Playwright Philip Ridley was born in the East End of London, where he still lives and works. He is a contemporary artist, poet, novelist, film-maker and one of the country's most celebrated living playwrights, winning Time Out and Critics Circle awards for his plays; and he is the only person ever to have won the Evening Standard Award for both Most Promising Newcomer to British Film and Most Promising playwright. His play The Fastest Clock In The Universe has just been revived by the Hampstead Theatre and Leicester Curve as part of the Hampstead's 50 year celebrations, and his new film Heartless, starring Timothy Spall and Luke Treadaway, is due for release in February 2010. Ridley has been described as 'probably a genius' (Time Out), 'a visionary' (Rolling Stone), 'the master of modern myth' (Guardian) and 'the best British playwright of the last 20 years' (Aleks Sierz, author of In-Yer-Face Theatre).