Paul trained at Motley Theatre Design Course, following a degree in English at Oxford. Designs include Our Country's Good (Watermill), On the Rocks (Hampstead), The Only Girl in the World (Arcola), Triptych (Southwark Playhouse) Jonah and Otto (Manchester Royal Exchange), Black Stuff (touring), School of Dark (touring, then Unicorn), Tom Fool (Glasgow Citizens and The Bush), Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe), Babel Junction (Hackney Empire), Other Hands , Shoreditch Madonna and Flush (all Soho), Switch ECHO (WUK, Vienna), For One Night Only (touring) , The Most Humane Way to Kill A Lobster and Cancer Time (both Theatre 503), Party Time / One for the Road (BAC), Peer Gynt (Arcola), Have I None (Southwark Playhouse), Sherlock Holmes (La Tea, New York), Women and Criminals (Here, New York) and Fred and Madge (Oxford Playhouse).

As an assistant designer he has worked for Tara Arts, Ultz and Shakespeare's Globe.

As a director-designer he led devising on Selfish (The Arches, Glasgow, and Camden People’s Theatre), Out of Nothing (The Junction, Cambridge) and Rang (National Collage of Arts, Pakistan, where he also led a seminar on scenography). As co-founder of Scale Project he collaborated on a programme of experimental work across the UK and in Siberia.  

He also teaches and is extensively involved with youth arts, including running projects for dissaffected teenagers. Most of this work has been with Youth CREATE but he has run workshops in schools and at the Big Youth Theatre Festival.