Apart from embarrassing forays in youth and middle-age, my theatrical career began in 2011, with acting courses and roles in fringe theatre in London. Since 2014 I have been based in Edinburgh, where I have written and directed several plays for
Arbery Productions and EGTG.
I now act very rarely and only in film roles.
25 - 28 MARCH 2020
DIRECTOR
Hay Fever
I am pleased to announce that I will be directing Noel Coward's masterpiece Hay Fever for
the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group ("The Grads"). This is the third production (after The Rose and Crown
and Volpone) they have entrusted me with and I look forward to creating with the committee and the members a
memorably frothy and funny production.
The cast has been confirmed and I am glad to be working with old colleagues and new, especially assistant director Vanashree Thapliyal. Coward's work is deceptive - to create his light comedy requires intense preparation by the actors, who have to give pitch-perfect characterisations, but I have no doubt that is what our cast will do.
I am excited that Junior Cross and I are creating a 90 - 100 minute stage version of the classic Latin text The Satyricon. This bawdy, comic satire follows the adventures of three young men in ancient Rome as they fall in and out of bed with each other - and with the many women and men who cross their path. Guided by narrator Gaius Petronius, we accompany the three through stories of deception, seduction, thievery, tragedy and more.
A comedy of words and action. A spectacle that is funny, thought-provoking, uncomfortable, tragic, satiric and satyric. A view of sexual relations from the Roman perspective - and the Roman perspective viewed from today. A reminder that actors have a life beyond the stage. All this and more in The Satyricon.
Premiering in the Festival Studio, Edinburgh on 24 June (preview on 23 June). Details on the
thesatyricon.uk.
Previously
AUGUST 2019
WRITER AND DIRECTOR
My one-woman play, Sunset ran for eight performances in the Edinburgh Fringe. First produced at the King's Head Theatre in London in 2013 with Carolyn Lyster, I revised the text to bring it from California, where it was originally set, to the UK. I was honoured to have Maggie Macleod portray the grandmother at the end of a long day. Only one reviewer came, but gave it four stars.
Details on arberyproductions.co.uk. We are planning to take it on tour in small theatres in Scotland in 2020.
Courtesy of Arbery Productions I brought two Venetians - one fictional, one historical; one comic, one serious; a famous trickster and a famous lover - to life at the Edinburgh Fringe. My four-star adaptation of Ben Jonson's
Volpone, first seen at the Fringe in 2017, was
revived as a two-act play. My one-act drama, Casanova Dreaming, about Italy's greatest lover received its premiere at the Fringe. The public enjoyed both productions; some critics were less enthusiastic. Details on
arberyproductions.co.uk.
AUGUST 2018
FILM ACTOR AWARD
I have received the August Bronze Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Short Film in the Queen Palm International Film Festival for Roy in Kevin Pickering's Close to the Bone.
MARCH 2018
WRITER
I am honoured that my play The Report has won the 2018 Pitlochry Festival Theatre Short Play Award and excited by the opportunity to collaborate on new work with dedicated actors in a theatre with a long history of repertory work. Many thanks to the judges.
