I have an excellent track record and expertise in devising and producing large, multi-faceted projects from inception to final delivery; many of which have involved co-producing, planning and complex negotiations with artistic, accounting, licensing, technical and productions teams. With excellent artistic and operational outcomes, these projects demonstrate my ability to work successfully with international companies, community groups, agencies, think tanks, architects, city councils, contractors, designers, funding partners and maintain clear communications with all internal teams.

This has all been creatively and financially challenging and not least, drawn upon my management, budgetary and logistical skills to stage and bring a show and production together in an outdoor setting, but to be realised into a commercially viable project of interest to a greater audience than had previously been achieved.

I have consulted for the Barbican on the creation and staging of the Open East Festival, with The National Theatre to stage a host of events on its outdoor River Stage, with international festivals to present large complex shows (Electric Hotel, VIP Party, Fuerza Bruta, Circa, Studio Festi, Vamos Cuba!) for numerous stakeholders and site-specific requirements methods whilst managing costs and multiple challenges.

Research has been integral to each and every event in realising specific event narratives, not least differing licensing and safeguarding requirements. A thorough knowledge of CDM regulations and council policies as well as managing audience access, egress, site build and structural limitations plus the revision of content to ensure age-appropriate content as well as involvement of targeted audience and community groups, has played to my strengths built through delivering festivals across regional and national spaces.

I have collaborated with orgs to deliver en promenade performances in Greenwich, Hammersmith and Leeds, shop window installations for Top Shop branches across the UK to promote Reading Festival, to Electric Hotel; a contemporary dance and AR installation requiring considerable planning in building a large structure on a challenging green field site and a concrete car park, to project managing multiple theatrical live-streamed shows by Berlin company Gob Squad running across five specific sites in Suffolk. Particularly complex was a large scale fashion show presented on a specifically built catwalk across the Henham Estate lake which involved working with model agencies, fashion colleges and students, composers, established designers, choreographers and multiple production (and diving!) crews.

Working in old buildings with difficult access and low loading capacity is a strength and culminated in wonderful site-specific performances with band Edward Sharpe, specifically devised immersive theatre from Les Enfants Terribles, Circus Space and installations from numerous visual artists at The Old Vic Tunnels.

Over the last decade, I have increasingly been drawn to exploring how to effect social impact and change and how to successfully illuminate new ideas and platform equality and an open mind. Realising this through fundraising from corporate sponsorship and via several grants from the Wellcome Trust, ACE and collaboration with many universities and public organisations the audience engaged with ideas of wellness in its many forms, and brought scientists to the general public and to collaborations with artists, authors and speakers from far-reaching communities to platform multiple voices and open minds with new research in healthcare and technological advancement. Addressing subjects including sex, identity, health, autism, wealth, epidemiology, A.I., VR, paganism, magic, revolution, porn, climate change, the darknet and mass mobilisation. The events were designed to have a real personal impact on each attendee; extending audience reach, and implementing an evaluation and reporting strategy that explored how best to reach particular segments of the audience. It was hugely successful and gained new audiences, partners and collaborations, media coverage lasting beyond the events through informed personal and professional change.

I have also partnered with major filmmakers, Raindance, Bird’s Eye and BAFTA to realise Director Q&A’s and interactive cinematic experiences with Secret Cinema staging immersive events with actors and even a coterie of ponies and chickens! A particularly successful project was in collaboration with The Tate where we created an interactive event working with art, Minecraft gaming experts, creative experts and a live audience of young gamers creating their own version of a festival based on the work of Salvador Dali. My work investigated new ways to work across digital formats to extend artists work, presentation and cross-fertilise audiences and art forms through collaboration and participation.

Site-specific work also includes an outdoor performance installation in partnership with the Royal Opera House of Hogarth’s Pleasure’s Progress, an AR/Opera North immersive production of Orfeo and Euridice, and a literary night circus hosted by a giant Mother Earth, choral birdsong performance with billowing snow and dancers from the Royal Ballet. The artistic scope is hugely exciting for me and I am able to build on any scale or opportunity for the arts and storytelling to create meaningful and exciting work.

Both Latitude and Reading Festivals required creative thinking to encourage audiences towards work that feels at once relevant and resonant. I have recently worked with Unit 9 to create digital /interactive experience at Dubai airport for Expo 2020; with Darkfield to deliver AR theatrical installations; staged a technically challenging Ryoji Ikeda immersive experience; worked in collaboration with the V&A to present operatic VR performances whilst also creating online digital games with Think Tank Demos to explore blockchain and bitcoin. I am enthusiastic about developing cultural experiences that fuse local identity with a sense of global belonging, designing for sustainability and encouraging creativity in public spaces that empowers and engages audiences of all ages.

As Programme Director/Producer at Tortoise Media during months of the pandemic, I have realised a comprehensive and diverse series of daily digital events bringing on board a greater diversity across the cultural programme including talks with David Olusoga, George The Poet, David Miliband, Melanie Backe-Hansen, Emma Donoghue, Nicola Adams, Simon Armitage and Professor Tim Spector to our online Education Summit as well as producing a monthly digital Book Club and commissioning writers for Letters from Lockdown and Slow Reviews – Cultural Gamechangers series.

I am currently working freelance as a producer, programme curator and creative coach for artists. My current and most recent work includes developing projects, devising compelling narratives for major activations and strategic planning for the City of London, META, Unit 9, Phil McIntyre Entertainment, Liverpool Everyman, Art Makes Noise and Vincenzo Lamagna. Each project is exciting and challenging and I am relishing the diversity and scope each brings.

Slow Reviews, Part III: Introduction & contents

Get Down Cross Arts Collaboration with
Boy Blue Entertainment
DJ’s & Spoken word artists

Duckie at Latitude