The Way I See It

For Little Earthquake

A series of short films inspired by twelve months of conversations with people across Birmingham about their experiences of life in the city during the first full year of this new Labour government.

Sounds Unfamiliar

Personal Project

A period of learning, research and experimentation, supported through Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice fund. Exploring sound design and composition for live events (including theatre and installations) and digital work (including podcasts and concept albums).

Programming Consultant — MAC

For Midlands Arts Centre

Leading on performances programme and strategy across theatre, dance, music, comedy and family work as the venue re-established itself and reconnected with audiences on site after the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

Nevertheless, We Persisted

For Midlands Arts Centre

"Equal rights for others doesn't mean less rights for you. It isn't pie."

An exhibition inspired by and featuring cards, letters and messages of support sent to Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham from across the globe during protests around LGBTQ+ inclusive teaching.

Showcasing the gentle, eloquent force of the handwritten note as a powerful form of activism, the exhibition also explored 50 years of change and challenge in both legislation and social attitudes towards LGBTQ+ representation within education.

How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found

Little Earthquake's eighth production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

A fast-paced, cinematic and unsettling version of Fin Kennedy's award-winning play. It takes more than a new identity to escape the reality of who you are inside.

The Bluebeard Trilogy

Little Earthquake's seventh production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Three contemporary responses to the Bluebeard myth, rehearsed and performed entirely via Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic. A group meet online to process the news that one of their mates is a serial killer in Caryl Churchill’s Bluebeard’s Friends. A panicked curator tries to wrangle the monstrous egos of conceptual artists in Philip Holyman's Bluebeard’s Art Club. A frazzled director grapples with #MeToo in Philip Holyman's Bluebeard’s On The Radio.

Oedipus

Little Earthquake's sixth production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Created, rehearsed and performed entirely via Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic, live TV news kept the cameras rolling in real time as the tragedy of Oedipus became eerily intertwined with the chaos of our own global crisis.

Behind The Screams — Jurassic Park Edition

For Little Earthquake, in collaboration with Zoë Roberts

Behind The Screams lifted the lid on the making of Jurassic Park with an exclusive audio commentary from the movie’s scene-stealing scaly star: none other than T-Rex herself!

Available to stream whilst watching the movie at home during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, listeners were able to join our TALON-ted actor for the scandal-filled and tofu-fuelled story of how she stomped, chomped and romped her way to international fame through one of the most iconic roles in cinematic history.

Culture Club

For Midlands Arts Centre as part of Celebrating Age

I co-led the strategy for Culture Club at Midlands Arts Centre, a Baring Foundation-funded meeting ground for participants aged 70+ to explore different art forms and create their own work.

In 2021 I made The Stolen Year with members of Culture Club; in 2019, the group collaborated with Denis Sözen to produce a panel for the Moon Museum tile for MoonFest.

Animal Farm

Little Earthquake's fifth production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Two bites of the Orwell apple, one scuppered by Covid in Tech Week and one marking a defiant post-lockdown return to live performance. Same set, different ensemble, eighteen months apart.

A permanently timely tale of who and what is considered expendable as the Manor Farm pigs make their unstoppable shift to the far right.

Moon Museum

For Little Earthquake as part of MoonFest
In collaboration with Deniz Sözen

Get six famous artists to make six new artworks. Shrink them onto a tiny ceramic tile. Sneak it onto a rocket and leave it on the Moon. The tiny Moon Museum smuggled onto Apollo 12 was the world’s first piece of Space Art. And it was time for history to repeat itself.

Community groups across the city collaborated with visual artist Deniz Sözen to create six brand new pieces of art inspired by the Moon landing — and we brought them together to create our very own Moon Museum for 2019.

Moon Memories

For Little Earthquake as part of MoonFest
In collaboration with Rochi Rampal

A social history project for Lunar Lovers and Loathers! An interactive and immersive installation inspired by 1960s living rooms, the public's recollections of the historic Apollo 11 mission, conspiracy theories and thoughts on the future of space exploration.

Grimm Tales Retold

Little Earthquake's fourth production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Jacob and Wilhelm’s famous fairy stories get a Little Earthquake-over, with four new adaptations showing familiar characters in a dark new light. Spiked with black humour and sprinkled with gore, these tales are decidedly Grimm and deliciously unexpected.

DART: Developing Artists for Rural Touring

For Live & Local

Co-developing and leading the inaugural Developing Artists for Rural Touring initiative for Live & Local, supporting and mentoring ten artists and companies to connect with the UK's rural touring network.

Independent Theatre Council

For Independent Theatre Council (ITC)

Board Member (2018 - 2020), Vice-Chair (2020 - 2022) and Chair (2022 - 2024) of the management association for the UK's independent performing arts sector, supporting over 450 companies and producers.

A Tale Of Two Chippies

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Creative Black Country

An attempt to carve out a whole new sub-genre, the souvlaki Western. A saga of bitter rivalry between Greek and Turkish chip shop owners, exacerbated by a Bulgarian migrant playing both sides off against each other.

Written and directed by Philip Holyman.

East Meets West

An artist-led development programme for the Midlands theatre sector. Mobilising artists, companies, producers, programmers and venues from across the entire region, East Meets West reduced barriers and encouraged collaboration between and within the East and West Midlands, cementing the foundations of a more proactive, democratic and supportive community.

Orlando

Little Earthquake's third production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

With the help of a band of biographers, Orlando re-tells, re-lives and re-edits their five-century search for the perfect partner and the perfect poem. A lively, witty and fast-paced version of Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel, adapted for the stage by Sarah Ruhl.

Yamlet

For Little Earthquake

The media thought it was an April Fool, but this project was absolutely no joke — a meditation on class and culture which translated sections of Hamlet into Black Country dialect before we filmed them on the mean streets of Cradley Heath, resulting in a web series which has received over 250,000 views.

Written and directed by Philip Holyman (with help from William Shakespeare)

The Good Sisters

Little Earthquake's second production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Friendships and family ties soon come under strain when a million Green Shield stamps and a limitless world of free prizes are at stake. A rowdy and raucous production of Michel Tremblay’s masterpiece Les Belles-Soeurs in a Northern dialect version by Noël Greig.

Even The Ghost Is Lying

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Birmingham Literature Festival

A promenade piece around the giant book rotunda of the Library of Birmingham. Guided by unreliable narrators, audiences were split into groups and led on a winding journey up and down travelators and along normally inaccessible balconies, perfect for telling a story of menace, marriage and murder.

Written and directed by Philip Holyman. Based on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s stories which inspired Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashōmon.

The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant

Little Earthquake's first production as Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts

Marking the 70th anniversary of Fassbinder’s birth, home truths flowed faster than the gin and tonics in this classic melodrama from the boozed-up bisexual bad boy of German cinema, all set to a sizzling soundtrack of German kitsch pop classics.

Visiting Director & Tutor — University of Birmingham

For eight years, Little Earthquake was Associate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama & Theatre Arts, working across many aspects of the BA (Hons) Drama & Theatre Arts course.

Work included: directing eight final-year productions; co-leading the Contemporary Practice module; re-developing and leading the Directing for Theatre module; creating and facilitating multiple workshops, including sessions on acting technique, devising, audition technique and improvisation.

Young Producers

For Little Earthquake
In partnership with Black Country Touring

Over one academic year, 100 pupils in five Black Country primary schools became Young Producers, working with Little Earthquake and Black Country Touring to create a brand-new piece of theatre for family audiences: The Boy Who Became A Beetle.

The Young Producers were involved in every element of the theatre-making process: from developing the show idea, through to recruiting the cast and creative team, contributing ideas for the design and music, and, finally, to hosting and promoting a performance in each of their own schools as part of its initial tour.

Visiting Director & Tutor – Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

Working with under-graduate and post-graduate students across several degree courses.

Work included: developing and leading Ensemble Practice, Improvisation, Storytelling, and Research Methodologies modules for the MA and MFA Acting courses; co-developing and co-leading the Collaborations Module for the BA Applied Performance course; co-developing and co-leading the Event Creation Module for the BA Stage Management course.

Professor Harry Hackett and his Box of Treats

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Birmingham REP and Flatpack

A theatrical treasure hunt — complete with clues hidden in bags of popcorn and candyfloss, and a secret coded message on a flock of Hook-A-Ducks — climaxing in an exclusive vaudeville show from Professor Harry Hackett and Miss Tuppence Change.

Deviser & Performer – Stan’s Cafe

Devising and performing for meta-theatrical legends Stan's Cafe. Work includes: Deviser for Of All The People In All The World (Perth, London and Birmingham); Performer in Finger, Trigger, Bullet, Gun (Birmingham and London).

The Tell-Tale Heart

For Little Earthquake

Edgar Allan Poe’s story of murder in the dark transformed into a thrilling live Foley experience. Featuring a wordless and entirely bloodless eight-minute dismemberment sequence conjured up with mime, manipulated sound and a whole greengrocery’s worth of fruit and vegetables.

It’s Only A Paper Moon

For Little Earthquake

A fantastic voyage which spanned three continents, four hundred years and half a million miles. Mixing multimedia and multiple languages, It's Only A Paper Moon entwined four stories about lunar landings and lycanthropy, the birth of cinema and the miracle of conception. The show offered new insights into the pock-marked sphere of stone hovering up in the night sky and a new appreciation of how extraordinary the world is down here.

The Nocturnal House

For Little Earthquake as part of The Three-Week Window Festival

For one day only, an ordinary shop window on an ordinary street was transformed into a mysterious twilight world. Hundreds of pedestrians pressed their noses to the glass and peeked at the shy and secretive creatures who emerged from the shadows for a disco each hour.

The Three-Week Window Festival

For Little Earthquake in collaboration with Tin Box
Commissioned by Point Blank and Make.Shift Studios

Three weeks. One window. Limitless possibilities. An interactive festival for Birmingham's busiest high street.

Every day for three weeks, a shop window was transformed by artists who presented an array of work designed to intrigue, attract and engage thousands of passers-by. The Festival featured theatre, dance, music, photography and visual art — and alongside the Birmingham contingent, our collaborators hailed from as far afield as Manchester, Lancaster, Sheffield… and even Brazil. 

The Year Is Twenty-One

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Pilot Nights

A 21st birthday party for a man coming of age to fulfil his diabolical destiny. Rosemary’s Baby repackaged as a cupcake-fuelled intervention, offering a chance for Andy and his audience to take charge of their own fate.

Celluloid Adventures

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Flatpack

A series of immersive film screenings for Flatpack: The Queen Ant Made Me Do It! (Empire of the Ants, directed by Bert I. Gordon); Operation Red Soup (The Witches, directed by Nicolas Roeg); Popcornocchio (Pinocchio, directed by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske); Bunny Games (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, directed by Robert Zemeckis).

Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm

For Little Earthquake
Commissioned by Lichfield Festival

Celebrating the centenary of the first public radio broadcast, six actors brought Salome’s scandalous story to life in a pitch black auditorium, using Foley sound effects and the limitless power of the audience's imagination.

Writen and directed by Philip Holyman.

The Houdini Exposure

For Little Earthquake

Fuelled by guilt and grief, Harry launches a moral crusade which tears his friendships apart and sees death threats rain down on him from his enemies in this world — and in the world beyond.

The Haunting

For Little Earthquake

Leaving the safe confines of the theatre, we invited audiences into the dark, enveloping shadows of England’s reputedly haunted halls, houses and hotels. Heritage properties across the country hosted an unforgettable theatrical event, an evening quite unlike anything audiences had experienced before.

Hit The Baby, Natasha!

For Little Earthquake

A radical reimagining of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, told from Natasha's perspective and populated with an ensemble of puppet and human actors.

Written and directed by Philip Holyman.

Spines Will Tingle

For Little Earthquake

An intimate evening of gentle chills and pleasing terrors from some acknowledged masters of the macabre.

Deviser & Performer – Talking Birds

Deviser and performer for community interventionists Talking Birds. Work includes: Performer for The Whale; Deviser and Performer for Capsule.

The Masque of the Red Death

For Little Earthquake

A tense, claustrophobic thriller based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name. Whatever you do… don’t wear red.

The Premature Burial

For Little Earthquake

Obsessed by Edgar Allan Poe’s stories of untimely interment, our lonely hero lives in mounting terror of being buried alive. When his waking hours become a living nightmare, he resorts to increasingly desperate measures in his battle against a fate worse than death.

Written by Philip Holyman.

Madman

For Little Earthquake

Little Earthquake's very first production — an inventive, highly-charged version of Nikolai Gogol’s gripping short story Diary of A Madman. Reason and order fall spectacularly apart when Poprishchin falls truly, deeply… and madly in love.