Ben Sowden

Ben Sowden (born 1983) is an actor, writer and musician who first appeared as Thomas in Children's Ward (1989 and 1991) and John Reed in Jane Eyre (1997).

In July 2018 he released Left of Arc, a solo album of acoustic folk-punk music and a Christmas single in aid of the Trussell Trust in late 2019. In December 2020 he released No Filter Sky, an Americana-influenced EP recorded during lockdown.

As a writer he is a frequent contributor to satirical publications and in 2020 joined the cast of acclaimed online comedy The Tories voicing British political figures including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Thérèse Coffey and John Redwood. The spoof soap opera was written by long-term friend Henry Morris (satirist), who would subsequently reveal himself to be the Secret Tory.

He has recently played Rumpelstiltskin in pantomime, Lysander in an open-air production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and in February and March 2024, a total of seven roles in an immersive revival of Noël Coward's Tonight at 8.30, including Toby Cartwright in Ways and Means (play) and Henry Gow in Fumed Oak at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard, with further outdoor Shakespeare productions scheduled for summer 2024 and, in November, an as yet unannounced project at the Limelight Theatre in Aylesbury.

He lives with his wife and children in the south of England and also works in education.