Thomas Coombes: More Than Baby Reindeer’s PC Daniels

Baby Reindeer's PC Daniels, Steve McQueen's Small Axe, and a solo West End lead — the range one Netflix credit doesn't show.

May 5, 2026

107 4 minutes read

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Thomas Coombes Isn’t Just “The Baby Reindeer Guy” — Here’s Who He Actually Is

Search his name and you’ll land in a pile-up: a Curtis Brown talent page, a handful of “Baby Reindeer cast” listicles, and — increasingly — other people named Thomas Coombes entirely. The actor most people are looking for is Thomas Hamilton Coombes, a Southend-on-Sea-born, Leigh-on-Sea-raised performer whose career quietly stretches from EastEnders and Endeavour through Steve McQueen’s Small Axe to a solo lead role in the West End. Baby Reindeer is the reason he’s being searched right now. It isn’t the reason his career is actually interesting.

Quick answer: Thomas Coombes is a British actor, born in Southend-on-Sea and raised in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, trained at the Guildford School of Acting. He’s played PC Daniels in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, Goz across two series of Sky’s Save Me, appeared in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe: Mangrove, and took the solo title role in Death of England: Michael at London’s @sohoplace in 2024.

The one-role misconception

If you only know him from Netflix, that’s understandable — Baby Reindeer was a genuine cultural moment in 2024, and Coombes’s PC Daniels was a small but visible part of it. But theatre critics covering his West End run kept describing him the same way: “recently seen in the Netflix hit Baby Reindeer” as a footnote, not a headline. That’s a sign of an actor with a longer résumé than his most-searched credit suggests, which is a pretty common pattern for character actors who break through on a hit show years into a working career.

His own Instagram bio, in fact, lists his credits in a very different order than most search results would suggest: The Agency, Legends, Baby Reindeer on the TV side; Boiling Point, Living, Luther on film; and Death of England as its own line — treated as the credit he’s proudest of, not an afterthought.

From Leigh-on-Sea to the West End: the actual range

Coombes grew up in Leigh-on-Sea, started drama classes at six, and performed locally at the Palace Theatre in Westcliff-on-Sea and the Towngate Theatre in Basildon before training at the Guildford School of Acting and moving to London in 2018. After drama school, he worked with Birmingham Repertory Theatre and at Shakespeare’s Globe — the unglamorous stage groundwork that rarely makes it into a “known for” list but is where most working British actors actually spend their early years.

On screen, his credits split into three distinct tiers, and it’s the spread across them — not any single role — that makes him worth writing about:

Mainstream British TV. Early appearances included Jekyll and Hyde, Hatton Garden, Knightfall, London Kills and Stan Lee’s Lucky Man. These are the bread-and-butter credits — supporting parts in long-running or mid-budget British series — that most profiles skip past on the way to the “famous” roles.

Prestige and streaming drama. Coombes played Goz across both series of Lennie James’s Save Me and its follow-up Save Me Too, appeared in Steve McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe (in the Mangrove instalment), and turned up in Luther: The Fallen Sun and the 2021 kitchen-set film Boiling Point. This is the tier that got him noticed by casting directors working in serious, awards-adjacent British drama — well before Baby Reindeer existed. His later Netflix work extended into Black Doves and Legends.

A solo West End lead. In 2024, Coombes took the title role in Death of England: Michael at @sohoplace, playing a grieving, angry, racially conflicted young Englishman in a demanding one-man show — part of Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s Death of England trilogy, performed alongside Paapa Essiedu, Erin Doherty and Sharon Duncan-Brewster. It ran 15 July to 28 September 2024. Reviewers were largely enthusiastic: The Reviews Hub called it a role that lets an actor show why it’s “such a great role,” while Theatre & Tonic and Afridiziak Theatre News both singled out Coombes’s performance as the thing holding the 100-minute solo show together. That’s a genuinely different kind of proof point than a supporting TV credit — carrying an entire West End production alone, night after night, is not something every screen actor is asked to do.

Confirmed vs. often claimed

It’s worth being precise about what’s actually documented here, because a lot of celebrity-profile pages blur the two.

Confirmed, with sourcing:

Born Southend-on-Sea, raised Leigh-on-Sea, Essex; trained at Guildford School of Acting
Played PC Daniels in Baby Reindeer (Curtis Brown talent listing)
Played Goz in Save Me and Save Me Too (Wikipedia, citing a 2020 HeyUGuys interview)
Appeared in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe: Mangrove and in Boiling Point (2021)
Starred as Michael in Death of England: Michael at @sohoplace, 15 July–28 September 2024
Earlier work with Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe
Also credited in Black Doves, Legends and The Agency (per his verified Instagram and Curtis Brown listings)

Often claimed but not verifiable from public sources: his exact age/date of birth, marital or relationship status, and net worth. These show up on lower-quality celebrity database sites, but no agency page, production credit, or reputable press profile confirms them. If a page states his birthday or a partner’s name with confidence, treat that as unverified — it isn’t backed by anything an editor could check.

Why the search results get confusing

Part of the reason “Thomas Coombes” throws up a mixed bag is simply that it’s a fairly ordinary English name — there are other people with it who have nothing to do with acting. The actor in question is specifically Thomas Hamilton Coombes, the Essex-raised performer with the Curtis Brown representation and the credits above. If a result doesn’t connect back to Save Me, Small Axe, Boiling Point, Death of England or Baby Reindeer, it’s probably not him.