The Busker Who Built a Superhero Empire — And Uses It to Fight Bullying

Before the red spandex and the Deadpool mask, before the sold-out seasons and the national touring schedule, Samwise Holmes was a teenager flipping off single-storey rooftops with his stepbrother, just to see if he could.

That instinct — to take a risk, commit fully, and make it look effortless — turns out to be a pretty accurate description of everything Samwise has built since.

The Kid Who Wouldn't Pick a Lane

Samwise came up through Brisbane's performance scene the unorthodox way. He was busking — piano and vocals — before he trained formally, and by the time he enrolled at Sydney's Brent Street at 18, he already had a feel for what an audience wanted. By 19 he was musical directing productions of Grease. Most people his age were still figuring out what to study.

But the backflips kept calling. The rooftop sessions with his stepbrother had evolved into kids' superhero parties by 2014 — a small hustle that quietly became something more serious. Action Reaction Entertainment, the production company he built around it, now stages high-level stunt and theatre shows nationally.

"It's meant to be ballsy," he says of his approach to performance. "The DNA is just to be no holds barred and a little bit shocking or outrageous."

The Serious Work Behind the Silliness

What's easy to miss beneath the showmanship is a genuine social purpose. Samwise is also the creator of Backflips Against Bullying — an evidence-based school program that uses high-level acrobatics to engage students with practical social skills.

It came from a personal place. Having been bullied himself, Samwise recognised something most people overlook: kids who won't sit still for a guest speaker will watch, rapt and silent, while someone executes a perfect standing back tuck. He used that moment of attention to say something worth hearing.

The program now has multiple teams touring schools nationally. And in a very practical sense, it funded the leap into major-theatre production — channelling the revenue from school halls into the "expensive endeavour" of MARVELous: The Show.

The Show Is the Person

MARVELous — part circus, part cabaret, entirely irreverent — is doing strong numbers at venues like the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane. But it's really just the most visible expression of a creative philosophy Samwise has been developing since those first rooftop sessions.

He plays Deadpool, the show's narrator and provocateur. About half of every performance is unscripted audience interaction. No two shows are the same.

"That's what makes it exciting every show," he says, with the ease of someone who genuinely means it.

MARVELous: The Show continues its national tour through 2026.