Creatives

Helen Vine; Producer, Writer, Actress

Helen is a UK-based actress working on stage, screen and radio. Helen trained with the RSC and has performed on stage nationally. Helen has worked with Warner Bros, Netflix, Audible, the Discovery Channel and the BBC. Helen was commissioned in 2019 to write a play about the Suffragettes for St George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth and is currently working on a collection of poetry about having a baby in a pandemic. Helen conceived of and produced Talking Taboos and is grateful of the support and dedication of everyone involved.

Ant Cule; Writer

Ant is a writer, director and the co-founder of Speechless Theatre Company. He wrote The Bricks of Burston, and The Blacksmith Who Chased The Moon for Stuff of Dreams Theatre Company; he co-directed the Edinburgh Fringe Sell-out show Margaret Thatcher Queen of Game Shows; he created Hamlet… With No Words, Drawn In, and All or Nothing? with his colleague at Speechless Theatre Company. He has also variously served as an acting tutor, workshop facilitator, and dramaturg.

Mark Finbow; Writer

Mark trained as an actor at LAMDA. He works as a writer, producer + director. 

As a screenwriter his short films have screened globally. A Thousand Empty Glasses was nominated for best UK short at Raindance, picked up for worldwide distribution and became a number one selling film on iTunes.

He has recently been commissioned to create a number of new stage plays including a promenade poltergeist adventure, seed funded by House, a new play exploring the role of cross-dressing females on the front line of the English Civil War and a touring production of Hound of the Baskervilles.

Mark is Artistic Director of The Keeper’s Daughter.

Shey Hargreaves; Writer

Shey is a storyteller and scriptwriter for stage, page and radio. She also delivers creative writing workshops in schools, and frequently works with healthcare professionals on training and research projects. She is co-creator of the storytelling podcast Tales from the Pigshed with fellow writer Timothy Lawrence. Her current storytelling show Sick is supported by Arts Council England and Norwich Arts Centre and is touring from autumn 2018 to summer 2019. She collaborates on graphic novels with illustrator Charli Vince; their first joint project, Open Day, made the longlist for Myriad’s First Graphic Novel Competition in 2018. 

Molly Naylor; Writer

Molly is a writer, performer and director who works across a range of mediums. She is the co-writer and creator of Sky One comedy After Hours. Theatre credits include Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You (writer/performer), My Robot Heart  (writer/performer) and LIGHTS! PLANETS! PEOPLE! (writer/director). She has been commissioned by a range of organisations including BBC Radio 4, The RSC and the BFI. Her debut poetry collection Badminton is published by Burning Eye. She is the co-director of True Stories Live.

Maureen Beattie; Actress

Maureen has extensive theatre experience, including roles with the National Theatre of Scotland, National Theatre of Great Britain, the Globe, the RSC and the Royal Exchange in Manchester as well as touring internationally. 

She has also worked extensively in television where her roles include Casualty, The Bill,  Inspector Lewis, Midsomer Murders, Wing and a Prayer, Doctor Who, Outlander and Taggart. 

Maureen has recently played Helen in Yerma by Lorca at the Young Vic and Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. 

Beattie is active in the actors’ trade union Equity, leading their investigations into sexual harassment in the industry. In 2018, she was elected President of Equity, as only the second female president in the organisation’s history.

Jonathan Harden; Actor

Jonathan is an actor and director, best known for neither. In 2015 he established the Honest Actors Podcast and Blog, an industry-first outlet for honest discussions about the realities of the profession, and on related mental health issues. As an actor, he has worked everywhere from the National Theatre to the Bond Stage, and his credits include EastEnders, Star Wars, and everything in between. As a director, his recent work includes two short films which have competed at over 50 festivals worldwide, and taken multiple gongs along the way, including the European Independent Film Award. He is currently working on a short documentary about teenage suicide in his native Belfast, where he lives with his wife and rescued lurcher.

Ian Lavender; Actor

Ian is an English stage, film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Private Pike in the BBC comedy series Dad’s Army. 

Lavender has appeared in several films and television series, including (Mr Big, 1977) Carry On Behind (1975),  Yes Minister, The Hello Goodbye Man (1984),  Keeping Up Appearances and Goodnight Sweetheart.  He also provided the lead voice of BBC children’s animation PC Pinkerton in 1988. In 2001 Lavender joined the BBC soap opera EastEnders. 

Lavender’s theatre work includes Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice,The Rocky Horror Show, Sister Act the Musical, The Mikado and The Shawshank Redemption. 

Roisin Rae; Actress

Roisin trained at Drama Centre London. Theatre credits include: National Theatre, Theatre Royal Haymarket, seasons at Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough, the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond and Farnham Rep. She has toured with shows for Trestle Theatre Company, Dante or Die Theatre Company and Border Crossings Theatre Company. She has worked with Chickenshed theatre, The Kosh dance company, BAC and Untold Theatre company. TV/film appearances include the role of ‘Alice’ in the upcoming independent feature film ‘Dan and Alice’.

Roisin is a founder member of theatre company Prams in The Hall. She has extensive comedy credits as one third of comedy trio Rule of Three with whom she has appeared in London and Edinburgh, including a residency at the Leicester Square theatre.

Pete Beck; Director

Peter is a theatre director, actor, set designer and tutor. He graduated from the University of East Anglia’s Masters programme in Theatre Direction. He is Artistic Director of Restless Natives, a theatre company based in the east of England that creates new work for touring. He is also Director of the Norwich Medieval Mystery Plays, which launched in 2016 as a biennial event. Peter regularly directs and tutors for Norwich Theatre Royal’s Learning and Participation department. Peter has a long-term collaboration with artist and performer Susannah Hewlett, providing voice-overs for her work; credits include: Live Art UK Touring, Duckie, Cambridge Junction, Slade School of Art, Live Art Development Agency, Arnolfini Gallery, East End Collaborations, Chapter Arts Centre, The Bluecoat, Beaconsfield Gallery, Outpost Gallery. Peter has been Creative Director of The Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich. Peter’s TV/film acting credits include Communication Studies ITV, The Chief ITV, Over Here BBC, All the King’s Men BBC, Dalziel and Pascoe BBC. Peter has lectured for Norwich University of the Arts and created work for organisations such as The Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Creative Arts East, Norfolk Museum Service, Norwich Arts Centre, Westacre Theatre, Norwich Theatre Royal and The Hostry Festival, amongst others.

Fiona McAlpine; Director

Fiona McAlpine has been directing and producing radio drama and theatre for over twenty years. She regularly produces drama for BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and Audible as well as other voice over and audio work. Her radio productions include The Sea, The Sea, by Iris Murdoch, starring Jeremy Irons and Iris Murdoch: Dream Girl, starring Helen McCrory.

Theatre includes Britten’s Got Talent, a new play about Benjamin Britten. Last year she produced and directed an Angela Carter season  for Radio 4 and 3, including The Bloody Chamber, The Christchurch Murder, and Vampirella. She has recently directed A Kestrel for a Knave for Radio 4 and is about to start work on Elizabeth and Essex, a live recording for Radio 3 with actors and Korngold’s score played by the BBC Concert Orchestra at Alexandra Palace.

Bill Vine; Composer, Recording Engineer/Mixing/Mastering (@ The Beacon Studio)

Bill is an experimental composer, performer, improviser, sound  artist and ‘luthier electronique’. His work explores audience engagement, performance practice and the re-use of purpose built electronic musical instruments in experimental music.

He is lead artist for the audio/visual collective [UNIT] and the intermedia group Flux:Intermedia. Since 2015 Bill has been an associate artist at Norwich Arts Centre.