Tom Chambers

Tom's acting career started at the tender age of 12 when he was cast as the eponymous Dracula in a school production of The Dracula Spectacular. During his time at school, he was a member of the National Youth Music (NYMT) with whom he appeared in a variety of musical theatre shows.

After graduating from Guildford School of Acting, Tom appeared in fringe productions The Rover (Young Vic Studio), Journey's End (Courtyard) and Bloody Poetry (Brockley Jack), and a handful of short films – Eight Percent and Collapsed, before starring in the British film Fakers (2004). Roles followed in BBC mini-series Afternoon Play: Billy Two Sheds, Elizabeth and The Virgin Queen before Tom decided to return to his passion for tap dancing and undertook the enormously challenging task of re-creating Fred Astaire's solo tap routine from the 1937 film A Damsel in Distress which took nine months of practice and hundreds of hours spent painstakingly going through each and every one of Astaire's original steps frame by frame from an old VHS. It led by a strange twist of fate to Tom landing the leading role of Surgeon Sam Strachan in BBC1's primetime drama series Holby City. In 2008, Tom decided to hang up his scrubs after three years on the series to follow his dream of dancing, and took part in the sixth series of the BBC hit Strictly Come Dancing. Partnering championship dancer Camilla Dallerup, they won the show and were crowned Strictly Champions 2008.

Tom is patron of the National Youth Music Theatre and also a proud ambassador for the children's charity Starlight which grants wishes for seriously and terminally ill children. Tom became a father for the first time in May 2011 when his wife Clare gave birth to their son William.