First off, it’s story time…

This all starts in late 2018, long before the existence of UNDERFOUND. Rhiannah formerly worked as an actress and model alongside her successful barbering career and rang me up on her way home from a job in London.

“Andy, I’ve had a great idea for a TV series!”

This conversation sparked an idea for a Documentary/Reality TV Series that would ultimately consume the lives of us, and a small group of friends, for the best part of 24 months (alongside our day jobs).

A huge undertaking. We had never written a series before, never mind filmed one. We assembled the prospective cast at our house and pitched the idea with a simple mission statement.

“We’re going to make a series for Amazon Prime.”

In truth, we had no idea how we were going to make this happen, but the ambition and vision was clear. This group of friends we had made through years of working together in the creative field - each one of them offering a unique voice or story meant that to us we had the components of a perfect cast.

After what felt like an episode of Dragons Den, we had the cast and crew agreements and production began. Working to an absolute shoestring budget, we devised several episodes that would follow creative projects that we already had in the pipeline for that year.

It made perfect sense. One such piece of content was that we had agreed to film a music video for the band King Kartel.

“It shouldn’t be that hard to just film the behind the scenes whilst we make the music video right? RIGHT?”

Wrong.

Running two productions simultaneously: despite Heavy Pencil being completely organic made things incredibly challenging, especially as we had a limited amount of time at the venue (a big shout out to the Old Courts in Wigan). But looking back at Episode 2 it fills me with an immense amount of pride that we pulled it off.

You can watch the making of the video as a full blown episode of Heavy Pencil, then check out the music video we produced and see all of the scenes that we had constructed.

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And then Covid-19 happened…

A truly awful time for everyone, and for us it meant slowing down production and constantly adapting to changing rules and regulations to ensure our team was safe during the making of the show.

What followed was four months of filming and almost eight months of editing. Up until that point the biggest thing I had ever edited was a 3.5-minute long music video, and this project included elements of sound design I’d never experienced before.

It nearly broke me.

At the time I was working in a field sales role for a big electronics company that I can’t name but rhymes with Hamstrung, and I was under an immense amount of pressure juggling the two.

And let’s not forget that famous promise I’d made to the team at the beginning of the production process.

“We’re going to make a series for Amazon Prime.”

With a bit of luck and a LOT of hard work, on 21st January 2021 we launched with video-on-demand on Amazon Prime. After seeing it live on the screen in our home I’m not afraid to say both Rhiannah and I burst into tears.

And what followed — as we attempted to market the show with no money, no experience, and no guidance…

It all fell apart.

Despite this, our show went on to be viewed in six countries, accumulated over 250,000 views on video on demand, and was purchased twice (cheers to whoever did that!).

The feedback we received however was mostly incredible. Viewers loved the rawness and documentary aspects of what it’s really like to run an independent business in the UK.

But we knew that making it in the same format as before just wasn’t sustainable.

And more importantly, we knew exactly what we would do differently if we started again.

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The itch we couldn’t ignore

Since then it has been an itch we just had to scratch. But how could we make it happen alongside our day jobs? Something had to give.

I was still working full time and Rhiannah was renting a chair at PJ Barbers in Leyland, but little did I know I was about to receive another phone call from Rhiannah…

“I think I want to have my own shop again.”

In a post-Covid world, opening a retail business could ruin us. How could we find a way to make it work? How could we do it in the way we truly wanted?

After months of planning (and several name revisions) we came up with the multi-faceted experience you’re hopefully now familiar with.

It felt like all the projects we had been involved with over the years had led us to this exact moment.

We became passionate about independent fashion brands through my own design journey and Rhiannah’s modelling.

We had the pleasure of working with grassroots music through our video and event production.

And finally, Rhiannah’s decade-long experience in hair combined with my experience in retail management.

Discover music you’ve never heard.
Fashion you’ve never seen.
A hair experience you’ve never had.

A new mission was born.

Enter stage right: UNDERFOUND.

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The UNDERFOUND chapter

We opened in September 2022 knowing absolutely no one in the Altrincham area.

Since then we have:

• Served over 5,000 customers

• Delivered more than 10,000 haircuts

• Hosted wild birthday celebrations with fire displays on Oxford Road

• Received multiple award nominations

• Won Business of the Year at the ThisIsMCR Awards in late 2025

And more importantly than any of that, we have made friends that we’re incredibly grateful to have in our lives.

Thank you, Altrincham ❤️

All of this happening during what many people describe as a declining British high street.

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So what’s next?

We’re incredibly privileged to have clients, colleagues, cohorts and local businesses around us that add value to the in-store experience and constantly inspire us to do better.

And that got us thinking about how we might finally scratch that creative itch again.

“Heavy Pencil is coming back with a BANG.”

With our new home on YouTube, we hope you’ll follow the journey with us as we celebrate and champion independent businesses and creatives across the UK.

If you’ve read this far, consider subscribing to what promises to be a warts-and-all documentary series that will not only entertain, but educate people about the realities and pitfalls of running an independent business.

If you live in the Altrincham area, you might even see a few familiar faces.

And if you’d like to be part of it yourself - feel free to get in touch.

For now, we hope you enjoy the show.

As for where this journey will take us…

We have absolutely no idea.

Because not everything in life is guaranteed. Sometimes it’s just written in Heavy Pencil.

— Andy

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WATCH IT HERE