City Lit

Well, I think everything that I'd...

So basically that quote is pilfered from an amazing Irish poet called Martina Evans who taught me at City Lit.

So basically when I had my...

When I had my first maternity leave in 2010...

And I sort of met and made friends for life with a lot of people who I might not otherwise have met.

But there was a sense that I just want to be doing something for me and for my brain.

And I just literally got the... brochure from City Lit and went through and I was like, can't really do plumbing, not interested in Reiki.

Oh, creative writing.

And anyway, and she sort of really believed in me and in the project.

And she sponsored me to do an autobiographical writing course at City Lit in London.

And so I would sort of traipse off every Wednesday afternoon and go and sit, you know, in a cohort of budding writers at City Lit.

And it was a wonderful process and just so confidence giving.

And

And a friend of mine who had been a trained actor on one of the projects I was on, she said, well, you want to learn how to do it properly.

City Lit does directing courses.

So I thought, well, that's an idea.

So I looked them up.

and through that and through some um useful ground rules that the uh teachers put in how to critique and how to encourage and all this kind of stuff we learned how to direct not just from our own experience but watching everyone else and doing all the post critiques of each show and through that process a it was my first experience of professional teaching in the art space as far as acting's concerned and directing so i learned all the jargon properly and me being me i started reading all the books about stanislavski and all this and the other to try and get my um my ear in for want of a better phrase um and of course i met these other wonderfully talented people and they got to know me i got to know them we started doing projects outside so you know Whilst the Olympics was on, I was doing pub theatre in North East London, for example, and did all kinds of bits and pieces like that.

But having done...

the directing place thing and learnt the techniques and stuff suddenly I was felt capable of going for more dramatic lead roles or you know dramatic roles etc and I was able to do so and got cast in some pretty solid roles and stuff which was you know sort of dream come true scenarios for me as a part of that as well One of the courses at City Lit is acting for radio, which was and apparently still is taught

by David Goodison,

The absolutely incredible H, back again, which I'm really excited for.

You know, H came to poetry through City Lit, through grief, through lockdown, and turned all of that pain into laughter, into very clever poems, poems that are images, poems that have these beautiful stories, like, buried deep in them, and Easter eggs, and complete absurdity.

And this incredibly light way of performing as well that really brings the crowd with her.

So pleased to be performing.