Thaw - 2018
Thaw is a play that I wrote for the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe festival. After pitching the play to the University's Arts funding body the script was awarded a £5000 grant, which funded a two week run at the festival.
Thaw is a comedy drama about family, aging and memory. It follows the story of Laura both as a teenager living in Yorkshire and seventy years later growing increasingly irascible in a retirement home on the south coast.
The show debuted to positive audiences and reviews. As well as entertaining punters we were also able to raise hundreds of pounds for Alzeihmers Scotland through on the door donations after each show.
Audience Reviews
SAND, St Andrews New Drama - 2016 to 2018
SAND is an acting troupe based in St Andrews that specialized in the workshopping and performance of new writing. After performing as part of the ensemble for two years I took over as Artistic Director of the company in my final year.
As the Artistic Director I ran weekly workshops with the troupe and relayed actor feedback to writers, suggested script edits and helped guide the development of their play.
Over the course of my time with SAND I helped to direct and workshop dozens of pieces of new writing, from radio dramas to full-length scripts to one act farces, all of which were immensely enjoyable and provided me with unique experience in script development.
Commons - 2017
Commons is a play by talented up and coming writer Elliot Douglas that I was lucky enough to direct for the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe. It charts the relationship of a middle aged MP and his rent boy in one hotel room over three years in non-linear chronology.
The play was topical, funny and moving. But writing for the Edinburgh Fringe presents a unique challenge. After running the play for the first time we realized the script was nearly an hour long, way over our strict run time of 45 minutes. We only had a few days to cut it down or face fines from the venue and a potentially cancelled show.
Together with the cast and stage manager we collaboratively edited the play at top speed creating a script that was more concise and powerful and one that we all had a personal investment in, beyond our assigned roles.
Coffee and Bagels with Louis and Joe - 2015 to 2018
A friend (Joe) and eventually another friend (Diego) and myself wrote, produced and recorded a weekly radio show called Coffee and Bagels. Each show consisted of an hour of tightly scripted talk-show inspired entertainment.
In our second year we began incorporating a radio drama we had written called Jackpot. It followed the story of Henry Jackpot an old-school, out of touch detective trying to navigate the complex social nuances of modern day New York.
In our third year we moved to a more sultry and manageable evening slot, eventually winning the award for Funniest Radio show.
SANL, St Andrews Night Live - 2016
Over the course of a semester a friend and I wrote and produced a sketch show aimed to showcase new comedians in St Andrews. We riffed on SNL naming it St Andrews Night Live and put it on as part of On the Rocks, the largest student run arts festival in the UK.
The show was a success, selling out and receiving 4 and 5 star reviews. However, the most rewarding part was working with students new to comedy, giving them a platform and watching them develop as performers and writers.
