, charismatic and untrustworthy man. Anthony is the love interest of the main character, becoming part of her life and eventually moving in with her, with his behaviour becoming more erratic. Tom also featured in a smaller way in The Souvenir Part II, which was shown in 2021.
The Souvenir can be viewed on BFI Player and Prime Video, and the DVD can be purchased through Amazon.co.uk.
The Show
This 2020 film, which was written by Alan Moore, sees Tom in the role of Fletcher Dennis. The film is described as fantasy new-noir and follows Fletcher Dennis, a detective arriving in Northampton searching for a missing artefact. Dennis uncovers a string of weird coincidences, and all leads seem to point towards a burned-down nightspot.
The Show can be viewed on Freevee and Prime Video.
Mank
Filmed in black and white, this is a biographical film about the screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Mank) and his development of the screenplay for Citizen Kane. Tom Burke plays the role of Orson Welles, with whom Mank collaborates to turn the first draft of Citizen Kane (1941) into a screenplay.
Mank is available to watch on Netflix.
True Things
True Things follows a young woman living on the edge of society who meets a stranger with whom she becomes intoxicated. Tom plays the enigmatic character Blond alongside Ruth Wilson in this psychological drama based on the book True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies.
True Things can be watched on MUBI with Prime Video Channels, on Prime Video or the DVD can be purchased through Amazon.co.uk.
Living
In Living, Bill Nighy portrays a man approaching retirement and facing a fatal illness who decides to finally embrace life in the last few months he has left. He meets up with Tom’s character, Sutherland, early in the film. Living was released in 2022, showing in selected cinemas in November.
Living is not yet on general release. The DVD can be pre-ordered through Amazon.co.uk.
The Wonder
The Wonder is another psychological drama, this time a period one set in Ireland in 1862. It follows a young girl, Anna, who stops eating for four months but miraculously remains alive. Florence Pugh plays an English nurse summoned to observe Anna. Tom Burke plays a charming journalist, William Byrne, who hides a haunted past.
The film can be found on Netflix, where it aired in Autumn 2022.
Klokkenluider
Klokkenluider is a dark comedy/thriller that follows a government whistleblower and his wife. Tom plays one of the close protection officers sent to guard them. The film’s title is Dutch for “whistleblower’. The film was directed by Neil Maskell, who also played Donald Laing in Strike, Career of Evil.
Klokkenluider was released in 2022 and had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in October. It is not yet available for general release.
Mad Max Furiosa
This is another feature film, part of the popular Mad Max franchise. It is said to be a prequel to Mad Max Fury Road (2015). Tom plays one of the key roles, although his character’s name has not been announced yet. Tom finished the filming of Troubled Blood in April 2022 and went straight to Australia to film this, returning to the UK in October 2022.
The film is in post-production and is not set to be released until at least 2024.
STAGE PLAYS
Reasons to Be Happy
Presented at Hampstead Theatre, this play was written by Neil La Bute as a sequel to Reasons to Be Pretty which Tom performed in 2011. It’s a funny, sad, romantic play about four people; Tom plays Greg, one of the four who have grown up together in an American town and had affairs before pairing up with each other in two, not always happy, relationships.
The Deep Blue Sea
This play had a run at the National Theatre in 2016, starring Tom Burke as Freddie Page alongside Helen McCrory and Peter Sullivan. The play is by Terence Rattigan and described as his masterpiece. Burke plays a former RAF pilot who has a tempestuous affair with Hester Collier (Helen McCrory). It’s a portrait of need and loneliness and repressed passion brilliantly performed by Tom and Helen.
The Deep Blue Sea can be viewed by subscribing to the The National Theatre at Home site
Don Carlos
Shown at the Northcott Theatre in 2018, this is a darker play about the fear of the Spanish Inquisition. Don Carlos turns for help to his friend Rodrigo, Marquis of Post, played by Tom Burke, who is a champion of the oppressed. He questions the monarch’s iron rule and becomes an unlikely power broker in the duplicitous court. Schiller’s Don Carlos is a man caught between passion and politics. The play is full of Shakespearean themes of equality and freedom of expression.
Rosmersholm
Tom Burke performed as Johannes Rosmer, a former clergyman and owner of the manor Rosmerholm. Some of you will recognise that epigraphs from Rosmersholm were used in the fourth Strike novel, Lethal White. Shown at the Duke of York Theatre in 2019, Rosmersholm has been called Ibsen’s darkest play. Rosmer and Rebecca (played by Hayley Atwell) are heartbroken romantics who cannot bear the world that bourgeois democracy has produced and have become fiercely left-wing while Rosmers brother-in-law, Kroll, is a right-wing bigot.
You can read our review of Rosmersholm here.
