Born in Farnborough, Hampshire, Mark A. Howell MLitt is a direct descendent of Sir Herbert Ashman, the first Lord Mayor of Bristol (1899). At Queen Mary's College Mark learned to perform, direct and light plays and achieved a First Class Degree in Theatre from Bretton Hall (Leeds University) going on to research Bristol Old Vic Theatre as a performance space at Bristol University under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Barker (The Theatre Royal Bristol, 1766-1966 published for the 200th Anniversary) and Dr. Michael Forsyth.

In 1987 he won the Kathleen Barker Award for research of theatres outside Westminster & London. He has taught in schools, Universities and Colleges in the UK and New York USA, and was integral to adding Drama to the National Curriculum for English. Mark discovered his Autism in 2014, and feels sure it's this disability that allows him to see new things in familiar evidence that others might not be able to see.

Mark's research historiographies include controversially citing the actual experience of practical rehearsals, workshops and performances in the surviving 1788 Georgian Theatre Royal at Richmond in Yorkshire: Garrick's Miss in her Teens, Inkle & Yarico, The Midnight Hour (all three critically-acclaimed), The London Merchant and The King and the Miller of Mansfield. Mark was the first to stage productions on the restored 1788 stage front and stage floor boxes in the tiny Georgian Theatre Royal.

In 2014, after failing to attract a publisher, Mark self-printed 250 copies (for Our Theatre's 250th Anniversary) of his paperback book Imaginative Genius: Spectators on Stage at Bristol Old Vic & Shakespeare's Theatres. Mark hopes to complete the second edition before the end of this year. Mark proudly works full time for the NHS London Ambulance Service as a Make Ready Officer, daily supporting Ambulance Paramedics throughout the COVID crisis.