[citation needed] In 2016, Faulkner was cast as Johnny in the musical American Idiot,[5] which is based on songs from the band Green Day.

In November and December 2018, Faulkner starred as the Sung Thoughts of the Journalist in the 40th anniversary musical version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

He began playing guitar at the age of 13 (after a few attempts at the drums and piano) and attended the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

His experience on the stage grew as he formed 'Half A Guy', a funk rock group, with bandmates Matt Buchanan (credited in Newton's Hand Built by Robots tab book), Dave Elvy and Nicola Crawshaw.

He then spent time recording and playing gigs under the name Newton Battenberg Faulkner, including the Lapagestock festival on 11 June 2005.

Faulkner made appearances in 2006 on BBC Radio 2 and he secured a Publishing deal with Peermusic UK who asked the Independent on Sunday to tell its readers to "watch this face".

He subsequently signed with Sony BMG records and in July 2007 he released his début album Hand Built By Robots.

In 2007, Faulkner's debut studio album Hand Built by Robots was certified double platinum in the United Kingdom.

"Dream Catch Me" was selected Jo Whiley's Pet Sound on her daily Radio 1 show and made No.7 on the UK Singles Charts.

On a video blog streamed live from Newton Faulkner's website on 22 June 2009, he stated that the new album would be called Rebuilt By Humans.

The reason for this was that in December 2008, Faulkner slipped on some ice and badly injured his wrist, into which doctors fitted a metal plate.

In October 2010, he played a surprise set at the ACM Awards show at Indig02 at the O2 Arena in London and in November 2010, he appeared at the 'Christmas Lights switch-on' in Barnstaple.

The recording of Faulkner's fourth album Studio Zoo was being streamed live online, 24/7 for five weeks from 11 June 2013, with regular updates on the social networks.

[17]On 16 June 2013 Faulkner played the main stage at the Isle of Wight Festival 2013 with live streaming as part of the Studio Zoo project.

[19] A music video for the album's lead single,[20] a cover of Major Lazer's song "Get Free", was released the same day and featured a live take of Newton cutting off the long dreadlocks that had been a part of his instantly recognisable image since his teens.

A second single, "Up Up and Away", was subsequently released and accompanied by a video featuring choreographed dance routines performed while Newton jogged along a river bank.

While this built on the intricate guitar and percussive guitar work that was a feature of his previous albums, it marked a conscious focus from Newton to push his vocal range to the limits with a strong emphasis also on rhythm, most noticeably on the first, eponymous, single which featured some very high notes and also on another blues-tinged track "Finger Tip", which was released as the third single and the follow-up to "All She Needs".

As this recording marked the 10th anniversary of Newton's debut album Hand Built by Robots, Hit The Ground Running featured several deliberate references to that record; the opening track "Smoked Ice Cream" (a track that he had played live for years that had no title until a suggestion was shouted out from a crowd at a gig[22]) featured a slowly picked melody building into a rhythmic instrumental played on a single acoustic guitar before the vocals kick in, in a similar way to the instrumental "Intro", which builds on and then segues into "To the Light" at the start of his debut album.