About my writing

I’ve been writing and creating drama in a wide variety of community contexts since the year 2000.  I won an award at the Oxford Literary Festival in 2003 for a short script which encouraged me to go further and complete an MA in Dramatic Writing in 2007.  In 2013 I completed some professional training in Forum Theatre and have facilitated forum in the context of mental health.  I have written and co-produced several short films, one of which won awards.

I also write poetry, short stories and in 2021 published a biography of someone I got to know very well who had a life time struggle with serious mental illness. This won the 2019 Impress Prize for new writers and was published by Impress.

DRAMA – Highlights

I’ve been commissioned by Oxford County, Oxford Family Mediation, and have worked with WhatMattersTheatre to produce plays with children in school partnerships.

In 2014 as part of the Time To Change campaign I created a piece of forum drama with a group of people who had experience of mental illness called “Who do you think you are?” and we performed it at the Old Fire Station in Oxford.

In 2016 I created a piece of drama with people with lived experience of mental illness for an event called “Celebrating Our Lives” in Oxford.  It was called “A visit to the doctor”.

In 2018 I worked with health professionals to create a short piece of forum drama for a day on called “Spiritual Care in Practice. ”  Later that year I did some forum with local adult mental health staff to explore what issues were arising for them in the work place.

SHORT FILMS

I won several awards for a short film that I wrote and co-produced called “Emmi” (see short film section).

I was commissioned by Oxford Diocese to write and produce a set of 3 short films for a training DVD as a practical guide to pastoral caring.  This was called “Reaching Out” and the 3 short films were pieces of drama on the subjects of ‘bereavement’, ‘mental illness’ and ‘old age’.

I was commissioned by Parenting Matters (www.parentingmatters.co.uk – see video clip) to write some short sketches on the theme of ‘would you do this in the office?’

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I was also commissioned by someone I knew to help him write his autobiography. I wrote it as a conversation with him which he was pleased with.

OTHER WRITING

As well as these I’ve written and produced a huge number of: sketches, short plays, long plays, community plays, promenade theatre, plays for schools, nativity plays and street theatre pieces  (I won the Lewis Fairtrade Writing competition with a sketch entitled ‘The Strip Sketch.’ Unfortunately it was a radio competition so the visuals were somewhat lost!) .

I’ve written for adults, for teenagers and for children.    I’ve written sad stuff, funny stuff, educational stuff, spiritual stuff.  I’ve written monologues and scripts with a cast of 26…  I’ve written my own stuff and also workshopped young people’s ideas and created scripts for them.

My favourite response after a performance of one of my plays was:

“It made me feel something”

(my 18 year old son)