He attended a local comprehensive, George Abbot School, and later read Drama at Manchester University.
Hill-Gibbins directed his first professional production, Wallace Shawn’s A Thought In Three Parts, at the Battersea Arts Centre as winner of the 2002 James Menzies-Kitchen Trust Award for young directors [1] He trained at the Royal Court Theatre, both as an assistant director and script reader in the literary office.
In 2004 he became Trainee Associate Director at the Royal Court, helping curate the Young Writer’s Festival for which he directed A Girl In A Car With A Man by Rob Evans.
After directing Bertolt Brecht’s one-act comedy A Respectable Wedding in a new translation by Rory Bremner,[2] he became an Associate Director.
In 2010 he was appointed Deputy Artistic Director and directed acclaimed productions of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie[3] and The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh,[4] which returned to the theatre in 2011.