Tony nominated and Drama Desk Award winning composer Grant Olding trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama and had a successful career on the stage before becoming the Bridewell Theatre’s resident composer in 2003. Since then he has composed for theatre, film, television and dance and now works from his studio between the Black Mountains and the Golden Valley on a wide variety of projects.
Highlights in theatre include his many collaborations with Nicholas Hytner both at the Bridge Theatre (A Christmas Carol, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Two Ladies, Alys Always, Young Marx) and at the National Theatre (One Man Two Guvnors, Great Britain, Travelling Light, Timon of Athens, England People Very Nice, The Man of Mode, The Alchemist, Southwark Fair), as well as scores for the RSC (Don Quixote, The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, The Rover, The Hypocrite, Oppenheimer), and many other regional and West End theatres. He is an associate artist at Leicester’s Curve Theatre where he has scored productions including Breakfast at Tiffany's, Richard III, Our Country's Good and the inaugural production, musical Simply Cinderella for which he provided music and lyrics.
Other musical theatre highlights include composing Tracy Beaker Gets Real (Nottingham Playhouse) and Spittin' Distance (Stephen Joseph Theatre) as well as three musicals for the Bridewell Theatre: A Celebrity Chef Ate My Hamster, Beyond the Sea and Three Sides which also played at the Finborough Theatre and at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2006 where it won the best lyrics award.
Grant first collaborated with Drew McOnie on a musical of James and the Giant Peach at the Birmingham Stage Company and went on to write the music and lyrics for their song and dance cycle Drunk at the Curve/Bridewell and to create the score for the McOnie company’s first full length dance piece Jekyll & Hyde at the Old Vic Theatre.
For television Grant has scored three seasons of Upstart Crow, as well as A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, I Want My Wife Back, The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff and Master Moley.
For film Grant wrote the songs and score for the animated feature Saving Santa starring Martin Freeman and Tim Curry, as well as several shorts including The Foreigner, La Merde, Induction, Junkie Love and The Dark Room.