Biography of Nick Underwood

Nick graduated from Edinburgh University in 1998. He has worked in Scotland since 2001, mostly as an actor though also as a song-writer and more recently as a writer. His work as actor includes shows with The Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, The Arches Theatre and Theatre Modo (for whom he has also written songs, most notably in Fringe First-winning show, Faustus and more recently for Ubu). He features regularly in radio drama for the BBC and is currently to be heard in Paul Temple and The Madison Mystery, an 8-part serial for Radio 4. TV credits include Emmerdale, The Royal Today, River City and The Angry Brigade (a drama-documentary for BBC 4). Nick has been writing since his university days where he wrote and directed Coffeelepsy, a farce for 7 actors, produced at the Edinburgh University Theatre in 1995. He joined forces with Catherine Shepherd and Harriet Smedley, devising comedy dramas for Who La Hoof Theatre Company which enjoyed success at the Edinburgh Fringe with shows, Overtired and Showing Off and Dance With Me (be mine) in 1998 and 1999. In 2000, he wrote and performed two comic monologues, 03 Shunter & Pat On Site, for The Man in The Moon Theatre in London. These plays brought him back to Scotland where he performed them at The Gilded Balloon. He re-wrote and extended the second of these pieces for his solo performance study module of the Acting Masters at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2003. The piece was performed under the title Loose Tongues in the Henry Younger Hall in the Edinburgh Fringe 2003. He is currently funded by the Scottish Arts Council to develop Naked Neighbour (twitching blind), which will be performed in early 2009 (venue t.b.c.). He is also waiting to hear if his latest work, Opening Lines, is to be commissioned by BBC Radio. As an invited participant in the Space 11 project at the CCA, he is in the process of founding company, Never Did Nothing. The mission of the company is to bring theatre and music together in original ways and to celebrate the power of the imagination to transcend the ordinary and shed light on what it might mean to be human.