AMBITIOUS young actor Rick Bithell is looking to show he means business with a theatre company he has launched.

Rick, 26, has set up troublehouse theatre company with fellow actor Heather Carroll.

Their debut show is a 50-minute comedy due to be performed at the end of this month at The Kings Arms in Salford.

Rick comes from Knutsford, and lives in Salford Quays. He attended Bexton Primary School and The Grange School in Hartford before graduating in business management from Lancaster University in 2009.

“Due to there being no business jobs because of the recession, from 2009 I lived in Manchester and worked as a bar man at The Lowry Theatre in Salford Quays,” said Rick.

“I began to work on unpaid short student films and productions in my spare time, and slowly built up my acting CV and edited my own showreel in the hope of bigger projects in the future.”

The hard work and patience paid off, with involvement in a tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Folksy Theatre from Sandbach and Rick’s first professional filming experience with Eye Films on a short film called Land of Dreams, directed by Jon Rosling.

He then attended the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts North in Wigan, and completed a 15-month postgraduate degree in acting, where he met and worked with Heather.

“Heather and I moved to Manchester in the spring of 2013 and became heavily involved in the Manchester scene before setting up troublehouse in May this year,” said Rick.

“We want to promote the arts in the north west and encourage and support local actors and writers.

“We want to provide our audiences with the same quality professional theatre experience they’re now accustomed to in the north but at an affordable price and in venues other than those established theatre spaces.”

Their debut show, Equal Partners, written by David Tomlinson and directed by Paul Elsam, is set in Scarborough on the cliffs at the Raven Hall Hotel, and we join Graham (Rick) and Jenny (Heather) as they stand above a 150-foot drop to discuss relationships and morals.

The comedy is at The Kings Arms from July 29 to 31, and tickets are £5.