Northern Broadcasts

Between his cat and his lilies, what use does Kamal have for love?!



Kamal Kaan

Kamal Kaan is an actor and writer based near Bradford. Having graduated from The University of Cambridge, he was awarded the Brian Park Scholarship (Shed Productions) to undertake an MA in TV Fiction Writing at Glasgow Caledonian University.

In 2021, he had two major theatre pieces staged: ‘2010’, one of the Leeds Playhouse major Decades series of monologues, and Aaliyah: After Antigone, a mixed live and streamed theatre play for Freedom Studios in Bradford.

Kamal is an alumni of the Royal Court Young Writer’s Programme, the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers’ programme, was a Writer-in-Residence at Leeds Playhouse and part of BBC Writersroom Drama Room 2017.

Arian Nik

Arian is a British-Iranian Actor and a graduate of Mountview Academy.

Film Credits: Allelujah! (Pathé), The Bower (BFI), The Beekeeper (Miramax), Artemis Fowl (Disney), Dating Amber (Amazon Prime)

Television Credits: Count Abdulla (ITV), The Bay (ITV), BRUCE (Channel 4) Van Der Valk (ITV), Ackley Bridge (Channel 4), Still So Awkward (CBBC), Killing Eve (BBC)

Theatre Credits: Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan (Brixton House/Hightide), The Village (Stratford East), The Ugly One (Park Theatre), Pufferfish (The Vaults), The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca (Hull Truck)

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Love versus love in this story of mothers, daughters, and pomegranates.

Megan Hyland

Megan Hyland is a Manchester-based writer whose writing focuses on surreal, female-focused dark comedy. Having written theatre and entertainment reviews for almost six years for websites such as Upstaged Manchester and Frankly My Dear UK, she decided it was time to put her own words out there. Her new play, Blank Suit, which centres around two competing female assassins that discover they are more interested in each other than they are in the competition at hand; is currently in development and aiming to take to the stage next year. Megan took part in Northern Broadsides's Young Writers' Forge scheme this year.

Lisa Allen

Lisa Allen is an actor based in Hebden Bridge.

She works regularly for BBC Radio Drama. Her credits this year include The Palace of Varieties and Home Girl (Derby Theatre), Emmerdale (ITV), The Full Monty (Disney Plus), Sister Boniface Mysteries (BBC) and Let Her Go (Make Me Films). She is currently filming the new ITV thriller series Platform 7.

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Caught in a loveless marriage, will Helen find the strength to leave her husband?

Anne Brontë

The youngest of the Bronte sisters, Anne Bronte's literary career was short-lived. Originally writing under the pen name Acton Bell, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is Anne's second novel.Told through a series of diary entries, the novel follows Helen Graham's abusive marriage to and eventual liberation from Arthur Huntingdon. Writing in 1912, British novellist May Sinclair argued that Brontë's novel 'reverberated throughout Victorian England'. However, Brontë never got to enjoy the success of her novel, dying a year after its initial publication, age 29. The piece is now considered one of the first truly feminist novels in the Western canon.

Sophia Hatfield

Sophia Hatfield is a North-West based Actor-Musician and Theatre-Maker, originally from West Yorkshire. As an actor and musician, Sophia has worked extensively with companies across the UK including New Perspectives, RSC Education, The New Vic, Derby Theatre, Potboiler, Northern Broadsides, M6, Birmingham Rep and Bolton Octagon.

In 2016, Sophia founded Stute Theatre, an award-winning multidisciplinary theatre company, creating touring theatre and live art across the UK. She has since gone on to create and tour theatre all over the UK, specialising in taking inventive live work to library and community spaces. Most recently her work for Stute includes ‘I Am No Bird’ a co-production with the Stephen Joseph Theatre and Brontë Parsonage Museum, ‘Fables at the Kitchen Table’, an inventive show for young audiences and several Telephone Theatre experiences with Stute Theatre & New Perspectives, which reached over 400 people during lockdown.

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Christmas trees, shepherds’ pie and umami lamb collide in this new story from Saima Mir.

Saima Mir

Saima Mir is an award-winning journalist and writer. A mother-of-three, she is the author of The Times bestselling crime novel, 'The Khan'.

Saima is a guest columnist for The Guardian, and her work has also appeared in the anthologies 'The Best Most Awful Job - 20 Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood' and 'It's Not About the Burqa'.

You can find her on Twitter: @saimamir

Mina Anwar

Prolific stage, screen and radio actor, director and singer. TV includes The Thin Blue Line, Sarah Jane Adventures, Doctor Who, In The Club and Happy Valley. Theatre includes original casts of Olivier Award-winning Sheffield Crucible/West End shows Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and most recently Life of Pi.

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A magical tale of whispered rumours, friendship and a school’s Christmas concert.

Annie Chadwick

Annie is a writer from Skipton in North Yorkshire. After studying Applied Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and then continuing on to an MA in Scriptwriting there, she's keen to write stories with an educational purpose, that have the potential to change minds. This year she took part in the Northern Broadsides Young Writer's Forge, which has enabled her to develop a full-length script. This piece is her first commissioned work.

Jo Patmore

Jo is an actor, singer and musician who grew up in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Jo trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (graduated 2020) and during her training she was awarded a runner up prize in the 2020 BBC Carleton Hobbs Radio drama competition, and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Music Award for ‘an outstanding musical contribution to the work of the school’.

Credits include: As You Like It (Northern Broadsides/New Vic), Frost Hollow Hall (East Riding Theatre), Queen Mab (Flux Theatre), Rogers and Hart and Hammerstein (BBC Radio 3), Buzzing (BOVTS), Her Naked Skin (BOVTS), and The Snow Queen (BOVTS).

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A story of lace, frills and some handy mice from the creator of Peter Rabbit.

Beatrix Potter

Although born in London, Beatrix Potter made her home in Cumbria. Best known for 'The Tales of Peter Rabbit', Potter wrote over sixty books. Alongside her much-loved stories, she was known as a fierce conservationist and is widely credited with preserving much of the land that now makes up the Lake District National Park. Potter was also a pioneer of merchandising—in 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character

Jessica Baglow

Jessica is a Lancashire-born actor and veteran of Northern Broadsides, having played the role of Phoebe Throssel in Northern Broadsides’s 2020 tour of Quality Street.

Film Credits: Allelujah! (BBC Films/Pathé), The Railway Children Return (Studio Canal), Apostasy (iFeatures), Salvage (Hoax Films Ltd)

Television Credits: Floodlights (Expectation Entertainment), Gentleman Jack (Lookout Point), Silent Witness (BBC), Vera (ITV), Holby City (BBC), Moving On 2: Skies of Glass (LA Productions for BBC), Doctors (BBC), Waterloo Road (Shed Productions)

Theatre Credits, Selected: Macbeth (Leeds Playhouse), Quality Street (Northern Broadsides), Macbeth (Reading Between the Lines), The Big Corner (Bolton Octagon), Hamlet (Bolton Octagon), Jane Eyre (Bolton Octagon)

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Just how far will obsession take you? A tale from Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage.

Simon Armitage

Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in the village of Marsden and lives in West Yorkshire. He is the current UK Poet Laureate (2019-2029). He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and served as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford 2015-2019. In 2015 he was made CBE for Services to Poetry. Armitage has received numerous awards including one of the first Forward Prizes, an Eric Gregory Award, a major Lannan Award, a Cholmondeley Award, the Ivor Novello Award for song-writing, the Television Society Award for Documentary and the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. He has written three best-selling nonfiction books and writes, records and performs with the band LYR. In 2017 he won the PEN America Award for Poetry in Translation and was awarded the 2018 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. 

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How does it feel to carry your culture across the globe?

Arsalan and Gul speak about their experiences moving to Halifax and making sense of Northern life. As well as sharing the languages and celebrations of their home countries, they discuss the Yorkshire weather, the differences between art and culture, and whether it's cheating to learn traditional recipes from YouTube.

Ibrahim Bangura from Rapar Drama, speaks about creating work with and by asylum seekers and the unique challenges that come from getting emerging creatives from across the world into one room.

The Northern Voice

A new podcast by Northern Broadsides

Hosted by Shabina Aslam & Millie Gaston

Sound Editing by Alex Colley

Produced by Hallam Breen & Jess Rooney

This series of eights podcasts, recorded in lockdown, embraces the Northern Voice in all its glory, whether we're exploring disability, migration, class, ethnicity, accent, gender or sexuality, The Northern Voice confounds expectations of what it means to be Northern in the world of arts and culture today.

Each episode has a panel discussion hosted by Shabina Aslam, our Creative Engagement Producer, and a one-to-one interview with a Northern artist, led by local actor Millie Gaston.

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It should be possible to be an actor and nothing else.

Why is that rarely achievable?

Actor and Arts Campaigner Leo Wan talks about surviving a pandemic as an artist and asks what REALLY motivated theatres to release Black Lives Matter statements. Director Alan Lyddiard speaks passionately about the disappearing voices of older people and about the community-professional binary in theatre. Poet Shirley May tells us about learning from empowered young people through the lens of bone-crunching dance routines! Actor, director, singer and choreographer Mina Anwar talks about creating work in cities labelled Northern Powerhouses.

The Northern Voice

A new podcast by Northern Broadsides

Hosted by Shabina Aslam & Millie Gaston

Sound Editing by Alex Colley

Produced by Hallam Breen & Jess Rooney

This series of eights podcasts, recorded in lockdown, embraces the Northern Voice in all its glory, whether we're exploring disability, migration, class, ethnicity, accent, gender or sexuality, The Northern Voice confounds expectations of what it means to be Northern in the world of arts and culture today.

Each episode has a panel discussion hosted by Shabina Aslam, our Creative Engagement Producer, and a one-to-one interview with a Northern artist, led by local actor Millie Gaston.

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Guest biographies

Leo Wan

Actor and Arts Campaigner

Leo is an actor and arts campaigner. As an actor, he has worked with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe and New Earth Theatre. He works with a number of campaigns to ensure the performing arts is diverse, equitable and accessible. He is passionate about theatre’s power to effect social change.

Shirley May

Poet and Director of Young Identity.

Shirley May is a poet from the Speakeasy Collective in Manchester, which she co-managed for five years. She is also director of 'Young Identity' - a writing charity, They works with 13–25s in the Manchester area. Her own work has been published in several anthologies

Alan Lyddiard

Theatre and Film Director, Producer and Writer

Alan is best known as an advocate of the community arts movement, international collaborations and ensemble theatre practice. He was Artistic Director of The Northern Stage Ensemble (1992-2005), Artistic Director of TAG Theatre Company (1988-1992) and Associate Director at Dundee Rep (1984-1988). Alan is currently Artistic Director of The Performance Ensemble, a company of performers aged 60 and over. The ensemble starts its work from within a community setting and develops productions over a year long process.

Mina Anwar

Actor, Director, Singer and Choreographer

Mina trained for 3 years at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in Acting and Musical Theatre. Mina is alsowell known as an actor and musical theatreperformer in theatre, radio, television and film with work spanning 30 years. TV credits include: Doctor Who, The A Word, Happy Valley. Theatre includes: Life of Pi (Sheffield Crucible and West End), The Importance of Being Earnest (Lawrence Batley and The Dukes).

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How do you make a fart accessible?

This week, we speak to Live Theatre’s Senior Creative Associate, Paul James, on being diagnosed with a disability later in life and trying to hide it. Artistic Director & CEO for DaDaFest, Nickie Wildin speaks about being ‘awww’d’ at and feeling pressure to be the ‘disabled spokesperson’. Performance artist gobscure tells us about ‘blowing up the system’ and how society disables us. And Paul Wilshaw, Assistant Producer from Mind The Gap, speaks about smashing the barriers built by the theatre industry.

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The Northern Voice

A new podcast by Northern Broadsides

Hosted by Shabina Aslam & Millie Gaston

Sound Editing by Alex Colley

Produced by Hallam Breen & Jess Rooney

This series of eights podcasts, recorded in lockdown, embraces the Northern Voice in all its glory, whether we're exploring disability, migration, class, ethnicity, accent, gender or sexuality, The Northern Voice confounds expectations of what it means to be Northern in the world of arts and culture today.

Each episode has a panel discussion hosted by Shabina Aslam, our Creative Engagement Producer, and a one-to-one interview with a Northern artist, led by local actor Millie Gaston.

***

Guest Biographies

gobscure

Performance Artist

gobscure are Artistic Associates with Museum of Homelessness and Disability Arts Online. Their last play joey was a testing ground commission (New Wolsey Theatre) in association with Greyscale, published by Aurora Metro, named ‘experiment of the year’, British Theatre Guide.gobscurepreviously worked with Northern Broadsides on Digital Squad and now sits on the Art Squad.

Paul James

Senior Creative Associate (Children and Young People's Programme) at Live Theatre, Newcastle.

Paul established the multi award winning Education & Participation Department at Live Theatre in 1998 and has directed and produced many productions. Prior to this Paul worked as an actor for a variety of theatre companies including the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, Bristol Old Vic, Talawa and various community theatre companies.

Nickie Miles-Wildin

Joint Artistic Director & CEO at DaDaFest

Nickie is also Associate Director at Graeae Theatre Company where she is Head of New Writing. Nickie has previously worked at Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester as Young Company Programme Leader and Resident Assistant Director (Regional Theatre Young Director’s Scheme) Nickie’s directing credits includeCrips With Chips, Crips Without ConstraintsandIron Man(Graeae).

Paul Wilshaw

Agent for Change at Leeds Playhouse and Assistant Producer for Mind the Gap Theatre.

As well as his work with Mind the Gap, Paul has also worked for the Beyond festival in Leeds, which is a festival focused on artists with learning disabilities, as a performer at the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, a mentor for the Remix and an Intern Assistant Producer for the Breathe Project.

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