Above & Beyond

A Headphone Story show for listeners on Southeastern Trains. In collaboration with Turner Contemporary and Southeastern Railway - 2024

2000

It began here.

I drop out of my Theatre BA course and work in a health food shop in Falmouth, Cornwall

2001

I start writing an essay and short story every day for two years

2002

I start work experience for Miracle Theatre as a dresser and Assistant Stage Manager.

I attend a clowning course in Spain for a month and decide to join the circus

2003

I enrol at Circomedia, Bristol and train to be a Clown, also specialising in Physical Theatre and Equilibristics and Manipulation (Juggling)

2004

I sing and play guitar on stage whilst clowning for my final showcase at Bristol Old Vic Theatre. I discover this is something I enjoy very much: music, comedy and pathos all mixed together

2005

I am now a jobbing performer living in London and gain employment with dance companies, theatre companies and I begin to hone my comedy songwriting skills at some open mic nights

2006

I tour the Fringe Festivals of Canada (Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver) with Harriet Plewis and Matthew Bellwood and our devised comedy theatre show lecture The Package It Came In

2007-2011

For the next five years, I now focus on my solo musical comedy act. From beginning on open mic nights, honing comedy songs and trying to get a presentable ten minutes, to performing on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends and supporting Simon Munnery on his national tour and bringing touring two solo comedy shows to Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 (Tom Adams: Dropped as a Child) and 2010 (Tom Adams Can't Come - Winner of Mervyn Stutter 'Spirit of the Fringe' Award) and with three solo comedy shows Battersea Arts Centre.

I enjoyed most of it. I have always and still do, love the immediacy of stand-up comedy, the sense of oneness with an audience. The hard times were harder because I did not have anyone to share it with. During my time in the comedy world, I wondered where my endgame was. I didn't want to do panel shows and I got lonely, I love collaborating. I love being in a room with funny, talented, supportive people and sadly the pressure of being funny all the time on my own was too much to handle.

So, I just stopped doing gigs. Then, I met Laura Mugridge...

Theatremaker and comedian, Laura Mugridge got in touch with me as she'd seen my Edinburgh show and wondered if I'd like to sit in a room with her for a week as she developed her new theatre show The Watery Journey of Nereus Pike. What followed is a wonderful long collaboration over lots of different theatre shows over the next few years including Still Score, Tony and Mike, Howl at the Moon, The Lesser Sun, My Dad, the Magician and Bookish.

We just made each other laugh and her supportive, caring nature means that any idea is tried out and played with. She helped me transfer from stand-up comedy to Arts Council-supported projects that could be financially viable as an artist. I felt like I could still make the shows I wanted to make and that didn't necessarily fit onto the comedy circuit. They could go somewhere else.

2012

Theatremaker and comedian, Laura Mugridge got in touch with me as she'd seen my Edinburgh show and wondered if I'd like to sit in a room with her for a week as she developed her new theatre show The Watery Journey of Nereus Pike. What followed is a wonderful long collaboration over lots of different theatre shows over the next few years including Still Score, Tony and Mike, Howl at the Moon, The Lesser Sun, My Dad, the Magician and Bookish.

We just made each other laugh and her supportive, caring nature means that any idea is tried out and played with. She helped me transfer from stand up comedy to Arts Council supported projects that could be financially viable as an artist. I felt like I could still make the shows I wanted to mae and that didn't necessarily fit onto the comedy circuit. They could go somewhere else.

2013

It was this year that my life changed. I began to have daily migraines which took me to rock bottom. I stopped shaving and grew a massive beard. My friend, Laura, called it my breakdown beard. Over time though, after seeing a wonderful head specialist called Dr Manjit Matharu, my chronic pain was managed with drugs like Propranolol and Epilim. I am still on these drugs every day to this day and I wonder if I came off them, would the headaches come back? I might make a show about this process one day.

But it was this year of 2013, amongst the head pain, that I used this anger I felt to write my first Arts Council Project Grant for a solo show called Still Score. I was so overjoyed when I received the funding and it gave me a new impetus in how I could progress next, away from comedy clubs and into theatre, with the same artistic impulses.

2014-2016

This year I made Still Score, directed by Laura Mugridge and it toured nationally. I then applied to the Arts Council again to make my second solo show Howl at the Moon. This application was successful also and I made it with Toby Park (Spymonkey). It was during this process that I understood my preference to making shows that are tourable in a suitcase.

Between 2014 and early 2017 I devised, performed and produced several Arts Council support shows including The Apollo 11 Campervan and The Sleeptalking Project

2017

In 2017, my wife and I moved from London to Margate and at first, I felt I'd made a massive mistake. My wife and I were making a show together, Elephant and Castle, supported by the Arts Council and we had use of Winter Gardens, Margate to rehearse, which was very kind of Pam Hardiman to help us out. My wife and I were arguing lots during making this, added with, or because of, the stress of moving and living in a strange, bleak town in the middle of January. We eventaully made a great show together, supported by David Parkin and Kirsty Housley with free space given to us by Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester.

2018-2022

From 2018 onwards, I managed to make lovely friends, contacts and a deeper understanding of who I am within Margate and outside of Margate. When living in London, I didn't need an identity as such, as London was so massive and like a brilliant friend, I could just orbit its gravity. In Margate and especially during Covid and lockdown, I began to understand my enjoyment more and more is with collaboration musically, infusing my work with a gentle comic, playful sensibility but not too much it will spoil the pudding. More and more, I just want to be me

2023

2023 was a big year for me both personally and professionally.

My wife found out she was pregnant and also this year was the beginning of Headphone Story, a new podcast I started with Karen Pirie (BBC Radio 4) that tells stories using binaural sound to be listened to on headphones. We launched Season 1 in June 2023 and The Guardian called it 'One of the best theatre shows to stream this month...a delightfully inventive set of new pick’n’mix audio dramas'.

With this new style of making stories in my toolkit, I have received more commissions from arts organisations to make binaural audio pieces to be listened to remotely and in various locations physically. I am now working with organisations including Turner Contemporary, Babylon Arts, Vision Norfolk and Camsight.

Our baby was born in November and I am loving being a Dad.

2024

This year, I worked on amazing projects that challenged me, inspired me and pushed me further than I could have gotten myself. I have made great friends along the way. One of them was Lucy Wheeler, Producer for Babylon Art’s commission of The Lantern Men, which was made with participants with sight loss. From The Lantern Men, I understood the balance between creating a safe space for participants to create and the actual project itself. Is the final piece creating this safe space for participants to remember and take strength and inspiration from? Other projects include Above & Beyond, a commission from Turner Contemporary, Southeastern Trains and Creative Isle Community Rail Partnership. I have had an amazing time on this, travelling on trains across Thanet, and interviewing railway staff to understand more about them and the pressures they face in their job.

For the second half of this year, I wrote music for Groundling Theatre’s VR production of King Lear.

I am also developing more Headphone Story episodes and am collaborating with Brightside Publishing to make audio versions of their articles.

2025

This year has started with a bang with a collaboration with Marlowe Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and Pilgrims Hospice to co-create a song with composer Lillian Henley inspired by the RSC’s production of Hamlet, coming to the Marlowe Theatre in April 2026. Working with outpatients from Pilgrims Hospice, Lillian and I are exploring all the themes from the play. Miracle Theatre has also commissioned me to make a storytelling show with Dan Richards about the wonderful things that happen on a small-scale tour. This will be made later this year and Spring 2026. Onwards...