Writing

I took up writing rather late as I have only been doing it a few years now – well, I suppose I started longer ago but have only been finishing my writings for a few years!

One-act Plays and Monologues

The first one-act play that I finished, Keepers, won the RAFTA One-act Playwriting Award but has not yet been produced. Set in a lighthouse it follows two established keepers and a summer student who returns to the lighthouse with his girlfriend after it has been automated.

After that I wrote a monologue called South Harrow for the Urban Scrawl project which developed a new short play for every station on the  London Underground’s Piccadilly Line. You can listen to the professional recording of the piece on the Urban Scrawl website. Why not explore all 53 plays, the longest is around 10 minutes.

TowpathThe next completed piece was Towpath, a one-act for four women – characters who meet as strangers on the banks of a canal and share their woes. The production won the AAD Festival (Best New Play, Best Production, Best Actress) and which has been performed as far apart as Cardiff, Swindon, Weymouth and Tasmania! The production was invited to the NDFA British All Winners Festival in Blackburn. The script and performance licences are available from StagePlays. Original cast; Frances Iles, Becky Fuller, Paula Luke and Gaye Shepherd.

posterMy follow-up play was Head Case, a ghost story for three women in which a blind sculptress, who is reconstructing a head for her detective sister, finds herself talking to a visitor. Like its predecessor, the production won the AAD Festival (Best New Play, Best Production, Best Actress) and was also invited to the NDFA British All Winners Festival (this time in Teignmouth). The script and performance licences are available from StagePlays. Original cast; Gaye Shepherd, Frances Iles and Becky Fuller.

Chip-Van-logoIn 2014 I wrote a play called The Chip Van Plays Dixie, a two-hander for a man and a women who play strangers meeting on a bench outside a cemetery at closing time. It won the Best New Play award at the AAD Festival as well as Best Actor. At the NDFA affiliated RAFTA One Act Play Festival it won Best New Play, Best Actor, Best Actress, The Audience Appreciation Award and the overall Festival Award. Although we were asked if we would be able to take it to the NDFA British All Winners Festival we were unable to bring the cast together over the required dates so had to decline. The play was performed as part of a double bill at Drayton Arms Theatre in London together with Gillian Plowman’s “Another Fine Mess”. The script and performance licences are available from StagePlays. Original cast; Karrie Breen and Robert Iles.

In early 2021, Stageplays published Towpath and Chip Van as a book earning me my first advance!

Children’s Stories

Gee and the Elephant is a story for a children’s picture book which I have now self-published. Gee and her cat Ginger explore the roof of their house and find that a herd of elephants live there – only one little elephant gets left behind when the others go west for the winter.

You can see the Kindle version of Gee and the Elephant at Amazon or view my Amazon Author page – hard copy books are only available directly from me at the moment.

Short, Tall and Wide, my second completed story, is currently with an illustrator for consideration – currently shared on Wattpad