Martin is an award-winning theatre and opera director, creating multi-disciplinary work across art forms, focusing on engaging communities with extraordinary participatory events, and supporting the development of new voices with tailored bespoke programmes for emerging artists.

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He is Artistic Director of Streetwise Opera, the award-winning opera company creating ambitious, co-created work with people who have experienced homelessness. Working across London, Manchester and Nottingham, Streetwise brings professional artists and performers together to make opera that is both artistically ambitious and socially transformative. The company has been nominated for an International Opera Award and won the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Impact Award for Re:Discover, alongside wider recognition for its pioneering work in opera and participation.

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He has directed at theatres including the Almeida, Royal Opera House, Bristol Old Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, the RSC and Grange Park Opera. His production of Paul Bunyan for WNO won an RPS Award and was nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award. Martin's book The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit - An Essential Guide to Creating a Role, is published by Bloomsbury.

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Most recently, Martin has directed The Haunting of Hill House for Salisbury Playhouse and a UK tour. Recent productions also include the five-star reviewed The Elixir of Love for English Touring Opera, Acis and Galatea for Early Opera Company and Buxton International Festival, and Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci for Shanghai Opera House. Prior to this he directed the five-star reviewed productions Peter Pan, in a new adaptation by Gary Owen, for Storyhouse, Dead Man Walking for WNO and Don Giovanni for Longborough Festival Opera.

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He is co-Artistic Director of the multi-award winning LIVEARTSHOW - a company making new work with music - with Alan Harris and Harry Blake. The company won an MTN Award for The Future for Beginners in Edinburgh. Previous shows Rhinegold and Manga Sister (Time Out Critic's Choice / Best Theatre of the Year) were at centre of The Yard Theatre's Peter Brook Empty Space Award winning season. Most recently they created Marsha, at the Arcola Theatre.

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Martin was International Chair of Directing at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where he was part of the team launching the new Opera School with WNO. He wrote, and was Course Leader of, the first MA Opera Directing course in the UK, which launched at RWCMD in 2018. He was Director of ENO Opera Works – an innovative training programme he created for emerging artists. The course trained 200 young singers, directors, designers and producers over a ten-year period at ENO.

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Martin has developed new writing for ROH, ENO, National Theatre, Almeida, Aldeburgh, Hebrides Ensemble, Bristol Old Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, the RSC and Young Vic. He has been Associate Director of new writing company Pentabus Theatre and The Yard, London. He co-adapted Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled with Toby Farrow at the National Theatre Studio.

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Alongside this, Martin has directed numerous large-scale community and participatory projects for ENO, ROH, the National Theatre, Opera North, the RSC, Almeida, English Touring Opera and HMP Winchester.

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Martin worked as Associate and Assistant Director with Tim Albery, Martin Duncan, Nick Hytner, Richard Jones, Phyllida Lloyd and Steven Pimlott at the National Theatre, English National Opera, the RSC, Opera North and Chichester Festival Theatre. At Chichester he established the EDGE season, incorporating over fifty events.

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