Ram John Holder

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Ram John Holder (born in 1934 in Guyana) began his performing career as a folk singer in New York. In 1962 he came to London and worked with Pearl Connor's Negro Theatre Workshop initially as a musician and later as an actor. His theatre career saw him perform on the major stages in London such as the Royal National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and Bristol Old Vic.

John Boorman cast him as the Negro preacher in the 1969 comedy feature film, Leo the Last, about race relations that was set in a Notting Hill slum in West London. He also sang the songs in the film. He again played a preacher in the Horace Ové directed film Pressure in 1975, made a cameo performance in My Beautiful Laundrette (d. Stephen Frears, 1985) as a poet and appeared in the Sankofa Film and Video's debut feature The Passion of Remembrance in 1986.^[1]

Holder played the role of Porkpie in hit comedy series Desmond's which was written by Trix Worrell and broadcast on Channel 4 from 1989 until 1994. He later had his own spin-off series Porkpie when Desmond's came to an end.

Holder has appeared in several television productions and joined the cast of EastEnders in late September 2006, playing Cedric Lucas. His last stage performance to date was as Slow Drag in the 2006 revival of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester

Holder is a talented musician^[2] who has recorded two albums; Black London Blues (1969) and Bootleg Blues (1971).^[3]

He has also appeared in Little Britain and as "Flying Freddy Mersa" in episodes of BBC Children's Series The Story of Tracy Beaker. In May 2008 Holder appeared in an episode of the BBC drama The Invisibles.