Poulton began his career in 1995 with Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Ivan Turgenev's Fortune's Fool, which were staged at the Chichester Festival Theatre, the former with Derek Jacobi, the latter with Alan Bates.
[1] Poulton's subsequent works include Chekov's Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, and The Seagull, Euripides' Ion, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and Ghosts, August Strindberg's The Father and Dance of Death.
[4] Other adaptations include Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for the Royal Shakespeare Company which was presented at the Gielgud Theatre from July to September 2006,[5][6] and two plays based on Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
Poulton translated Fredrick von Schiller's Kabale und Liebe for a new production called Luise Miller, at the Donmar Warehouse in London, running from 8 June to 30 July 2011, starring Felicity Jones.
[12] Poulton's most recent adaptation is Imperium, drawn from Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy – it was played by the Royal Shakespeare Company from November 2017 to February 2018.