about me
I originally trained as an actor at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where I received a Leverhulme scholarship to study from 1998 to 2001.
Once in the industry I initially made
progress, however, my growing
dependence on alcohol escalated out
of control and in 2004 I abandoned
my acting career.
By 2015, after 20 years of sustained
alcohol abuse, I was severely ill and warned that I would only have 6 months left to live if I continued to drink.
The direction of my life was changed when I received crucial funding to spend a 24-week period in a residential treatment centre in West Sussex. This carefully set me on a path to a sobriety which has now
lasted over ten years.
Whilst I have since rebuilt my life,
my recovery is still prioritised above all else.
Once in stable recovery for two years,
I established a small-scale immersive theatre company, and soon after
directed my own addiction-based
contemporary adaptation of Hamlet which I had developed in my
convalescence period after rehab.
Our company toured the production around various fringe festivals
throughout 2018.
Having resecured an acting agent,
I made my West End acting debut
in Ian Rickson's production of
Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the
Duke of York's Theatre, alongside
Tom Burke, Hayley Atwell, and
Giles Terera.
Along with my directing and acting
work, I began to teach acting as a
freelancer and returned to higher
education in 2019 when I completed
a Post-Graduate Certificate in Performance Teaching at The
Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
In 2023, I graduated again, this time
with a master's degree in Actor
Training and Coaching from the
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
In 2025, with the help of a
prestigious Enterprise Award from
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, I founded Crave Theatre,
a company for actors who have
experienced periods of drug or
alcohol dependency and who now
wish to return to acting.
As Artistic Director I designed
the company's artistic program as
well as our charitable aims. In
addition to providing pathways back into the peforming arts for actors
in recovery, we hope to create new,
industry standard guidleines around acting and addiction.
We are due to stage our first public
productions later in 2026.
I also lecture in acting at several
universities and conservatoires
nationwide, and am studying
Psychodynamic Counselling at
The University of Oxford. My hope
is that will lead to further research within the field of actor
wellbeing with regard to addiction,
recovery and the unconscious.
