Burbridge's fringe work was revived by Otherplace Productions at Bankside's Rose Theatre in Hard Chair Stories, a piece about living with severe disability, and taken to 3 & 10, Brighton Festival 2008.
[12] Burbridge originally secured a commission from Harrap, but the company withdrew before going to press, and the work was issued by a small independent publisher, Medium; according to Tam Dalyell, the material concerned "the probity of the British Government at the top",[12] though others have not been convinced by the claims.
In 2008, he combined poetry-reading with music and effects by The Levellers' Jon Sevink, on a privately released album entitled All Kinds of Disorder, an elaboration on the themes in his book, and an original form of statement on life at the margins.
In R2 Steve Caseman called it "an exemplary combination of poetry and music,"[25] while fRoots recorded how "human drama and frailty is read out with relish along with keen observations of behaviour that celebrates the outsider and encourages the closet revolutionary in us all".
[27][28] Reviews of his plays have recognised the power of the writing, but questioned the impact of the underlying depressive tone, and whether, as Mick Martin in The Guardian asked, he deals "in dramatic characterisation or political point scoring", however interesting his characters, or however challenging the argument.
[29] Martin Hoyle wrote in The Times that to see a state of the Kingdom allegory in Burbridge's grimly misanthropic quintet set in "a derelict toy warehouse" would be easy, the satire was heavy-handed, but concluded that "raw emotion is certainly there and plenty of anger is generated."
"[35] When Goodbye to the Madhouse appeared in the autumn of 2007, fRoots summarised the change in focus, commenting that "Burbridge's vitriol has been toned down", and "thoughts of band and writer seem to be rising above the national into overarching concepts that, like the work of the best, apply at any number of levels".
[36] The acoustic album Gathered earned Nick Burbridge the title of Best Songwriter in the 2013 Spiral Earth awards, and in the same year his work appeared on the AQA A Level Communication and Culture syllabus.