About

Mark is an Olivier Award-winning writer and director for theatre and film.

THEATRE

His debut play GIANT premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs in Autumn 2024 and transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End for a box-office record-breaking run in Spring/Summer 2025. In March 2026, GIANT opens at the Music Box Theater on Broadway.

GIANT won the 2025 Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, as well as the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright. It also won three Olivier Awards - Best New Play, Best Actor (John Lithgow) and Best Supporting Actor (Elliot Levey). Mark also won 2025 Stage Debut Award for Best Creative West End Debut for GIANT’s run at the Pinter.

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring John Lithgow (as Roald Dahl), Elliot Levey, Romola Garai (Aya Cash in the West End), Rachael Stirling, Tessa Bonham-Jones and Richard Hope, GIANT was also nominated for a further two Oliviers - Best Director (Nicholas Hytner) and Best Supporting Actress (Romola Garai).

From 2013-16 Mark worked full-time as Associate Director at Leeds Playhouse and then, until 2020, remained affiliated as Associate Artist. In this period he directed nine mainhouse productions and co-directed two international co-productions. Prior to Leeds, from 2011 to 2013, Mark was Associate at the National Theatre Studio where he ran the Directors’ Department and developed new work. 

Mark has worked as a freelance theatre director across the UK and internationally since 1998, directing productions at Shakespeare’s Globe, the National Theatre, Sheffield Theatres, Northampton Theatres, Leeds Playhouse, the Edinburgh Festival, for HighTide Festival Theatre, at the Young Vic, in the West End, off-Broadway and Tokyo, to name a few.

His extensive freelance credits include: Frank McGuinness’ adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s DE PROFUNDIS starring Simon Callow (Vaudeville Theatre & Edinburgh Festival), co-directing Heather Christian’s ANIMAL WISDOM (Bushwick Starr), WAITING FOR GODOT (Tobacco Factory, Bristol), THE COUNTRY by Martin Crimp (Gorch Brothers, Tokyo), Shakespeare & Fletcher’s pageant-play HENRY VIII and Jack Shepherd’s epic HOLDING FIRE! (both Shakespeare’s Globe), THE TEMPEST (National Theatre), Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Alexander Masters’ STUART: A LIFE BACKWARDS (Hightide & Sheffield Theatres), WILD OATS (Bristol Old Vic), and his acclaimed production of THE CIRCLE by Somerset Maugham (Oxford Stage Company). 

In 2001, he founded Dumbfounded Theatre to rediscover forgotten classics from the international repertoire, which included his acclaimed productions of CP Taylor’s BREAD AND BUTTER (Traverse, Dundee Rep, Tricycle) and Arthur Schnitzler’s PROFESSOR BERNHARDI, adapted by Samuel Adamson (Arcola Theatre).

In 1999 he won the JMK Award for Young Directors to direct The Dybbuk at BAC.  He served on the JMK Trust’s board and then as Vice-Chair for sixteen years, stepping down in 2022.

FILM

In 2019, Mark wrote & directed the multi-award-winning short film GANEF, which sold to HBO Europe and Oscar-qualified for the Live Action Short category in 2022. He also co-wrote Dominic Dromgoole’s feature film debut MAKING NOISE QUIETLY, adapted (with Nick Drake and Robert Holman from Holman’s play of the same title). It was released in UK cinemas by Verve Pictures in 2019.

Mark is currently writing screenplays for Good Chaos/Film 4/ MUBI & also for Tower Bridge Films.