Busy past few days. Performed in a rehearsed reading of ‘Maryland’ by Lucy Kirkwood at the Traverse (24/25 Nov), then directed and provided dramaturgy for a rehearsed reading of ‘We Need to Talk About Safe’ by Sophie Goode and Corinne Salisbury, edited from the testimonies of a broad range of women in Scotland, at Assembly Roxy (26/27 Nov). Both about male violence against women, and the latter about spaces in which women feel safe/unsafe. Even managed to squeeze in chairing an hour long panel on ‘Staying Connected to Your Roots’, for Scottish BAME Writers Network just before the ‘….Safe’ show. You can imagine I stayed connected to my bed (28 Nov)!

‘Her words are beautifully lyrical, reverberating with an emotional depth that emanate through the camera and paint vivid images that remain with the audience long after the 40-minute run time.‘ THE WEE REVIEW 

A lovely review of ‘Fragments of Home’ that I’d missed after it was re-streamed by Shedinburgh Fringe back in March.

A couple of months back I did some writing workshops with women, for Amina Muslim Women’s Resource Centre in Glasgow. I turned some of their writing into very short films which are part of an exhibition Life in the Time, using some stock video, which daughter Eve edited and did the sound design for. To view the films (each approx. 1-2 mins long), click the link to the exhibition, which includes work by other groups on the project and, scroll down to the four thumbnails at the bottom of the page – starts with Intro and Between Two Worlds. Themes looked beyond participants’ experience of life during a pandemic to ‘a reflection on the past, an acknowledgement of our present and a message for the future: when all this is over, and forgotten. A message to generations to come and the future selves of the women who created this work. “We were not voiceless, it’s just no one was listening”’

Read my latest article Call to Adventure, about my thirty year journey in Scottish theatre, part of Bella Caledonia’s Many Voices project

‘Fragments of Home’ is a 40 min version of ‘Home is Not the Place’, filmed live for Shedinburgh Fringe Festival, August 2020. Now available for screening until 22 March

My introductory piece, ‘The Road Back’, for my Many Voices project for Bella Caledonia, which will be looking back at diversity in theatre and other arts in Scotland over the last thirty years. https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/01/22/the-road-back/

Thrilled to be joining the online magazine Bella Caledonia on their Many Voices project, as a Commissioning Editor. Will be writing about art and politics, and the politics of art, as well as exploring Scottish theatre history in the context of the experiences and contribution of artists of colour.

Interview in The Scotsman, 27 Aug 2020