John Tams' theatre includes work with United British Artists at the Old Vic, the RSC, co-directing with Jack Shepherd for Joint Stock and 7:84's TUC sponsored tour of The Six Men of Dorset during the 1984 miner's strike. Other music/stage credits include, with director/writer Bill Bryden and designer William Dudley, The Ship for the 1990 European City of Culture Festival in Glasgow and more recently The Big Picnic both filmed for the BBC. Previously for the National, he has worked as actor and Musical Director for Bill Bryden's company on productions including: The Mysteries, Larkrise, Dispatches, The Long Voyage Home, The Iceman Cometh, Candleford, The Crucible, Cinderella, Golden Boy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Don Quixote, Glengarry Glenross,
The World Turned Upside Down, Hughie, and The Good Hope many of which transferred to the West End or toured.
 

As Associate Director at The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, he adapted and co-directed, The Northern Mysteries based on the Wakefield cycle of Medieval plays and as Associate Director of The Building Company, co-directed with playwright, Trevor Griffiths' The Gulf Between Us for West Yorkshire Playhouse.
 

As Musical Director/Composer: Sergeant Musgrave's Dance at the Old Vic, The Crucible in a Birmingham/Salisbury Playhouse co-production,
The Knight of the Burning Pestle and Son of Man for the RSC, Uncle Vanya in the West End, and The Three Sisters, Of Mice and Men and Romeo and Juliet for Birmingham Rep.
 

TV and film includes Daniel Hagman in the ITV series Sharpe with Sean Bean, for which he was a script associate; Sons and Lovers, A Question of Leadership, Clapperclaw, Assembled Memories, The Raggedy Rawney, The Rainbow, God Speed co-operation, Ill Fares the Land, Back to the Roots, Here We Go A-Wassailing, A Little Night Music, Holy City, Crimestrike, The Gifted Adult, You Don't Have to Walk to Fly, Albion Market, Floodtide, Travelling Man, No Further Cause for Concern, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Investigation, The Fool, As You Like It, Six Characters In Search of an Author, Elidor, Uncle Silas, When Saturday Comes and Heartbeat.
 

Radio: Sacco and Vanzetti, HMS Ulysses, The Plutocrat, Volunteers, Daisy Miller, The Nativity, The Passion, Doomsday, The Charge of the Light Brigade, From Here To Eternity, George Silverman's Explanation, Pickwick Papers and most recently Felix Holt as producer, composer and actor. He was Executive Music Director on the critically acclaimed six-part Radio Ballads 2006 for BBC Radio 2 which won two prestigious Sony Academy Awards in May.
 

He has made over 50 albums as singer, musician or producer and continues to tour festivals and concert stages throughout the UK and Europe. He co-wrote the score for all the Sharpe films alongside Dominic Muldowney and has been a long standing collaborator with Jack Shepherd on numerous productions for stage, screen and radio. Later this year John is to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University.