My working life began in community development. I spent 20 years working with inspiring people and projects.
I was a detached youth worker working with young people on the streets. A director of an active citizenship charity, supporting community entrepreneurs. And a campaigner, going in and out of the House of Commons, campaigning for policy change for the community sector.
Then one day I realised I was miserable at work.
There was a quiet, unspoken creative dream in me. I really wanted to work in theatre.
I had started out doing a degree in Theatre at Warwick University. I was lucky. I got a full grant and so I became the first person in my family to go to University aged 18.
But, like the vast majority of state educated people I could not sustain a freelance life in the arts without financial resources to support me. This is one of the reasons why 52% of people working in the creative industries today are from privileged backgrounds.
I started going to the theatre again, something I’d given up a decade earlier. As much as I loved it, I was also troubled by the people I saw in the theatre being completely different to the people I saw on the bus on the way to the theatre. It annoyed me.
Why didn’t someone do something about it?
My story: from community development to theatre-making
Then one day I realised maybe I could do something about it.
I made a plan for what I wanted to do. I brought together my community development know-how with my passion for theatre and set up Brighton People’s Theatre.
From a kitchen table start up of freelancers, I’m now the CEO and Artistic Director of a brilliant team on payroll. We work with hundreds of people a year and currently have 4 shows in development.
In 2019 I was awarded a Clore Fellowship in recognition of my work to change the way theatre is made and consumed.
In 2022 I was awarded a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council through Clore to do research called Let’s Create: Do we know how to? In 2023-24 thanks to a grant from Arts Council England, I turned this into a series of illustrations and a podcast.
In 2023 I was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from the Arts Council to do a deep dive into all things musical theatre. Now I’m cooking up some new projects of my own.