His first professional acting work was with a Theatre in Education company in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, and he was subsequently cast in Willy Russell plays such as Breezeblock Park (at the Liverpool Playhouse) and Blood Brothers (at the Derby Playhouse). Russell also later commissioned him to write the BBC Schools television play Teaching Matthew (in which Hunter also had a small role as a policeman, 1985), a satire on Russell's own Educating Rita.
On April 27, 2007, Al Hunter Ashton died of heart failure in his home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Episode eight of series five of the New Tricks TV series, titled "Mad Dogs", was dedicated to his memory.
