Hailing from a theatre family, Tristan spent his youth visiting festivals around the UK and Ireland. He began his acting career at the Questors Theatre in London in 2003, playing a number of lead roles, including Lord Byron in Brenton's Bloody Poetry, Subtle in Jonson's The Alchemist and Horner in Wycherley's The Country Wife, which toured at the Minack Theatre.
He directed his first production at the Questors in 2012, going on to direct Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and Kirkwood's NSFW before becoming Artistic Director in 2014. He set up the theatre's annual Overnight Plays event in 2012 and continues to run it every year. He's undergone directing training at Shakespeare's Globe and acting training with the RSC and as a passionate advocate of Shakespeare in performance he set up the Questors Shakespeare Group in 2022 to develop key skills and textual understanding.
In his professional life he was awarded his doctorate in Jacobean theatre history from the University of Cambridge and was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2020 for his contribution to the study of early modern theatre. He currently lectures at Shakespeare's Globe and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and teaches at Cambridge.
He is delighted to be adjudicating Hertford Theatre Week with its reputation for first class theatre.
