I am a playwright, director and acting tutor and I live in North-East London. Many moons ago I trained as an actor at LAMDA. Despite the wonderful training I received there (which I consider to be my theatre training – not just my acting training) I struggled to find work as an actor so I started dabbling in writing and directing and I’ve never looked back. Seriously, it’s great, you get to be in the bar way before the actors do.

After seven years of writing feverishly and furiously, self producing and trying to forge relationships with theatres I was shocked and overjoyed to win the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2013 for my play Yen. This really changed everything for me, and Bruntwood is a magnificant initiative to be involved with. Yen was also shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2015 – 2016.

I’ve been lucky enough to have my work performed at theatres such as The Royal Court, The Royal Exchange and MCC in New York. At the moment I’m working with Frantic Assembly, Headlong and Paines Plough. I’ve also done a bit of work for TV; I’ve developed a series with Little Brother Productions and I’m currently working with HBO and the BBC.

As I director I have worked at venues such as Theatre503, Soho and the NT Shed; where Lost Theatre’s Connections show Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy by Jonathan Harvey, which I directed, played in 2013. Nothing makes me happier than working with drama school students and I have taught, directed or written at Italia Conti, Arts Ed, RADA, LAMDA, CSSD and Identity. I also co-run Hackney Showroom Young Actors with Sam Curtis-Lindsay – a free weekly drama training for young people, and run Without a Paddle Theatre, which is a theatrical network. WAP Workout for professional actors is currently run by Ned Bennett.

I am a big supporter of the charity Phone Credit for Refugees, who do incredible work in this most crazy of times. Read more about them in The Guardian here.

I’m represented by Camilla Young at Curtis Brown and Scott Chaloff at WME in the States. Some of my plays are published by Nick Hern Books, and I hope more will be in the future.

Two of my biggest influences are John Sullivan and Sarah Kane. (I’ve put that because it’s true, but also because I hope it might make you want to come and see one of my plays out of sheer morbid curiosity).  I’m a bit obsessed with Chekhov and fully obsessed with The Wire. I also like cats, wine, yoga, running and cheese – but not all at the same time, that would be ridiculous.