Michael Hasted

Michael Hasted was expelled from school at the age of sixteen for spending more time backstage at his local theatre than on his studies. Unable to accept the place he had been offered at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School because he was too young to receive a grant, he spent the next few years working in rep theatres all over Great Britain, notably Cheltenham, Lincoln, Hornchurch, Edinburgh and Dundee. He appeared in various productions with Steven Berkoff, Penelope Keith, James Bolam and John Savident. He was in the controversial You'll Come To Love Your Sperm Test by (and with) John Antrobus at the original Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.

In 1984 he left England for Strasbourg. Moving to the south of France, from 1996 he was the proprietor of The English Bookshop in Montolieu, the book village near Carcassonne.

Having returned to England, in 2011 he again became involved with the theatre. He wrote, produced and directed the revue Final Daze at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham. His book on the history of the Everyman, A Theatre For All Seasons, with a foreword by Steven Berkoff, was published in 2011. Thespians, reminiscences of forty actors with a foreword by Penelope Keith, was published in December 2014.

He created the online theatre review site StageTalk Magazine in 2013 and in October 2014 he produced and directed the sell-out and highly acclaimed The Dock Brief by John Mortimer.

He now lives in Holland and works as a writer and photographer. He is the publisher and editor of the on-line English language arts magazine ArtsTalk Magazine which he created in 2017.