Theatre Maker

I am an emerging playwright.

I attended the Writers' Block/Minack Theatre playwriting course in 2020 and the RSC 37 Plays workshops in 2022/23.

In 2023 I successfully applied for Arts Council funding to support a creative playwriting project in Swindon. This project is being delivered in partnership with Prime theatre, STEAM and a range of cultural and community partners. Together we will support young women (who self-identify as female) aged 14-25 to explore female stories in the archives at STEAM and Swindon local studies library. As well as workshops and community events, the primary outcome will be a new play performed around Swindon.

My first full length play inspired by Cornish humanitarian Emily Hobhouse is called ‘Blood Angel.’

Blood Angel

Synopsis

Giving up is not something unmarried Cornish Victorian woman Emily Hobhouse understands, as she grapples with the thorny issue of those suffering within the British run Boer War concentration camps in South Africa. What drives that irrepressible desire within her to fight on regardless for those who have no voice, in the face of every imaginable opposition? Her extraordinary capacity for compassion coupled with her gloriously contemptuous vitriol towards authority figure Lord Kitchener sparks a bitter clash almost sending her spiralling into the darkest of places. Will her iron will fail her at the last minute?

I was inspired to write this play after visiting Bodmin Keep and learning about Emily Hobhouse. I developed this play whilst attending the Minack theatre and Writers' Block playwriting course in 2020. I've received feedback during the Hall for Cornwall R & D script in hand reading at play club, and dramaturgy from Down Stage Write to support the editing process. Most recently a filmmaker (Susan Lay) who has received funding to make a film about Emily Hobhouse has provided insightful editorial critique. I'm passionate about forgotten history and woman's history. There is a legacy and impact to stories that don't get told in their own contemporary time, and a sense of redressing social justice by sharing this important Cornish female story now. Emily's character captivated me because she is unstinting in her determination to fight injustice against all odds. It has particular resonance today regarding war torn countries like Gaza and Ukraine, and the humanitarian channel crossing crisis. Fundamentally questioning how does society deal with the harrowing pictures and stories of human suffering on a spectrum between denial, contempt, apathy, charity and empathy?