CREATIVE TEAM
Researchers – Professor Hilary Marland, Dr Kelly Couzens, Dr Fabiola Creed
Writers – Courtney Conrad, Bryony Kimmings, Sara Shaarawi
Installation Designer – Alison Neighbour
Sound Designer – Dinah Mullen
Audio Director – Francesca Murray-Fuentes
Performers – Courtney Conrad, Bryony Kimmings, Alex Lowe, Jodie Mitchell, Hiftu Quasem, Victoria Moseley, Emily Stott
BSL Interpreter – Dionne Simpson
Stage Manager – Hannah White-Mackenzie
Additional maker for installation – Isabel Pina Ferreira
PLAYS
MI DI ONCE BAWL FI DI BELLY WEH MI WAH DASH WEH NOW by COURTNEY CONRAD
Performed by Courtney Conrad
LORE by BRYONY KIMMINGS
Performed by Bryony Kimmings
SHE SUFFERS by SARA SHAARAWI
Performed by Alex Lowe, Jodie Mitchell, Hiftu Quasem, Victoria Moseley and Emily Stott
BIOGRAPHIES
PROFESSOR HILARY MARLAND – RESEARCHER
Professor Hilary Marland is based at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick and is Principal Investigator for the Wellcome Trust Investigator Award, ‘The Last Taboo of Motherhood? Postnatal Mental Disorders in Twentieth-Century Britain’. She has published extensively on insanity and childbirth in the nineteenth century, including her book Dangerous Motherhood: Insanity and Childbirth in Victorian Britain (Palgrave, 2004).
She previously co-led (with Associate Professor Catherine Cox) a Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850-2000’. Together they have published several articles on mental disorder in prisons and migration and mental health and their book, Disorder Contained: Mental Breakdown and the Modern Prison in England and Ireland, 1840-1900, appeared with Cambridge University Press in 2022. Hilary’s other research interests include the history of midwifery and childbirth, girl’s health, and household medicine in the nineteenth century.
DR KELLY COUZENS – RESEARCHER
Dr Kelly Couzens is an Australian-born historian of criminal and forensic history. In 2019 she graduated with a PhD in History from the University of Western Australia. Kelly’s thesis, entitled: Medicine on Trial: Medical Testimony and Forensic Expertise in the Scottish High Court of Justiciary, c. 1822 – 1906 explored the history of forensic medicine and professional claims of medico-legal authority in trials for violent crimes in Victorian Edinburgh.
Since moving to Britain in early 2020, Kelly has worked as a Research Assistant in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh and, since June 2021, has been based in the History Department at the University of Warwick. She is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Wellcome-funded project ‘The Last Taboo of Motherhood? Postnatal Mental Disorders in 20th Century Britain’ (2021-2024), led by Professor Hilary Marland. Kelly’s work can be seen in the journal History (2019 edition) and in Alison Adam’s 2020 edited collection, Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850. She is also currently working on a book to be published by Palgrave in 2025, entitled The Victorian Police Surgeon: A History of Crime and Forensic Medicine. Kelly’s research interests include histories of medicine, law, and the press, as well as interdisciplinary research methods or approaches to the past.
DR FABIOLA CREED – RESEARCHER
Dr Fabiola Creed is a health historian specialising in the history of twentieth-century Britain, public health, mass media and stigma.
In 2020, she completed her PhD on the history of sunbeds and tanning culture in England. She is converting this research into her first book, The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear. She recently published the article, ‘From ‘Immoral’ Users to ‘Sunbed Addicts’: The Media–Medical Pathologising of Working-class Consumers and Young Women in Late Twentieth-century England’ in the Social History of Medicine. Her other forthcoming publications address motherhood on British talk shows, and ‘fake tan’ technologies.
Fabiola is now a Research Fellow on Professor Marland’s project ‘The Last Taboo of Motherhood?: Postnatal Mental Disorders in Twentieth-Century Britain’ (Wellcome Trust funded), based in the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick. Her strand explores the theme ‘Sufferers and their Publics: Experiencing and Narrating Postnatal Mental Illness’.
COURTNEY CONRAD – WRITER
Courtney is a Jamaican poet. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner and a Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient. She was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award’s Poetry Prize and the Poetry Wales Pamphlet competition. She was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize and The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition. She is an alumna of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, Barbican Young Poets, Obsidian Foundation Retreat, Griots Well Collective and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, The White Review, Stand Magazine, Poetry Review, Bath Magg, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Anthropocene Poetry Journal and The Adriatic Magazine. Her work has been anthologised by Anamot Press, Bridport Prize, Re.creation, Peekash Press, Bad Betty Press and Flipped Eye Press. She has performed at Glastonbury Festival, Brainchild Festival and UKYA City Takeover. Commissioned by the Museum of London, Guildhall, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Britain, The African Centre, BBC 1Xtra and Spread the Word.
BRYONY KIMMINGS – WRITER
Inspired by the taboos, stigmas, anomalies and social injustices around her, Kimmings creates mind-blowing, multi-platform art works to provoke change.
The work centres around outlandish ‘social experiments’ that Kimmings conducts with genuine genius, intrigue and wholehearted fearless gusto. The artist sets her sights on the impossible and unconquerable, and turns the unspeakable into the years’ hottest topic.
Previous works have seen the artist retracing an STI to its source, spending 7 days in a controlled environment in a constant state of intoxication and becoming a pop star invented by a 9 year old. Bryony’s award winning work has toured across the world, including: Perth Festival, Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Brisbane Powerhouse (Australia), HOME Manchester, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Battersea Arts Centre’s Grandhall (UK), Antifest (Finland), Culturgest (Portugal), Fusebox Festival (Texas), The Southbank Centre, Melbourne International Comedy Festival (Australia) and Lisinski Operahouse (Croatia).
Kimmings also mentors artists, writes musicals, teaches workshops, writes films, speaks on panels and is sometimes on the telly.
SARA SHAARAWI – WRITER
Sara Shaarawi is a playwright, translator, producer and performer from Cairo who is based in Glasgow. In 2021, NIQABI NINJA was produced as part of Edinburgh International Festival (Independent Arts Projects/Lyceum and national tour); the play, which explores themes of sexual violence against women, has been performed in Cape Town, South Africa and Kampala, Uganda and been published as part of ‘Contemporary Plays by African Women’, (Methuen). She is currently under commission to National Theatre of Scotland for full length play SPITHOOD; SISTER RADIO was co-produced by Pilotchry Festival Theatre and Stellar Quines at Pitlochry in Aug/Sept 2022.
In 2015, Sara was invited to take part in the Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s Mentoring Programme and in 2017 she won their New Playwright’s Award. She is an alumnus of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Break Through Writers programme, where she developed LELAH, and took part in their Starter Programme doing research and development on SPITHOOD, a new play exploring police brutality and racism in Scotland.
DINAH MULLEN – SOUND DESIGNER
Dinah is a performance sound artist and designer for live and digital performance; specialising in dance, interactive storytelling and devising.
Recent Theatre credits include Squirrel (The Unicorn, dir. Tim Bell), Attempts on her life (Tobacco Factory, dir. Kalungi Ssebandeke), Icarus (Tobacco Factory, dir. Nancy Medina), Owl at Home (Touring England and Wales, dir. Lee Lyford).
Recent Other: Forge (Performance Installation @ Transform Festival, Barbican Pit, Unit 15 for MAYK, Horizon Showcase Edinburgh, Dir. Rachel Mars/Wendy Hubbard), With Fire and Rage (Interactive Audio Walk for Eurofestival Liverpool, Dir. Zoe Lafferty), Ministry of Time Travel (Smart phone based adventure for The National Archives, Coney).
ALISON NEIGHBOUR – INSTALLATION DESIGNER
Alison is an artist & scenographer who creates holistic designs for performance, installations and public artworks, locally and internationally, often in surprising locations. She frequently works beyond traditional stages to create magical worlds and reframe spaces for performance and social engagement that explore the connections between people, place, and time. Alison is a resident at Pervasive Media Studio; co-creator of Carbon Literacy Training for theatre designers; and founder of Bread & Goose. Alison trained as a theatre designer at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is an Associate Lecturer in Scenography at Central St Martins.
FRANCESCA MURRAY-FUENTES – DIRECTOR
Francesca is a British-Chilean Director/Theatre-Maker. She was a resident director at Oxford Playhouse and Leeds Playhouse. She was recognised in ‘The Stage 100’ for her contributions to the industry during the pandemic, and her play The Runner was nominated for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award.
Selected credits as Director: Frida (Northern Opera Group); Alice In Wonderland (Theatre on Kew); Love In the Time of Corona (Jermyn Street Theatre -also as writer); Doggerland, Silent Statues (National Youth Theatre); Dance Protest (Bunker Theatre); La Llorona (Dance City); King Lear (Rose Bruford); Ref! (Space2).
As Associate/Assistant: Local Hero (Chichester Festival Theatre); Blue/Orange (Royal & Derngate, Oxford Playhouse, Bath Theatre Royal); Mother Courage, The Damned United (Red Ladder); 84 Charing Cross Road (Cambridge Arts, No.1 tour); Happiness Engineers (Barbican).
HANNAH WHITE-MACKENZIE – STAGE MANAGER
Drawing on a diverse background, Hannah brings a unique blend of creativity, business acumen, and technical expertise to her work. With a degree in Performance Management from the University of Winchester, Hannah has a solid foundation in the arts, specialising in scenic design, construction, stage management, and video production. She has successfully created scenic designs for acclaimed productions such as “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Jack the Ripper,” and “Guys and Dolls.” In addition, Hannah has managed large-scale projects, including the highly successful production of “Boogie Nights” at The Point in Eastleigh and most recently concluded a promenade community theatre project (SALT A Community Play for Poole) with over 100 cast and crew from local Dorset residents.
ALEX LOWE – PERFORMER
Alex Lowe is an English actor and comedian known as the creator and voice behind the character Barry from Watford and for his comedy psychic character Clinton Baptiste, created by Peter Kay.
Alex’s television credits include Sky’s BRASSIC, IN THE LONG RUN, alongside Idris Elba, THIS TIME WITH ALAN PARTRIDGE for BBC One, ITV’s COLD FEET, and Gold’s whodunit comedy MURDER THEY HOPE with Sian Gibson and Johnny Vegas.
On the big screen, he has appeared in THE DEVIL OUTSIDE, directed by Andrew Hulme, and BENJAMIN, written and directed by Simon Amstell as well as HAUNTED, Kenneth Branagh’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and PETER’S FRIENDS
On stage, Alex starred in Trevor Nunn’s stage premiere of Fatal Attraction with Natascha McElhone and Kristin Davis at Theatre Royal Haymarket, and LATE COMPANY at Trafalgar Studios, amongst others.
Alex is currently touring the UK as Clinton Baptiste and will next be seen in BRASSIC Series 5 on Sky Max.
JODIE MITCHELL – PERFORMER
Jodie Mitchell is a stand-up comedian, writer, actor, podcaster and Drag King. They’ve appeared on Comedy Central Live and Channel 4’s ‘Jokes Only A Lesbian Can Tell’ and wrote on season 3 of Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’. They’re an Off Broadway Award winner for their work as macho alter-ego John Travulva with their drag king troupe ‘Pecs’, and co-founded the queer women, trans and non-binary comedy show ‘The LOL Word’, which currently has a residency at Soho Theatre.
VICTORIA MOSELEY – PERFORMER
Theatre includes My Brilliant Friend, Beyond Caring, St George and the Dragon, From Morning to Midnight and His Dark Materials (all National Theatre). The Passenger (Greenwich and Docklands International Festival), Phenomenal Women (Southbank Women of the World Festival). Red Ladies (Clod Ensemble), The Simple Things in Life (Fuel), Tombstone Tales (Arcola), Watership Down (Lyric Hammersmith), Blonde Bombshells of 1943 (Leeds Playhouse), Jason and the Argonauts (BAC/Warwick Arts Centre), The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (RSC), Hobson’s Choice (Birmingham Rep) and Alice in Boogie Wonderland (Liverpool Everyman)
For Filter Theatre – A Midsummer Nights Dream, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Water and Faster.
Film and TV includes Peterloo (Thin Man Films), DI Ray, Coronation Street (ITV), Time, Doctors, Merseybeat, The War Horse Prom and The Whistle Blower (all for BBC), Jo-90 (Meridian), Mindblowing (HTV) and What You Will (Fluidity Films)
HIFTU QUASEM – PERFORMER
Hiftu Quasem is a Scottish actress best known for her role as Misha in TEN PERCENT (Prime Video). She has completed filming, Something in the Water (Studio Canal), a feature film directed by Hayley Easton Street. She recently completed another feature film, Sebastian (BFI/ Creative Scotland).
Hiftu also appears in Netflix’s The Witcher: Blood Origin and The Witcher series 3; BBC Scotland’s Granite Harbour; BBC’s award-winning series KILLING EVE, THIS IS GOING TO HURT (BBC), detective drama series ENDEAVOUR (ITV), and BBC Two’s mini-series TRIGONOMETRY, THE NEST (BBC) and TRACES (BBC).
Hiftu began her career acting in a range of short films such as TEHZEEB and MEET ME BY THE WATER. She also has numerous theatre credits including: MISS JULIE (Perth, Tron, and Edinburgh Festival Theatre) and AT HOME I SPEAK (Rich Mix Theatre).
EMILY STOTT – PERFORMER
Emily’s breakthrough role was leading the one-woman show, Glitter Punch in Edinburgh which then went on to tour nationally. Emily stars in the second season of sci-fi drama Foundation on Apple TV. Recently she has filmed series 4 of Trying (Apple TV), Meet The Richardsons (Dave) & Midwich Cuckoos (Sky). Emily’s other theatre work includes the two-hander I Wanna Be Yours at the Bush Theatre.