Mark Knightley is an actor and the co-director of Crowded Room, an innovative theatre company that creates work inspired by real stories in collaboration with the people who experienced them. With Crowded Room, he has produced and performed in the theatre and prison tour The Listening Room and The Colours at the Soho Theatre.
He also directed and wrote Sentinels, a short film about 25 young Colombian activists who took their government to court for the deforestation of the Amazon (made with King’s College London); La Lucha, a co-created documentary that tells the story of nine female cleaners from Latin America who fought back against workplace exploitation (made with BAC and shown at London Migration Film Festival and Manchester Lift Off Festival); 2030, an immersive installation created with Collusion and shortlisted for Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award; Echoes, a play that toured to prisons and explored the stigma around HIV (commissioned by Public Health England); and The Heart of Adrian Lovett, a play with forum about NHS privatisation (with Theatre Delicatessen).
Mark also creates ambitious performances in heritage sites. Most recently, he wrote and performed in 1797: The Mariner’s Revenge which was staged at Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, in 2022. It was described as ‘Comical and mystical, whimsical and wonderful. Powerful, grown-up, immersive theatre’. His acting credits include Edgar Linton in Wuthering Heights, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet and Ben Wright in Holby City.
