I have always enjoyed entertaining people with stories.
When I was a child I got involved in as many amateur plays as I could, playing various roles. My experience has mostly been theatre based, devising, directing, and acting in plays. When I was studying Drama and Film Studies at Kingston University, I decided to take up a writing module to try something different. I wrote my first play and short film and loved it. That is when I decided I wanted to be a writer.
I believe people need to laugh. Laughter can give people a momentary break from their difficulties, allowing them to breathe. This break can be crucial in helping a person feel stronger and better prepared to handle whatever troubles they may have. Therefore, I use humour in all my scripts to establish a hopeful tone, as well as to humanise my characters and make them relatable.
I have had the wonderful experience of co-producing two theatre productions in the International Youth Arts Festival in Kingston. In 2016, I teamed up with three other students to produce a series of short plays which we named The Bed. This production consisted of four plays written by ourselves, all featuring a bed. For this I wrote and directed Child’s Play which tells the story of three children entertaining themselves with stories at night, while they wait for their dad to come home from visiting their mum in the hospital. Through the stories that the children tell each other, we explore how they each grieve for their mum in different ways. The year after, I performed Sonder, a devised physical theatre production for which I was dramaturg. This piece told three interlinking stories of trauma and expressed the importance of empathy.
I have also written a feature film, Cuckooed, about 14-year-old pig farmer Rosy, who hides cocaine in scarecrows to protect her family after their home has been taken over by a criminal gang. County Lines has dramatically changed the way drugs are distributed in the UK and increased the level of violence towards the young children who are groomed by these gangs. With Cuckooed, I hope to challenge people’s misconceptions of how criminal gangs operate and make people aware of how gangs groom and use children.
Spike
I am currently making a short film called Spike, which is about a young carer called Hannah, who must help her friend Emily get cleaned up for the attractive paramedics after she has a violent epileptic seizure and sustains a head injury. Helping Emily involves washing the blood out of her hair and tolerating her flippant jokes. In doing this, Hannah risks missing the deadline for a job application. The film focuses on the relationship between Hannah and Emily and how they cope with a situation that neither of them can change.
Spike is inspired by my personal experience living with a friend who has severe epilepsy and my memory of washing blood out of her hair before the paramedics took her to the hospital. Having epilepsy and feeling dependent on others can be incredibly frustrating. In addition, the carer may feel that their own needs are often ignored, which then leads to guilt for feeling that way. There are very few films about living with epilepsy, and so with Spike, I intend to raise awareness of this common condition.
