John MacNeill

John Macneill trained at the Royal Central School of Speech Drama on the threeyear acting course Upon graduation and after an appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe he joined Bedside Manners to play Bob Cratchet in A Christmas Carol a smallscale musical tour of community venues in London As an associate director of the company John acted in wrote andor directed a further ten productions with the company which ultimately toured to venues nationwide including The West Yorkshire Playhouse The Barbican Centre and The Lyric Hammersmith He appeared in Buddy and She Loves Me in the West End as Tony in West Side Story at the National Theatre of Kenya and has worked in various scales of theatre all over the UK In 2002 he became Kneehighs admin and marketing coordinator then as codirector of Mundic Nation he played Jack in Hell Fire Corner coproduced with Hall for Cornwall John also played Pilia Borza in Barabas Marlowes Jew of Malta and Helyar Jan in Never Say Rabbit in a Boat by Nick Darke at HfC He played Rooster in Jerusalem touring outdoors for Common Players with Exeter Northcott He played two shows backtoback at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Polko and awardwinning The Interrogation A South West tour of oneman play The Coastguard in which he played Peter received a fivestar review Television work includes Black Books The Bill Doc Martin His Dark Materials Beyond Paradise and The Diplomat as well as numerous commercials while John is probably best known as Jacka Hoblyn in Poldark Series 2 4 and 5 At AMATA John has worked closely with 2nd and 3rd Year students on performance and acting for camera since 2015 His final productions The House of Bernarda Alba 2016 and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui 2017 won Best ActorActress awards with the cast of Ui also winning Best Ensemble Company at the AMATA festival