Josh Finan was born in the early 1990s and raised on the Wirral growing up in a family with no ties to the acting world and the film industry. He went to the Wirral Grammar School for Boys in Bebington and it wasn’t until he started attending drama classes on Friday evenings, run by an older woman above a restaurant, that he decided acting could, indeed, be a career as he wasn't always very confident at school. The after-school thing was only 50p a week, which made it affordable in a working-class area, and it wasn't run by the school, it was run by a wonderful lady, Julie Whitehead, teaching amateur drama. Now in her '80s and still active, she works with children with special needs doing pantomimes with her students. She's had the most amazing life being part of a famous chorus line that performed at Radio City and even danced with Marlene Dietrich. She then set up this drama society back in the Wirral to give kids a space to express themselves and stay out of trouble. Josh ended up studying English Lit as a degree at Sheffield University where he met a lot of like-minded people. They'd heard of a drama school and recommended it to him. Eventually, having begged, borrowed, and stole to get the cash to fund a two-year course in Bristol at the Bristol Old Vic, he graduated from there in 2016. His first roles were as Aiden in the TV mini series 'Guerilla' (2017) and as Peter in the the period drama 'The Current War' (2017). His roots then developed in the theatre, included Royal Shakespeare Company adaptations of 'Romeo and Juliet' (2018), 'Macbeth' (2018) and 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' (2018). He remembers the second film he did was 'Hellboy' (2019) where he played a monk with no lines who gets his jaw ripped out by a pig demon, voiced by Stephen Graham. Then he had a strong part in 'Shook by Samuel Bailey' (2019) at the Southwark Playhouse, London in which three teenage dads inside a young offenders' institution attend parenting classes. Josh plays Cain who is verbally incontinent and eminently lovable as a manic Liverpudlian, who hides his pain behind hyperactive verbal barrages and jokes about his self-harm scars. This later transferred to the West End in 2020 and was nominated for seven Off West End Awards. More smaller roles followed in 2020 in 'Leaving the Forces', 'Surge', Doctors' and 'Stile' and the following year he had a major breakthrough when he shot to stardom with his portrayal of Marco in Season one of 'The Responder' (2022) for which he earned a BAFTA nomination.
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| Emily Fairn who plays troubled drug addict Casey, with Josh as Marco |
His stage work continued with 'Peggy For You' (2021) at Hampstead Theatre and 'Southbury Child' (2022) at the Bridge Theatre. Next came an unenviable task of capturing the young Gerry Adams in 'Say Nothing' (2024). As there were very few recordings of a young Gerry Adams, Josh decided to use his own voice as best he could by listening to tapes. He also watched an interview with Josh O'Connor about playing Prince Charles in 'The Crown'. He had tuned into a certain thing that Charles did where every time he got out of the car, he'd adjust his cuff links. Josh says, "So I was like, 'let me try and find whatever his [Adams’s] equivalent of that is.' And I saw a video of him pushing up his glasses and then scratching his nose, pushing up his glasses and scratching his nose. So I thought I’d do that." Back to theatre work he then completed a run of 'The House Party' (2024), a modern update of Strindberg classic 'Miss Julie' at the Chichester Theatre Festival.
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| As Dan in 'Waiting For The Out' |
Now building an extraordinary body of work across film, TV, and theatre, including the critically acclaimed FX drama 'Say Nothing', he then appeared in Season 7 of Charlie Brooker's dystopian Netflix show, 'Black Mirror' (2025) which explores the dark side of technology. Josh admitted he was a fan of the series before being cast. Kicking off 2026 with two major releases, Josh firstly leads the cast of the BBC’s 'Waiting For The Out' (2026). As Dan, a young philosopher, each week he leads discussions about dominance, freedom, luck and other topics that have troubled philosophers for thousands of years – topics that gain a new meaning when seen through the prisoners' eyes - both igniting passions and creating tension. However, as the weeks go by, Dan battles jointly with the complications of the job itself and the mental crisis it provokes in him as he becomes certain he too will end up behind bars. Then he returns to Netflix as Josh in Lisa McGee’s hotly anticipated series 'How to Get to Heaven From Belfast' (2026). With his career entering a powerful new chapter, Josh is poised to become one of the defining actors of his generation.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2026/04/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-chris.html
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