Personal Details Name   Alan Sermons Nationality   British Place of Birth   Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Date of Birth   16th October, 1977       Contact   Click to email

Biography   |   Purple Credits

Born in Suffolk, and raised in Essex, Alan started off in a small primary school, before going to the Colchester Royal Grammar School. A random (and to date his only planned) appearance on stage performing period dance routines in the school's 450th Anniversary celebrations led to the idea that the crew had far more fun than the cast, particularly since it didn't involve standing on stage. Fast-forward a few of years, and he had ended up as the stage manager in his sixth form years.

Having achieved a respectable set of GCSEs and A-Levels, he decided (for some unknown reason) that going to Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London, for an Electronic and Electrical Engineering degree was a good idea. Shortly after arriving in 1996, he stumbled onto a group of people known as Brunel Theatre Workshop, who decided that he would enjoy playing with the lighting – a bit of a baptism by fire, as the first show (“Kiss Me Kate”) included such fun highlights as frying the LX desk and dimmer racks three days before the opening night.

About six months later, a group of the alumni who were still lurking around the campus formed a new theatre group - Brunel Alumni Drama - and put on Terry Pratchett's “Mort” in a period of 4 weeks or so. Alan got involved with building the set, and then Front of House. This included his second appearance on stage, when he had to evacuate the theatre due to a combination of over-sensitive fire alarms and pyrotechnic effects. Until he finally graduated in the summer of 2003, he spent time with both theatre groups, as well as working for the Entertainments department in the Student Union.

When an interim technical director was needed for “Fur Coat, No Knickers”, in 2004, he volunteered, only to have family problems that prevented him from taking up the role. Needless to say that he then got volunteered at the next AGM to take up the role properly, and spent most of the run of “A Slice of Saturday Night” frantically learning the ropes.

Alan currently works for a small software company, near Egham in Surrey, where he drinks tea and provides technical support for the company's products, as well as network support and software testing. He helps out at the Compass Theatre as a volunteer, and is a member of St. John Ambulance, turning up to provide voluntary first aid cover, drive vehicles and drink tea, in and around London. He has an unhealthy interest in trains, and plays with the East Anglian Railway Museum, near Colchester, Essex, when he gets a chance. He likes tea, and lives in Kings Langley, with his new wife, Roz.