Blog
THOUGHTS ON PROCESS, PROJECTS, PRODUCTIONS AND MORE
How We Say Goodbye: Community Writing and Power
I’m on a train to Stoke-on-Trent as I write this, headed for an exhibition and series of workshops about decommissioning twentieth-century power...
7,000 Opportunities for Playwrights and Still Going: Lane’s List
'Lane's List is an invaluable resource for playwrights making their way in the industry. I think all emerging playwrights and theatre-makers should...
How History Remembers: A Fawley Power Station Play
This Halloween at dawn, on the Waterside of the New Forest in Fawley, a 198m chimney stack belonging to what was once the world’s largest oil-fired...
Playing to Pandemic Audiences: Shifting the Script
Last night I was back in a room with performers, joining a rehearsal for live theatre for the first time in 20 months. This was obviously a joyous...
Writing Play: Learning from Children’s Theatre
On the last two Saturdays I’ve been back to the theatre with my eight year-old daughter. I say been back, as it’s the first time either of us has...
Creative Burnout: Positives for Playwriting
I came back to a play last week for the first time, after a couple of accidental months off. Quite by accident – although I’m a big believer in...
Writing Beyond Your Experience: Policing and Process
Imagine, just for a moment, that you were only allowed to write characters who were like you. Only those that existed within the limits of the...
Dramaturgical Depth Charges: The 5-Minute Play
I’m about to start a third outing for my online playwriting course hosted by Forest Forge Theatre Company. It takes a group of writers through a...
Change, Desire and Ghosts: Fawley Power Station
I’m pressed up against a grey wire fence adorned with barbed-wire coils, 24hr CCTV notices and a thin layer of beige dust. There’s the muted rumble...
Adapting to Audio: Sound Designer Collaboration
This year I took on writing for audio for the first time, supported by Arts Council England to work with sound designer Adrienne Quartly and adapt...
Adapting to Audio: Making Space for Sound
(Listeners at Hefted | Audio's launch at the Burton Gallery, Bideford - June 2019) This year I took on writing for audio for the first time,...
Adapting to Audio: Can a Text Be Multi-Purpose?
This year I took on writing for audio for the first time, supported by Arts Council England to work with sound designer Adrienne Quartly and adapt...
John Retallack: Reflections on Developing Writing
Performance workshop on the course in May 2019 (L-R: Tamsin Heatley; Jos Vantyler and writer Joanna Gibbon) John Retallack runs the Oxford...
Literary Manager at The Space: Guest Blog
New Literary Manager at The Space, Mike Carter, is a playwright with extensive experience of developing new work with hundreds of writers. I caught...
Hefted in Production: Connecting Community and Place
After the final night of Hefted, a man walked up to me to say he’d known by instinct he’d wanted to be a shepherd since he was a boy. He’d been one...
Lane’s List
Information, training and opportunities for UK playwrights
Lane’s List is totally brilliant. An invaluable resource. I wish that it had existed when I was just starting out when getting yourself involved in anything and everything is so important to getting your foot on the ladder.