Braids and Cheer Up Slug

About Olivia HannahTamsin Rees

Olivia Hannah is a Newcastle-based scriptwriter. She wrote her first full-length play Braids as a member of the Royal Court Writers Group (North) in 2018. Braids went on to be long-listed for the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award and selected by Live Theatre in Newcastle where Olivia is also an Associate Artist. Braids was then scheduled for performance in April 2020 cancelled due to Covid-19. It was subsequently selected for BBC Radio 4s Lights Up! festival in March 2021. In 2019 her short play Michelle was developed and performed as part of Workie Ticket Theatre Companys Women Warriors project working with female veterans to share their experiences. She is a recipient of a 2019 Slate R&D commission from Eclipse to develop an interactive theatre piece around Northern Soul and Black diaspora music in Newcastle in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2019 Olivia received an Early Development award from the BFI to write a treatment for a Braids screenplay and is currently working with producers to develop the feature. Most recently Olivia took part in the 2020 BBC Northern Voices scheme as part of which she wrote a TV pilot for Influence an anthology series about the impact of social media on offline life. And in August 2020 her second play Shit Life Crisis was long-listed for the Paines Plough Womens Prize for Playwriting. Tamsin Rees (they/them) is a writer based in the North East of England. They are a member of the Orange Tree Writers Collective 21/22 BBC North East Voices 21 and was a member of the Royal Court Writers Group North. Tamsin is currently completely an AHRC funded PhD in Playwriting at Newcastle University. They write stories rooted in the North East that are character driven and challenge class sexuality and power.