“If something’s in your head, and your head’s real, then it’s real isn’t it?”

Bug Camp

a play about imagination, memory and loss

Being a grown-up sucks, so Lola is off to Bug Camp, armed with strawberry laces and Metallica frontman James Hetfield.

And neither her best frenemy Jas nor her arch nemesis Aleine can stop her…

I loved this project so much! After feeling my ‘serious’ playwriting was taking itself too seriously I decided to instead just write what I wanted to see, however weird, and gave myself full permission to go batshit. I submitted an early draft to the Tobacco Factory Theatre’s Script Space programme, and they offered noticed and research and development. Learning: always go full batshit.

Then after getting stuck for a couple of years with how to redraft it, with Broken Silence Theatre we staged it at Brighton Fringe, bringing together a wonderful cast who NAILED it. Their spirit was something appreciated a lot - grateful that something so geekily and joyfully of me was welcomed by others.

It was so much fun. I’ve noticed since then recurring interests in what I write still - childhood, imagination and fantasy. I think back on it as an instruction to ‘go do your thing, it’s the thing others don’t know they’re missing’.

Bug Camp was developed with Tobacco Factory, produced by Broken Silence Theatre and staged at Brighton Fringe and Theatre Utopia in 2017

“Bug Camp is a joy; outright laughter & a heartfelt ending”
“A beautifully written, funny and very moving play with a great cast and a superb central performance from Emmie Spencer”
“Go go go! I laughed and cried in equal measure... sometimes at the same time!”