After leaving college, Howell worked for two and a half years with the Royal Shakespeare Company as a resident design assistant.
He met Matthew Warchus there, who years later asked him whether he would be interested in working on Matilda the Musical.
[1] Howell has designed sets and costumes for numerous plays and musicals in the UK, in London and for Broadway over a 20-year period (based on a 2012 interview).
[2] He was the set and costume designer for the stage musical Lord of the Rings (West End, 2007).
The cast climb on giant alphabet soup letters, perform in health and safety defying scenes on wooden spoons and clamber over the imposing thighs of Miss Trunchbull, in her fearsome school... [the] eye-catching and uniquely eccentric design provides a fittingly colourful and exuberant setting.