We met in Frankfurt performing in the Tony Award-nominated Hand To God – a hilarious and heartfelt play that exposes what happens when you let your inner voice take control. From there we were asked, by an audience member, to lead a workshop at the King’s Fund for a group of NHS managers that needed some help with their communication skills. Four hours later, Who’s The Boss? was formed. Since then, we’ve been travelling around the UK, helping organisations develop more confident employees. Together, we address insecurities around presenting, interview skills and how best to work together as a group.
Why the name?
In Hand To God, Jason (played by Nick), tries to impress his crush, Jessica, by performing an old vaudeville routine with his sock puppet Tyrone. The routine is called ‘Who’s the Boss?’, the original inspiration behind Abbot and Costello’s famous Who’s on First? routine. You can watch our namesake routine in our original Finding your inner boss workshop.
Tom Machell
Tom Machell is an award-winning actor and writer from Newcastle upon Tyne who trained at the New York Film Academy. He has performed in a number Off-Broadway and Off-West End shows as well as being a series regular on Comedy Central’s sketch show Every Blank Ever and ITV’s The Emily Atack Show. Other TV credits include Vera (ITV), Emmerdale (ITV), Hullraisers, (Ch4), Doctors (BBC), Jerk (BBC), and Babs (BBC). Tom’s full CV can be found here: unitedagents.co.uk/tom-machell.
As a writer, Tom’s debut play Ticker was published by Playdead Press, and he won the 2021 Uk Film Festival and Los Angeles Motion Picture Film Festival for his short film script ‘A Spoonful’. As a screenwriter, he has been selected to be part of BAFTA’s prestigious program BAFTA CONNECT. Alongside performance work, Tom is co-founder of Who’s The Boss? running personal impact workshops for a number of organisations including the NHS, The King’s Fund, KPMG and Novartis.
Nick Hart
Nick Hart is an associate product manager at the Guardian. But he used to moonlight as an actor and puppeteer for a living, with notable theatre credits including War Horse (National Theatre, West End) and Olivier Award-nominated Alice’s Adventures Underground. He brings the best of both worlds to Who’s The Boss? — years of performance experience coupled with knowledge of the corporate world, particularly how to be a boss of your own nerves in pitches.
As an actor and puppeteer, theatre credits include Hand To God (English Theatre Frankfurt), Father Christmas (Lyric Hammersmith), the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures Underground (Les Enfants Terribles, The Vaults), Hand To God (Vaudeville Theatre, West End), puppeteering Joey in War Horse (Gillian Lynne Theatre, West End), Of Mice And Men (Watermill Theatre, Newbury), and SOLD (Pleasance, Edinburgh Festival Fringe). He can currently be seen puppeteering Joey in the National Theatre Live broadcast of War Horse.
