RUM by Joe Mallalieu

Joe is a Writer and Performer from Stockport and was awarded a scholarship to attend ALRA South. TV credits include: Coronation Street, Endeavour, Hollyoaks and I Hate You. Stage credits include: Canned Goods by Erik Khan (Southwark Playhouse), Band of Gold by Kay Mellor (UK tour).

Tess Seddon is a director, writer and dramaturg from Leeds. Writing and directing credits include Something Old Something New (Sheffield Theatres), Say Yes to Tess (Leeds Playhouse), Tribute Acts (Assembly and on tour) and On the Benefit of Being a Troll (The Yard). Directing includes A Passionate Woman, Decades and The Things We Wouldn’t Otherwise Find (Leeds Playhouse), Jack and the Beanstalk, Beauty and the Beast (Cast) Kailey (Bradford 2025), Blow Down (Theatre Royal Wakefield and on tour), The Last Dinosaur (The Herd, on tour), How To Fly Like A Reindeer (Hull Truck). As dramaturg Ride! (Bradford 2025) and The Fossil Kids (Sheffield Theatres). Tess ran the Northern Hubs for New Views playwrighting course for the National Theatre 2016-24. She was Resident Director at Leeds Playhouse 2016-17. She trained on the National Theatre Studio Director’s Course and with The Wooster Group in New York and Maxim Gorky Theatre in Berlin.

Associate, Resident and Assistant Director: Make it Happen (Dundee Rep/National Theatre Scotland), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (West End), The History Boys (Theatre Royal Bath & UK Tour), Witness for the Prosecution (London County Hall), A Christmas Carol (Nottingham Playhouse, Alexandra Palace), Roman Holiday (Theatre Royal Bath), West Side Story (Curve), My Beautiful Laundrette (Curve), The Entertainer (Curve), Mixtape (Royal Exchange Theatre). 

Director: Songs and Stories from the Atomic Town (Theatre by the Lake), All the Boggles of Derwentwater (Theatre by the Lake), Not Something Other People Do (Curve Online), LE3 Writers’ Showcase (Upstairs at the Western), The Best Play Ever (Delicious Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe), Little Shop of Horrors (Delicious Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe).

Training: MFA Theatre Directing, Birkbeck & Young Director, Royal Exchange Theatre.

Nominations: 2024 JMK Award longlist, Pleasance Charlie Hartill Fund & Underbelly/New Diorama Theatre Untapped Award shortlist, Director/Theatremaker Nominee for 2021 Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund.

Rūta is a London-based performance designer. She trained in Performance Design and Practice at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, graduating with a First Class Diploma in 2013. Rūta was a shortlisted finalist for the Linbury Prize for Stage Design 2013.

In response to the Climate Emergency, Rūta continued her education at the MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins College, graduating in 2021.

Her performance design work focuses on socially and environmentally engaged projects, devised work, and new writing, often in unconventional spaces. Cross-disciplinary collaboration, materiality, and sustainability are at the core of her practice.

Recent design work includes TESTO by Wet Mess (BAC), REPLAY - A Limitless Recycled Playground (Southbank Centre), Say Yes to Tess (Leeds Playhouse), We Could All Be Perfect (Sheffield Theatres), Pink Lemonade (Bush Theatre), And The Rest of Me Floats (Rose Lipman Building / Bush Theatre).

Training: University of Winchester - BA (Hons) in Stage Management and Performing Arts. RADA - Postgraduate Diploma in Stage Electrics and Lighting. Amy won the Scotsman Edinburgh Fringe First Award in 2022 and the Knight of Illumination award in 2015.

Recent Credits: Milima’s Tale, Retrograde (also West End), The Frogs, Girl on an Altar (Kiln Theatre); They ( MIF) Falkland Sound ( RSC) A Passionate Woman, Say Yes to Tess, There Are No Beginnings (Leeds Playhouse) How A City Can Save the World & Wildfire Road (Sheffield Theatres); The Boy with Two Hearts (National Theatre & Wales Millennium Centre); Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre & Royal Exchange); Mountains: The Dreams Of Lily Kwok (Royal Exchange); Two Trains Running (Royal & Derngate / ETT / RTST); Noises Off (Lyric Hammersmith); [Un]Leashed: Sense Of Time (Birmingham Royal Ballet); The Memory Of Water (Nottingham Playhouse); Sweeney Todd (Harringtons Pie And Mash Shop, West End and Off-Broadway).

Lee is a composer, music producer and sound designer. His extensive record of high quality, creative content includes production for theatre, dance, film and radio.

Lee’s credits include: Death and the Kings Horseman (Sheffield Theatres), Something Old, Something New (Sheffield Theatres), Calmer (Lolita Chakrabarti, BBC Radio 3), Ripples (SBC Theatre), Anna Hibiscus’ Song (Utopia Theatre), Where Two Rivers Meet (The British Library), Jadek (Imagine If), The War Within (Fallen Angels & Birmingham Royal Ballet), Lines (Sheffield Theatres & Remote Theatre Project), Never Look Back (Roots Mbili & Sheffield Theatres), Driftwood (Thick Skin & Pentabus), Too Much World at Once (Box of Tricks), Birds and Bees & Human Nurture (Theatre Centre), The People’s Palace of Possibility (The Bare Project), Who Are Yer? (Cardboard Citizens), Othello (Demi-Paradise Productions), Hansel and Gretel (Paperfinch & Theatr Clwyd), The Box (Hawkdance Theatre), Outside the Igloo (The Knotted Project). Original live scores for Metropolis, Nosferatu and The Passion of Joan of Arc (The Dukes Theatre).

Grant Archer is a visual artist based in Manchester, working in photography, filmmaking and live performance. In 2015 Grant founded Take Back Theatre with Julie Hesmondhalgh and Rebekah Harrison and has recently been Associate Artist at Oldham Coliseum.

Adam Robertson has been many things: actor, stage manager, driver of drag queens, production manager, cabaret performer, club host, compere, clown, facilitator, carpenter, seamstress and general theatre idiot. He is one of the co-founders of award-winning, critically-acclaimed, queer theatre company, Milk Presents and has made theatre and performance with the company since its inception after graduating the Royal Central School of Speech of Drama in 2010. Adam has toured nationally and internationally with a plethora of artists and companies for nearly 15 years.

Production and stage management credits include: YOU HEARD ME (Luca Rutherford), Rite of Spring (Seeta Patel Dance), If You Fall (Ad Infinitum), Hold On Let Go (Unfolding Theatre).

Sasha is thrilled to be making her professional debut with RUM. She has previously produced The Manchester Revue Goes Abroad (Just The Tonic, The Edinburgh Fringe) and The Sunday Sillies (Fuse FM), as well as directing Strange Bedfellows (Partisan Collective) and operating technical production for RUNNING OUT OF TIME! (The Hen and Chickens Theatre).

In mid-2016, nine men met in a small room in the typical Yorkshire town of Halifax with a simple aim of talking through their issues and helping each other deal with the struggles in their lives. All in attendance agreed there was a magic in that room that had to be shared. This was the start of a movement that has grown faster than anyone first involved could have ever imagined. Fast forward 8 years and ANDYSMANCLUB now has groups at over 200 locations across England, Scotland and Wales and also online. ANDYSMANCLUB is a free-to-attend talking group that runs every Monday night at 7pm excluding on bank holidays.

ANDYSMANCLUB takes its name from Andrew Roberts, a man who sadly took his own life aged 23 in early 2016. Andy’s family had no inkling that he was suffering or struggling to the extent that he would do this, and wanted to try and prevent other families from going through what they had. They set up ANDYSMANCLUB, a group where men aged 18 and above can speak openly about their mental health in a judgment-free, non-clinical environment. Groups now operate nationwide and are completely volunteer-led, with all group facilitators having first interacted when they came through the door as a service user.

With their service used on a weekly basis by 4500 men, and an army of over 1600 volunteers on board, the movement is continuing to grow on a weekly basis.

To attend ANDYSMANCLUB, email info@andysmanclub.co.uk or head to www.andysmanclub.co.uk, find your nearest club, and simply attend.

Extraordinary stories told in unexpected ways

ThickSkin is Wigan’s very own award-winning theatre company. Established in 2010 and making a home in Wigan since 2023, ThickSkin burst onto the Manchester theatre scenes as one of the only mid-scale producing companies in the North West. We premiere world-class, pioneering, new theatre in our home town, supporting the community to engage with the arts (often for the first time). Through extensive UK and International touring and a broad digital offer, we entertain audiences across the world.

ThickSkin is reinventing theatre for the next generation. We are reimagining what theatre can be and looking to share human stories through quality, future-facing, multi-disciplined formats. We’re developing multi-disciplined artists of the future for a hybrid world where physical and digital collide in more ways than ever before.

We produce bold and ambitious theatre; using our distinctive physicality and cinematic style to reach and inspire young, new and diverse audiences across the world. We nurture talented theatre makers from Greater Manchester and the North West, providing a springboard for artists who are ready to take a leap.

Our work includes a wide range of creative approaches to tell stories in new and inspiring ways. From live stage productions to virtual reality experiences, to immersive audio plays, we make theatre that is rooted in contemporary culture.

The company was founded by Neil Bettles and Laura Mallows who continue to lead the organisation today. They strive to create space for under-represented young people to be heard and celebrated in theatre. Our desire to make theatre accessible and exciting for young people underpins all our work.

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