All In Advisory Group

I have been working in the arts for over 25 years, as a Socially Engaged Artist, Performer, Facilitator, Coordinator, Arts Development Officer. I am now training to be an Integrated Counsellor and Somatic Coach for people with Lived Experience and Creatives. For many years I hid my Chronic pain, Chronic Fatigue and Neurodiversity due to fear of losing work, in only the past couple of years I have started to come out and advocate for myself.

I work with The Misfits Theatre Company and various other companies developing and facilitating Arts & Wellbeing projects. I have worked previously with organisations including; Inclusion Gloucestershire, Spike Island, Gustav Holst Museum, Wiltshire Youth Arts Partnership, As the Artistic Director of Above and Beyond and Attic Fusion Theatre Company.

I am passionate about accessibility and inclusivity in the arts, with people as experts by experience co producing and at the forefront of decision making, development and delivery work. I’ve worked in various arts venues and have experienced very little awareness around accessibility and reciprocal communication in consulting people with lived experience. I feel this can be a massive barrier to not only people with lived experience attending live events but also feeling that the arts as a career is challenging or very limiting to get into if you have lived experience. I hope for the All In Scheme to open dialogue, develop opportunities, and create sustainable change.

I’m an author and access consultant, listed as one of the Bookseller’s Top 150 Publishing Influencers in 2023. I won the Aurora Prize for Writing in 2021, and my poem IMAGINE was published in Not Going Back To Normal – A Disabled Artists Manifesto. My Contemporary Young Adult novel was shortlisted for the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2022 Anthology, the Guppy Open Submissions Competition 2022, the Write Mentor Children’s Novel Award 2021 and the Owned Voices Novel Award 2021. I’m outlining a nature memoir and short film scripts.

I am Co-Founder and Director of the Inklusion Guide: A kickass guide to making literature events accessible to disabled people. The free guide was launched at Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2022 and was produced in partnership with Penguin Random House. It is now being used by literary organisations and festivals around the world, as well as individuals looking to self-advocate for their needs to be met.

I serve as a trustee of Mslexia Magazine and I’m a committee member of the UK Disability Network in publishing, where I hope to help effect meaningful change towards a more equitable industry.

I play guitar, ukulele and piano, and I draw and paint as well as write. I love eating good food, travelling to new places, and going for long country walks.  

I’ve been working in the disability rights sector, mainly in Wales, for almost thirty years. In that time, it’s been a pleasure to get to meet the some of the many talented disabled artists in Wales, including Jon Luxton, Natasha Hirst, Sara Beer and Maggie Hampton. I’m also a parent to three disabled adult children.  

Throughout my career, my work has included managing an accessible housing project in Cardiff , and working for ten years as Access Policy Manager at Disability Wales. This involved working with Welsh Tourist Board to develop an accessibility accreditation scheme for hotels in Wales (a bit similar in some ways to our project).

I am also a qualified and experienced access auditor and am very keen on inclusive design. I have audited BFI’s Southbank building, and have worked with them on other projects including helping to edit the Disabled Britain archive collection and writing a blog about old and new visions of disability on screen.

I am currently working part-time at the charity Scope to embed co-production as a key operating model throughout the organisation , and am also a Fellow of the RSA (the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce).

I am passionate about fighting for disability equality.

My interests are film, theatre, music, architecture, and drumming.

I am a creative from South Wales currently residing in Liverpool. I have a BA in Drama and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London; as well as an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from Cardiff University.

I am a former co-artistic Director of the theatre company, Rolling Pig Productions. My background includes theatre and written work, working with the likes of the Welsh National Eisteddfod, Shift Cardiff, Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, and Stowaway Festival.

I am also the co-author of Tami: Y Pump, a Welsh language novel that seeks to diversify the representation in Welsh language literature.

I am currently working on developing my creative practice as a poet.

I am an award-winning poet, playwright, and the Artistic Director of CRIPtic Arts, a trailblazing disabled-led arts organization in the UK. At CRIPtic, I research, identify and advocate for potential solutions to access barriers for disabled artists and audiences; run organizational development incubators; curate and deliver training programs for disabled creatives at all career stages; and direct productions that challenge and expand artistic boundaries.

Recognized as one of the hundred most influential disabled people in the UK, I work in a wide array of fields. My academic and professional research focuses on disabled people, leadership, access, and organisational development, particularly within the arts, education, and non-profit sectors. I apply this expertise to the access-centred consultancy, training, and mentoring work I deliver for organisations, events, and individuals. This approach is rooted in anti-ableism and disability justice and pragmatically explores solutions to persistent access barriers, whilst working in resource-limited environments.

My core artistic practice spans poetry, screenwriting, and theatre, engaging with themes of disability justice, mortality, and nature. This includes the award-winning solo show, NOT DYING (Theatremaker of the Year, Future Theatre Fund 2021), which has been showcased nationally and internationally. I am currently developing this into a future show titled “Quality of Life is Not a Measurable Outcome”, and curating a new show, the Crip Monologues. My poetry pamphlet, Shield, was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2021, and I was one of the prestigious 2021-2022 Jerwood Poetry Fellows, after which I founded the Disabled Poets’ Prize in 2022. I am also directing a disabled-centered Romeo and Juliet as part of the Wellcome-funded Cripping Breath research project.
In addition to my artistic practice, I work in disability leadership, policy research, and consultancy, including as CEO at Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance and Chair of the Lewisham Disabled People’s Commission.

I am the Creative Diversity Partner at ITV, so am part of the team delivering the Diversity Acceleration Plan. I am involved in delivering ITV’s Disability agenda and I also work closely with Producers and the commissioning teams to ensure a diverse and inclusive team are involved for ITV commissions, working particularly closely with the teams in Factual Entertainment, Sport, Daytime and the soaps.  

Prior to joining ITV, I worked for training and consultancy company thinkBIGGER!, where I worked on projects such as the Channel 4 Production Training Scheme and on the training programme for the disabled presenters and reporters for the coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. 

I also chair the BAFTA’s Disability Advisory Group, am a member of their Learning, Inclusion and Talent Committee, and am part of BAFTA’s Diversity Steering Group for the Awards. I am also part of the British Film Institute’s Disability Advisory Group and am Chair of the Board of Trustees for Graeae Theatre Company. In 2021, I was listed in the Shaw Trust’s Power 100, the list of the top 100 most influential Disabled people in the UK. I was awarded an MBE for services to Disabled People in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list in June 2022. 

A lot of my job is focused on representation and ensuring people from underrepresented groups are given opportunities to gain, develop and thrive in their career within the Television industry. I’m passionate about breaking down barriers and levelling the playing field for all, especially disabled people, and ensuring that the voices of those we don’t hear from often are elevated. Access and accessibility within the Creative Industries is a key subject area at the moment and I’m excited about working on embedding accessibility into the system of everything thing we do and I hope this Access Card will be part of the solution for many. 

I go to the theatre often and love nothing more than watching live performances. I also watch a LOT of Television. Luckily for me I can count this as work but I watch a lot of it, whether than is drama, documentaries, live events, big entertainment programmes or reality series I love them all!

My lived experiences often inform my work. For example, in December 2008 I nearly died from a rare brain infection, which left me with an acquired brain injury. I created an immersive, sound-based theatre production about my experiences called Reassembled, Slightly Askew which has toured locally, nationally, and internationally in arts festivals and medical training settings since 2015. 

I’m passionate about equality and human rights.

I moved to Northern Ireland from the States in 2004, and in 2005 my partner and I made history as the first public civil partnership in the UK, and proceeded to take the NI government to court in 2015 to bring same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.  My experiences as an immigrant, biracial ethnic minority (Chinese/Caucasian), queer artist-mother with a disability living in Northern Ireland are deeply embedded in my work. 

I am a performance maker and artist specialising in creative access and well-being within theatre and the broader cultural sector. With a background in theatre, my work always takes an interdisciplinary approach. I have collaborated with a range of organisations and artists, exploring disability justice and change-making on a regional and international level. With a focus on artist development and portfolio careers, I received development funding to explore sustainable artistic practices as a disabled artist.

Originally from Wigan (now living between the North West and Midlands) with a classical music background, my work encompasses two key areas: creative practice and promoting change. I am interested in research around artistic practice, creative industries and critical theory and share this passion through lecturing at a Birmingham drama school and am undertaking a master’s in artistic research practice at Central St Martins, London.

Creatively, I find enjoyment in exploring various theatrical perspectives and delving into the underlying intent in performance. Pedagogically, I am currently investigating the applications of performance within the learning environment itself, as well as the ways in which creative individuals engage with the process of learning.

I am a multidisciplinary artist, musician, university lecturer and artist mentor based between London and Kent, UK. My practice explores speculative fiction, ecologies and belonging through voice and sound art, electronic music (composition and improvisation), moving image, writing and performance. I also co-create in mixed reality, installation, podcasts and workshops.

I am a specialist artist mentor with over a decade’s experience supporting artists’ creative and professional development.

I’ve recently mentored artists as part of Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant, Wysing Arts Centre’s Amplify project, LGBTQ Outside’s Queer Youth Arts Collective and Drake Music’s Artist Development programme.

I’m proud of my work as Artist in Residence at Drake Music (2022) and Wysing Arts Centre (2022), receiving the Jerwood Arts Bursary in 2021, and being both a Womxn of Colour Art Award finalist and Adam Reynolds Award finalist in 2021.

I am passionate about inclusion and accessibility: widening access to arts and culture are core values at the heart of my work as a practising artist, educator, artist mentor and access consultant. 

My personal interests include: coastal trail walks and bike rides; rollerblading and skateboarding; yoga and intuitive movement; wild gardens, botany and herbalism.

I am a Ticket Sales Team Leader at the Barbican Centre, London, and am also a freelance writer, creative, and consultant. I’ve worked with the Ruckus Collective to plan accessible retreats and online events for marginalised creatives, and delivered workshops at their events. My writing has been supported by the North Wall (Oxford), Spread the Word (London), and Canongate publishing house. I’m currently working on my first book, an essay collection, and on getting my first play ready for staging. 

I’m passionate about diversity and inclusion – obviously! – and especially about encouraging marginalised people to view themselves, and be viewed by society, as creatives in their own right. Too often we’re an afterthought, or only thought of as audience members who need to be the focus of “outreach” and “inclusion” campaigns, when lots of us are really desperate to be included!

In my day job, and as a freelance consultant, speaker, and workshop leader, I’m always striving to make the arts a more inclusive and accessible place for all of us, drawing on my experience as a queer, neurodivergent disabled person.

I’m interested in art in all its different forms, and have a background as a theatre, music and literary critic. I also love video games, nature, crafting, and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

I’m proud of how I’ve made a difference to accessibility in cultural venues through my work, including delivering several seminars abroad, which was quite a privilege. More recently, I was proud to head a team organising and co-ordinating our community’s four days of Platinum Jubilee events. 

I am passionate about access and equality. It’s not hard to be, when you’re a wheelchair user with a vested interest in it!
I love being creative and being part of anything that’s arts related. 

I have various aspirations, not least of which is continuing to achieve greater access and equality for disabled people. I hope to work in the TV and film industry, and even have my own chat show on TV. Finally, on my bucket list is to win a BAFTA for writing or acting. 

I am particularly interested in TV and film-making, from drama to comedy and presenting and documentaries. I also love the theatre. I play harmonica and used to be in a band. I love travelling and going to new places. I follow sport including football, rugby, athletics and snooker. 

I am Assistant Producer at Mind the Gap (the learning disability performance and live arts company). I am also a presenter and co-producer for ‘The Disability And… Podcast’, which is a collaboration with Disability Arts Online.

For the last two years, I have been Ramps on the Moon’s Agent for Change at Leeds Playhouse. I have also recently developed and run an Introduction to Producing course for disabled creatives.

I started working in theatre after gaining a First Diploma in Performing Arts at 17, after which I went on to join Double Act Disability Theatre Company in Bournemouth. In 2011, I was funded by Ammonite to learn about Producing and spent a week at Mind the Gap. In 2012, I was the Assistant Producer for a show called Breathe which was for the opening ceremony of the sailing event for the Olympic games.

In 2014, I moved to Bradford from Dorset to join Mind the Gap. I went through the company training course and became an Artist with the company. In 2018, I was co-producer of the BEYOND learning disability arts festival in Leeds. From 2018 to 2019, I was the intern Assistant Producer for ZARA at Mind the Gap, Walk the Plank and Emergency Exit Arts’ production about learning disabilities and parenthood.

What I am passionate about is not talking on panels about access in the next 30 years. I feel when I am speaking, I want to bring new things to the conversation and don’t want people to think, ‘oh I know what Paul is going to talk about’. There always need to be new voices in the conversations that are being heard but we can’t forget the legacy of other disabled people who have helped pave the way.

My personal interests are theatre, football, singing and wrestling and not all in that order. I am a big musical theatre fan, I am a big fan Hamilton, Wicked and Les Misérables which I have watched. I like shows that are in unusual places and how access has been incorporated in the production. In terms of Wrestling – All Elite Wrestling is my favourite to watch but I still watch WWE and independent wrestling shows and try to get to some events. I play Ability Counts football and travel to Dorset to play for my hometown. I support Tottenham, Bournemouth and Wimborne and watch Bradford city matches.