Last year I had the chance to work a new idea with the students at LAMDA. It has been epic and I love the play that has resulted from this. The River and the Mountain. Strange, troubling and I think funny. It will get it's test drive at LAMDA in June 2019; an opportunity to explore a big play with 11 performers.

Where The Woods looked inwards to some extent, then The River and the Mountain looks out, to the cosmos, to see if there's a place beyond, authentic and untouched.

Ticket are here.

I think this show is lovely. And I'm proud that it's returned to Leeds Playhouse, a truly brilliant place to make work. Playing till 16th February 2019.

The Woods finished its run a month or so ago and now there is a page all about it on the website with some lovely production shots by Manuel Harlan.

In other news I went to Ireland and directed this lovely show, written and performed by Paul Curley.

More info and tickets here.

Kes will be playing at The Brockley Jack from 2nd-19th May 2018. Details here.

...and you find out where you should've begun.

Try and remember this as I'm sweating away on the final few scenes of a script that's way, way, way too long. I just have to get there. Find out where I'm going, then the joy of knowing where I should've begun. Getting to cut everything away.

I like not entirely knowing where a character will take me. This one took me up a mountain in Norway. I wasn't expecting that. But when I've got there I have to go back and find that first footstep which led them there. It's always there, somewhere. That's why you don't have to panic, just look properly and trust yourself a little bit.

Naughty, messy writer. 

150 members of the theatre community from Scotland and beyond have drawn up this letter. It is in response to the withdrawal of Regular Funding from one of Scotland’s most important and influential theatre companies, Catherine Wheels, whose work over the last 20 years has continually pushed the boundaries and expectations of work for young people, both within Scotland and on the international stage.
The full letter with signatories can be found here.

It was enormously fun to make Crumble's Search for Christmas at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Maybe the most supportive theatre I've worked at as a director. The team were really rather excellent and Anthony Robling's photos are lush. There's a page about it here.