Philip Osment read Modern Languages at Keble College, Oxford and trained as an actor at Webber Douglas. He acted with leading alternative theatre companies including The Half Moon, Shared Experience and Gay Sweatshop (who performed his first scripts) and then went on to work as a director and writer.
He has also written and directed plays for young people for Theatre Centre and Red Ladder.
His trilogy of Devon plays (THE DEARLY BELOVED, WHAT I DID IN THE HOLIDAYS and FLESH AND BLOOD) was commissioned by Mike Alfreds and produced by Cambridge Theatre Company (aka Method and Madness). These were all nominated for Writers Guild awards and THE DEARLY BELOVED won the award for best regional play in 1993. In 1999 Mike Alfreds commissioned BURIED ALIVE which played the southwest before coming in to Hampstead Theatre. In 2000 LITTLE VIOLET AND THE ANGEL was the co-winner of the Peggy Ramsey Award; WISE GUYS was performed as the inaugural production at the new Contact Theatre and was nominated for TMA and Manchester Evening News Best Play awards.
His play LEAVING for Quare Hawks Theatre Company toured Ireland in 2002 and he devised COLLATERAL DAMAGE about terrorism and the Oklahoma bombing with Mike Alfreds and students from LAMDA, which was performed in the autumn of 2004. Three of his radio plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio.
