Born in London, Mark Norfolk studied Independent Film at the University of Wales, Cardiff[1] and has worked as an actor, reporter and sports journalist.
[2] Norfolk noticed while growing up that the voices of black characters in plays and TV shows were never really authentic, "That takes away a large part of what they are: they're just doing what the majority of society has given them to do.
[13] The play went into production directed by artistic director, Abigail Morris and featuring Mark Theodore, Larrington Walker and Geoffrey Burton, at the Soho Theatre the following year.
In 2013 Norfolk was a co-writer of Blair's Children[18][19] at the Cockpit Theatre with April De Angelis, Anders Lustgarten, Georgia Fitch and Paula B. Stanic.
In 2016, Norfolk worked with Jeffery Kissoon on adapting William Shakespeare's Hamlet[20] for the first ever all-black cast of the play in the UK which toured nationally for Black Theatre Live.
Norfolk's collaboration with Jeffery Kissoon escalated when, as Kazimba Theatre, they staged his play Dare To Do (The Bear Maxim) [22] based on Kweku Adoboli the 'rogue banker' who was convicted of perpetrating the then, largest trading loss in British banking history'.
The production, staged at The Space, a venue literally under the shadow of the banking industry on the Isle of Dogs in east London, was notable for its use of non-binary casting when former backing vocalist and singer, Jaye Ella-Ruth took the title role and when Adoboli took part in an after-show question and answer session in the midst of his own personal deportation battle with the UK government.
Rehearsals for Dare To Do took place in Bay 56, a unit within the Village off Portobello Market, West London, a space occupied by the local community in response to the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy.
[1] Crossing Bridges tells the story of a suicidal man who meets an angel and features Jason Rose, Jeffery Kissoon and Elisabeth Dahl and went on to win an armful of international awards.
Norfolk's next film was I, Father (Un 'Ati) [36] in 2018, an extremely low budget adaptation of his Kosovan play, Princi I produced by Filma-KS and Prussia Lane Productions.
Swiss Cottage Library, 2005 • Dinner with Bono – Inaugural Flight 5065 London Eye, short play commission, 2005 (based on the short story by Jackee Butesta Batanda) • Fess Up – Menagerie Theatre commission, Eastern Pipeline Project, 2004 • Wrong Place – Soho Theatre commission, 2003 • Knock Down Ginger – Produced Warehouse Theatre, winner Guardian Culture Award 2003 • Fair As The Dark Gets – Albany Theatre-Black History Month, 1998 • Buy Your Leave -Albany Theatre-Black History Month, 1998 • The City Speaks Broken Chain[45] – BBC Radio 4/Film London/Arts Council England, broadcast on radio and screened in UK cinemas nationally, 2008 [46] • Medium Risk [47] – BBC Radio 3/7 TX: July 2005 • In The Car Park – BBC, Sparks, 2002 • Waiting In The City, ZDF, Germany.