Reflections on International Women’s Day 2019
I'm sitting in an Air BNB in Newcastle upon Tyne where we've been performing Odd Encounter all week - last show of the run here tonight. It's about sex, love and relationships, and in it…
Irregular Blog
Building consent culture
I am at IETM Munich, an international gathering of performing artists. I was fortunate enough to be given a platform here to speak to Newsround delegates for 3 minutes. Here are the notes of what…
Truth to Power – the mother of reinvention
Last night at Theatre in the Mill, Bradford University, I presented this at the "Truth to Power Cafe", a fascinating platform presented by Jeremy Goldstein of London Artists Projects. "The secret of change is to…
Truth To Power – time to build a…
This week I accepted an invitation. Jeremy Goldstein, Founder and Creative Director of London Artists Projects was putting on an event called 'The Truth to Power Cafe' and inviting volunteer participants to make 5 minute…
On politics, cake and circus
A lot has happened in the year since I last wrote one of these blogs. Since I believe that the personal is political, I'm going to express this from a personal angle. Women in politics…
An Other Thing
One hundred years ago, the start of the battle of the Somme in World War One. World War Two, The Cold War, Falklands, Iraq, 9-11, Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Turkey, the War on Drugs, the War…
Hope and kindness
Our UK democracy (and it is a democracy, albeit a far from perfect one) has put the Tories into power for the next 5 years. My social media streams are still full of shock and…
Why ‘Arts For All’ is important and we…
Today is the anniversary of Jennie Lee's White Paper on arts policy which stated that: "Only yesterday it was the fight for a free health service. The day before it was the struggle to win…
Ten top tips for women on getting older
We've been talking to some older women recently, to get their input into An Odd Occasion. As a woman of a certain age, myself, I've been reflecting on what they told me and I've come…
Art, power and change
Artists and arts organizations like mine sometimes talk about our work as 'socially engaged' work - if arts are a tool for social and/or political change (which I think they can be) then we need…