DAVID SANDS (Matt) began his professional career performing a comedy act at the Wolverhampton Deaf Film Festival in 2001 but really came to widespread attention two years later when he starred in William Mager's BBC drama, Granddad and made his National Theatre debut in Jo-Jo's Journey. In 2005 David won the Remark! Best Actor award.
Other recent theatre appearances include Charlie Swinbourne's Lipstick and Lollipops for Deafinitely Theatre (London Drill Hall and national tour) The Crane, On Blindness and My Friend Snow. On television David has been seen in Casualty (BBC) The Boy from Before, (BSLBT/Community Channel) and Last Night (Maverick for Channel4).
Recently David set up Brown Solid Productions with Brian Duffy and Simon Herdman after they won the Wolverhampton 2008 Deaffest Bursary with their comedy news spoof, The World Today. A follow up World Today was released in 2009.
'I was really pleased to be offered the part of Matt, in Departure Lounge,' says David, 'because I was working with people I really like and respect. Charlie wrote a cracking script; Louis is a fantastic director who knows what he's doing and what he wants to see - plus I was acting with Hal! Ever since we did Granddad, I've wanted us to work together again - and Departure Lounge provided the opportunity.'
'It was quite a tough role - quite physical. Lots of emotional ups and downs for the character. The challenge is to make it convincing which can be tricky because the drama was filmed out of sequence. 'I hope,' says David 'the audience will understand and appreciate the relationship between Matt and Sid and really relate to communication issues and the cultural references. Actually, I think for the most part they will simply be moved by it. It's a very touching story.'