"Don’t take yourself too seriously and find a director you get on with"

Hometown
From Bath and now living in Liverpool

What do you do?
Self-employed theatre designer

What was your very first role in theatre?
Assistant designer

What have you done in theatre?
Mostly set and costume design for theatre–fringe shows to start with (2001 onwards), and more recently operas and larger-scale theatre. Shows include Albert Herring, British Youth Opera, La Serva Padrona, Royal Opera House, Jeff Koons, ICA and Twelfth Night, English Touring Theatre.

Have you got qualifications?
A fine art degree and a theatre design degree. Before university I did an art foundation course and my tutors suggested I train to be a theatre designer

Did you work in another industry before the theatre?
No, apart from part-time bar/waiting and retail work

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A creative person who got to travel–so pretty accurate

What do you do all day?
Wake up in a new city, go to a meeting about a show with a production manager and show them a model of a hopeful design, talk to an assistant on the phone and ask them to buy some materials for model-making this week, look through an unfamiliar costume store and try and imagine some of the costumes working together perhaps without having met the cast yet, asking my agent to email me some details to double-check a contract, carry massive modelboxes on public transport, try costumes on people I have just met…. always planning ahead and being flexible up to press night

What’s your favourite thing about your job?
Meeting lots of new people and getting into quite surreal situations

And the worst?
The lack of opportunity for sleep and food during tech weeks

What’s your dream job in theatre?
Designing huge operas in Germany, and still finding time to do tiny experimental pieces in a community context

Got any wise words for someone who wants to be where you are now?
Don’t take yourself too seriously and find a director you get on with