A life on stage.
I have been in the arts in the UK since my early teens, running away from my Jehovah’s Witness upbringing to join the Circus in Bristol, training at Circomedia and setting up my own dance company Dark Island Dance; where I choreographed and led performances for festivals & large scale events, as well as community dance in care homes and specialist schools for children with disabilities.
In response to a sexist remark made in UK parliament and the creation of the feminist festival Calm Down Dear. I formed the rebel performance collective The Femme Fatales exploring themes of female sovereignty & bodily autonomy ahead of the pivotal Me Too Movement.
After the suicide of a close friend I turned to stand up comedy to process grief the only way I knew how, finding a light in the dark. I became an award winning stand-up comedian and writer, host/MC and gigged all across the UK and some of Europe too.
I was the host of a large scale touring work in collaboration with the brilliant artist Amartey Golding in a show called ‘Whose Anthem is it anyway?’ with a full live band, exploring an alternative collective national anthem for England with the public using a voting app.
I have appeared on various podcasts & shows including co-hosting with the broadcaster & anthropologist Mary Anne Ochota and hosting a podcast for the Tate Modern on art & comedy.
I have been published in: Tangled Roots: Real Life Stories from Mixed Race Britain, Stories of Autistic Joy and HNDL Magazine.
I have also written for radio, film and BAFTA Winning & Emmy nominated TV, you can see more of this work here at my website under my previous name Charlie George.
Since experiencing post Covid chronic illness, I re-evaluated my approach to live work to better support my health and recovery and have been moving at a gentler pace on the local spoken word and poetry circuit.
I performed a commissioned piece of writing alongside several other selected local artists & performers including fellow ex-Jehovah’s Witness Writer Taíno Mendez for the Turner Contemporary and Margate Pride.
You can find the details of my live work here at my linktree and I write regularly on my Substack.
I sometimes speak at organisations such as Faith to Faithless and Humanists UK who support people with the trauma of being raised within and leaving high control religious groups.
I was a part of a new series of accessible online writing workshops in collaboration with the wonderful CRIPtic Arts & The London Writers Centre, the first workshop was called ‘Writing Funny.‘
My writing was featured in a series of Queer shorts at Margate Film Festival and will be appearing in Brighton at Film Pride.
I am currently working on my first book, a collection of poems, stories, rituals and incantations of cultural reclamation: ‘The Song of Us.’ To be performed in collaboration with live musicians.
