Andrew Hilton is an actor, director, teacher and playwright. He created Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol in 1999 and remained its Artistic Director until 2017, directing 39 productions for the company, at the Tobacco Factory, the Bristol Old Vic, the Barbican Pit, and on tour in the UK, the Irish Republic, Germany and Romania. His book Shakespeare on the Factory Floor was published by Nick Hern Books in 2022.
He began his professional carreer in 1972 as an Assistant, then Associate, to Bernard Miles at the Mermaid Theatre in London, before joining the National Theatre as an actor in 1975. He went from there to play many seasons at the Bristol Old Vic, as well as appearing widely on television and radio.
Making Bristol his home in 1979, he began teaching Shakespeare acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and joined a co-operative theatre company for whom he directed new plays by James Wilson and Dominic Power, the UK premieres of plays by Brian Friel and Mic