Small and Precious Rooms.

The summer turned out to be a special one, despite the current circumstances.

I was invited by Nathan Jonathan to get on board and help lead his work. A joyful, if unexpected, proposition.
 
He wanted to be the best artist he could possibly be.

To be a writer is a lonely place.

To press that SEND button. To allow others to pore over every comma, every story, every moment, every choice — and then sit on a Zoom call while they reflect it all back to you.

Whichever way it goes, the truth must be told.

And so you craft, and you craft. You throw away what is precious — perhaps to be used for another time.
Together, in small and precious rooms, we freed the script, tentatively letting it out, line by line to gather wind beneath its wings.

There were times when it crashed. Not many.

And then there was the line I came to enjoy and have a giggle at:

“This is the final, final draft.”
Knowing that it wasn’t.

No, writing is never finished. It lives on with the people who receive it. We as artists are never fully satisfied. Perhaps our job is simply to become as satisfied as we can be, knowing that we gave ourselves the best chance to be the best we could be.

And then we took They’re Just Small Town (Northern) Lads to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026.

Some weeks later I had returned to Leeds as a resting point and was walking along the road, buying ingredients for Carnival, when I heard the good news.

Nathan Jonathan’s They’re Just Small Town (Northern) Lads had been named Theatre Weekly’s Best of the Fest 2026 — Best Monologue.

I didn’t shout.
I didn’t scream.
I stopped.

My dear new friend Adam McGuigan had let me know. He had spent his own summer with the extraordinary Zambian Circus team. They were still in the field sharing their show Afronauts. Still playing. Still hard at the graft. And yet he found the time to celebrate with me in that moment.

And standing there in the street, I realised I was celebrating something else too.
Not being a lonely director.
There’s no need.

Some of us are lonely because we set up a space between ourselves and the cast, and therefore the world, in order to hold authority.

That is the old way.
That is not my way.

I hold the room. I have authority. I stand in my truth.
I work in collaboration and encourage others to stand in their power.
We battle together, side by side — and, at times, with each other — in safety, in power and in curiosity.

In that space we create stories from our lives and from those we have witnessed and observed.

The award is wonderful. I am immensely proud of Nathan and proud of what we made together as a team.
But somewhere between those small and precious rooms, Edinburgh, a message from a friend and my ends between Leeds and London, I was reminded that we had already won.

We made the work.
We gave it the best shot we could.
We let it go.
And people received it.

Thank you to everyone who came, supported, challenged, encouraged and believed.
I hope They’re Just Small Town (Northern) Lads goes on to live and breathe and do its thing right across the United Kingdom.

We shall see.
​
What I do know is that Nathan Jonathan and I had a fantastic summer against all the odds