S6, E10 James Stedman | Storyteller, poet and theatre-maker

In this episode, we meet James Stedman, a storyteller, poet, and theatre‑maker whose work blends queer identity, folklore, and heartfelt social commentary. Based in Leith, James creates imaginative, emotionally rich performance that weaves together fairy-tale logic, personal memory, and contemporary politics.

We explore his multidisciplinary practice across storytelling, spoken word, playwriting, and devised theatre, and how themes of class, mental health, and queerness shape his artistic voice. James shares insights into his creative process, his love of mythic storytelling, and the ways he refracts lived experience through poetry and folklore.

The conversation dives into Joyfully Grimm, his acclaimed one‑person show reimagining queer adolescence during the era of Section 28. Praised for its emotional clarity and political resonance, the piece combines traditional tales with original poetry to illuminate the complexities of growing up queer.

Episode recorded on 5 February 2026. 

Website: www.jamesstedmanplays.com

Instagram: @jamesstedmanplays

Podcast details:
Podcast email: artiststalespodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.artiststales.net
Instagram: @artists_tales_podcast
Threads: @artists_tales_podcast

Transcript

I'd like to welcome James Stedman to Artist Tales. He's a Scottish based theater maker, storyteller, and poet whose work blends heartfelt narrative, gentle humor, and a distinctive queer sensibility. Welcome James. Hi, Heather. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be here. It's lovely to have you.

So to start off, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Uh, well, as you said in the introduction, I'm, uh, I'm based in Scotland at the moment. I'm down in, uh, Leith in Edinburgh. Uh, but I originally grew up in Somerset. Just a little town just called Froom, just outside Bath, which has become a lot more, uh, sort of recognized over the years.

Um, it was obviously just where I grew up, but it's become quite, quite a cultural hub in the area now, ever since I left, I don't think that has anything to do with me particularly. But, you know, you've got, uh, people like Emma Rice. Based down there now as well with wise children and everything, which is, which is lovely.

And I saw their production of Blue Beard not that long ago, up at the, um, up at the Lyceum here in Edinburgh. And that was phenomenal. And anyway, so yeah, so that's, uh, I've, I've dotted around quite a bit. I. Came up to Edinburgh from Cambridge about five years ago or so, but I also been lucky enough to sort of live all over the place really.

I, uh, lived in Hanover for a bit and Berlin and Milan for a short while. And, uh, my mom's in London, so I've lived there for a bit. And, um, yeah, but my, my work, um, as you say, I'm a sort of a, a theater maker, uh, storyteller and poet. My work. Really started, uh, kind of in Cambridge and has continued, continued up in Scotland.

Most of my creative stuff, I've always, I've always written, um, as such sort of, but usually just for myself, you know, sort of like little short stories or a little bit of journaling. Never particularly consistently diary, like when I was traveling and stuff, I used to write. Uh, memories of the day and stuff and try and make it a little bit lyrical.

Or if people had birthdays and stuff, I'd write silly little poems and their cards and things like that. But it was mainly for me 'cause sort of growing up sort of, it's, uh, my background is kind of, it is working class. You would call it working class as such, but it's sort of, it's never something that sort of.

At the time really sort of crossed my mind so much so, but certainly being an artist or a writer was definitely not, never sort of something on your, on the cards for when you grew up, what, what sort of things you could be and um, yeah, so when I went to, I went to university, uh, up in St. Andrews, up in Scotland and that was sort of, that was probably the first time sort of, I really was aware of sort of.

We all class distinction, I guess there. 'cause it's quite a, it's a beautiful university. Absolutely adore it. But you know, it's quite, uh, there was quite a marked class thing there. It sort of, I think at the time I was there, I think it was sort of. 30% or something from public school folk there. And I, I just went to the local comp.

But yeah, it's, it's an interesting one really. 'cause it's not, like I said, I didn't really have that major class awareness when I was growing up, but certainly moving in the circles that I've subsequently moved in, I kind of fall between many stools now nowadays. But that distinction is sort of something that you are, you are aware of and you, you kind of try and.

Hold onto, I wanted to sort of soften it out for long, the longest time. I mean, you can probably hear from my accent that it's sort of quite neutral and quite even, even a bit posh and that sort of comes from sort of dotting around all over the place really. But, uh, you know, I've sort of more recently been looking back into sort of.

We are getting in touch with some of my heritage there as well with regards to that. Um, so that's sort of a, that does sort of come up in my work. And other, otherwise, as you said as well, um, I'm a queer writer and that's very important to me as well. And also, um, I sort of, I write quite a bit on, uh, mental health as well.

Uh, that's the, that's a major theme 'cause that's sort of, it's kind of where I guess. Sort of my creative journey this time started to some extent, um, in the sense that, you know, I, I spent so long at uni. I did, I was, I was at uni for, I got an undergrad in, um, German and Italian and then stayed on from masters in, um, in German studies with looking at German film particularly.

And then I went on and actually started a PhD also still in German film. And I adored all of it, but sort of part of the, the, the, the PhD was kind of based around constructs of masculinity within the German film. And so deconstructing that, and it's lots of people will probably tell you, doing a PhD is quite lonely and quite hard.

And it, it broke me kind of to some extent. So I ended up, I did, I, I did subsequently realize that I'd been struggling with my mental health for a while. Sort of a, I had a sort of a, a breakdown basically and moved back down with my, uh, with my dad in Somerset. And then, yeah, it sort of took me a long, that, that took me outta the world for a couple of years and I was due to go back to do, finish my PhD.

It got to the point of, you know, a couple of months out and I realized actually this, this is not necessarily good for me. And you know, I I, I was sort of like, but I've invested two years in this already. What am I gonna do? And it was, it was the, it's both the toughest and the best decision I've ever made was to quit my PhD and just sort of, I, I got a job and.

Just working in a call center and then my friend happened to be living in Cambridge. My best friend happened to be living in Cambridge and he had a spare room and I sort of, I was looking to move out. I love my dad a bit. But I, you know, I was sort of late twenties and back at home and I was like, oh, this wasn't the plan.

So I, I moved up, I, I found myself a, a, a job working for a translations agency up in Cambridge and moved in with my best friend. And that's kind of where the sort of my. Creative journey then started properly. 'cause I was there and I was kind of, I didn't really know how to function in the real world as an adult, if that makes any sense.

I spent so long at university, which is gorgeous and lovely, but particularly when places like St. Andrews, which are very much about the university and very small, it kind of consum is all consuming. So I was working in the real world and I had my best friend and he's awesome. Um, Jacob is amazing, but. I didn't really have anything much else.

I was going to work and then I was going down the pub and sort of very often just on my own, just having a couple of pints and then coming home and I was like, there's gotta be more to it than this. Surely. So. I sort of, I started looking around for something a bit gentle and I'd, I'd done a little bit of theater at school just, just 'cause I was friends with, with some of the theater kids at school.

So I'd done a little bit of very, very tiny little bit of acting and I was like, I just want something a bit gentle and there's this wonderful group. Called the Cambridge storytellers who, who are based in Cambridge, obviously. And, um, I'd always had an affinity with sort of fairytales and things like that as well.

So I thought, oh, I'll just, I'll just nip along to them. And this was, this was a really gorgeous experience. It was so friendly and welcoming and just sort of wholesome for want of a better word. And yeah, I started going along to tho those quite on, quite a regular basis and you know, I got, I, I kind of got a bit, no.

And they, they had these open mics, uh, every so often as well. And I eventually built up the courage to actually. Put myself forward for one of these open mics. And I sort of, I told this 10 minute story and I was like, oh my goodness, what am I doing? And it was brilliant. It was lovely. And I started doing that and uh, you know, I got really quite involved.

I, I was, I ended up sort of running one of these open mic nights as well and, and stuff. And so kind of, I feel like I'm rabbiting on here. There's sort of like, it's kind of like lots of little starts kind of, 'cause there was that. Which then led on to, we were doing some workshops on how to build up your storytelling, and then we had a one workshop with this wonderful woman, Claire Harrison, who's an improv teacher.

She's based, uh, she's gone back to New Zealand now. Uh, New Zealand is extremely lucky to have her. Uh, she's awesome. And she came in and she just sort of did a, a sort of, um. Thing on how improv improvisation could help with his storytelling and help with your performance, and I just absolutely fell in love with it.

I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is just sort of really spoke to my brain and sort of like, oh, building stuff with other people and community and just all at the same time. So I did all the workshops I possibly could with Claire and sort of really got into improvisation as well. Yeah. Are they sort of.

Kind of a number of steps in between. But eventually I got together with a group of people, uh, like-minded improvisers in Cambridge, and we formed a, uh, formed a group called the Ministry of Unplanned Occurrences, which is, yeah, so it's an improv. It, it, it is improv. It's, but. We were, our goal was kind of much more narrative.

So there's lots of different types of improv. There's sort of like, you know, short form games and stuff, and then long form, which is more, uh, often more narrative based. And we wanted to build these stories and, uh, we had lover theater and, um, yeah, they, they, um, and we, yeah, we ended up putting on just these.

These long form shows, uh, telling, telling stories. And we did lots of different genres. We did a steam punk one. We did, we did uh, sci-fi, we did fairytales. We did sort of a, a kitchen sink one. And that was just amazing. And that sort of fed into what me wanting to, all these stories fed into me wanting to write a bit more and sort of.

Capture these stories a bit, I guess. So I, I got involved in a local, uh, new writing group called Write On, and they had, they had like scratch nights as well that they did, which was sort of script in hand, but sort of fully rehearsed pieces. And again, I screwed up my courage and I sort of submitted to them and I had a couple of 10 or 15 minute pieces on, on there.

They were very well received. And yeah, it kind of snowballed from there. And I started writing longer pieces and getting longer pieces, and then eventually I moved up to Edinburgh. And that's, that's kind of the basis where we are at the moment though, so. Yeah. Yeah. And as I'm listening to you, and you know, it's the thing, probably a number of things do strike.

Firstly, it takes a lot of courage to have the honesty to say to yourself, no, this is not working. Just in terms of, you know, the situation with your PhD and, you know, it takes such courage and honesty to do that, which it can. You can very anyone very well not do that. And then the circumstances could probably be quite dire.

And also, you know, the, it sort of one thing leads to another and I, you know, it's kind of organic, it's incremental to some degree or ebbs and flows. I'm just reflecting on that in terms of how reflective of life that is. Oh yeah. Things don't just bang overnight. It's, you know, it's incremental. It's try things out.

You do things. And it sounds also like there's a number of definite influences in your work in terms of being, you know, your background being, working class, moving around, you know, some of the, as you touched on the mental health stuff. Particularly for, you know, I'm just conscious at the moment that we're, as a society, we're in Britain and probably elsewhere to some degree in the Western world.

We're talking a little bit more about mental health. Mm-hmm. But the stigma around mental health, male mental health is still quite persuasive and strong. Absolutely. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I definitely think it is, and it's, and it's interesting. We are talking more about mental health and that is always a good thing, and mental health visibility is always a good thing.

There is a sort of a, an awareness recently though, and I think I, I think I do agree with this, that there's a certain amount of commercialization coming with it, which is not necessarily, and a sort of, uh, you know, a kind of, um, this is really tricky how, um, like, so it's kind of like. Mental health, uh, sort of terminology to some extent almost becomes buzzwords.

And they go, oh, and then you can fix this like this and you do this and this, and this is for your mental health. And companies often do, oh, we've got this great mental health policy and you know, you've got access to a counselor, which all of which is good, don't get me wrong, but sometimes. I don't necessarily know if it's as helpful and if it's sort of, it's become, do you know this idea of memorials as a means of forgetting where you sort of, you memorialize a.

A topic or a, or a thing that's happened and the words surround it just become associated with habit almost. And they, and people don't necessarily think about what's underneath. And I do think that sort of, in my experience, sort of, I would, I would never want to stop people talking about mental health. I think it's important and you, like you say this, the stigma is still there.

So it is one of these things whereby like visibility is very important. I think there has to be an awareness that everyone's situation is different. Everyone will manage it differently, and certainly from my experience, it's not something that you just solve, if that makes any sense. I mean, I still, I, I've been very lucky in the fact that I, I have my dad to go home to and just literally just sit with him basically for two years and sort of just.

Step out the world for a couple of years when I had that really, um, bad episode. But subsequently I have always been managing it as well. And sometimes through therapy, sometimes through medication and some, and a lot of the time through my creativity, I don't, I, I, I don't think it's essential to creativity.

I, I, uh, you know, I think, um, Hannah Gadsby has this thing, I think, where she's like, you know, you shouldn't suffering should not be a part of. Art, it shouldn't be an inherent part of being an artist, you know, an inevitable part. I'm like, no, it shouldn't be. But there is, it definitely helps. Certainly. I was going to say on that point, you know, often art, you know, there's a place for art and you know, when.

Working with, dealing with whatever that phrase you want to use around mental health, it can go hand in hand to some degree. And I do agree with what Hannah Gatsby said of, you know that suffering with art, not, they don't have to necessarily go hand in hand, but. Some of the most creative people I know are also struggle with mental health, you know?

Absolutely. You know, I absolutely, and I do think, yeah, I do. Like I say, I don't think it's inevitable and I don't think there's, there is this interesting thing and I, I struggle with it too. Sometimes. I sort of, I, uh. Recently, um, started taking medication again and uh, just 'cause I needed to, uh, but there was this part of me, it was like, I don't want to lose my creativity.

And it's like, that is not healthy. Like you if you need to, uh, if you're in a place where you need some medication or you need some other kind of help or what have you. You know, your creativity should not come at the expense of your wellbeing. Um, so, you know, I eventually kicked myself up the bum and said, come on, you know, do this.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's a tricky one. 'cause I, I, I do, it does, it definitely does inform my work, um, because I think everything. Of you as a person informs your work. So I manage my mental health. Therefore, it does inform my work to some extent, but I don't think it should be essential. I don't think you should go.

I have to suffer in order to make art. One thing I did wanna ask you about is your work called Joyful Grim. I know it touches on section 28. Yep. You know, and I think some listeners would know what that is. Maybe, probably not everybody. Mm-hmm. Because of either a generational thing or people outside of the uk.

So, but, so yeah, I'll let you kind of talk about that piece of work and, you know, how it relates to Section 28 and what Section 28 is. Yeah, yeah. No, sure. I mean, joyfully grim, it's, it was a love, a lovely piece to do. It was. Sort of my first big commission really. And it was for the, uh, it was done for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival in 2023.

And then, uh, sort of, I took it on a fringe run, uh, the following year at the Storytelling Festival. At the Storytelling Center rather here in Edinburgh, which is also a gorgeous place people should get and see it. It's a little hidden gem, which, um, often gets a bit overlooked. It's on the mile. Go find it.

It's brilliant. They also do the best haggis in Edinburgh, so anyway. That's by the by. So section 28 was the law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality in schools and local authorities. Uh, and it was a piece of legislation brought in by the conservative government and it was, yeah, it was ostensibly to, like I say, the, the wording of it was, like I say, to prevent the promotion of homosexuality and the, the drive for it was.

As it often is to protect, protect the children. So this was the thing, but the, the wording of it was so fluffy that it basically meant that. Teachers, and we're talking particularly about teachers felt that they couldn't discuss the subject at all. And I grew up under, under this, I was sort of, you know, it was, uh, only repealed in 2000, uh, three, 2001 in Scotland, 2003 in, in the, uh, in the rest of the uk.

And yeah, you don't, it's sort of this weird thing growing up queer under this sort of legislation, you don't know what you are missing out on. You don't, so it's just this weird gap where, you know, the teacher, like teachers are sort of afraid to mention it because, uh, you know, it is technically against the promotion.

What does the pro, the promotion even mean? And they try to, they try to ban some books as well, which is always one, one of these sort of things where you go, right, well, if you're banning books, that's not a good start, is that this can't be good legislation. Right. And there was lots of protests against it.

Uh, there was an amazing there, um, there was a group of self reclaimed, very angry lesbians who managed to a, oh, this I love, love this story. They managed to abseil their way onto the, uh, the floor of the House of Lords from the gallery, uh, to protest this legislation of going on. And they end up, uh, they also, um, sort of stormed the BBC six o'clock news.

This was at a time when. Obviously the six o'clock news on the BBC was much bigger thing. You know, we, we had like five channels before even, possibly back then that you didn't have all this streaming and stuff. So there were significant protests against it. Uh, but it still went through, um, and it, it stayed in place for, like I say, uh, 15, 16 years, whatever that was.

It just meant, and I think it has, uh, if you listen to, like Russell Toy said something about it as well and lots of people, queer people of our generation kind of, even though homosexuality was legal, obviously there is still an in. Because you weren't allowed to talk about it, there becomes this inherent shame that gets internalized and sort of, I remember, oh yeah, I remember writing a letter even.

Uh, it's tricky. I mean, some of this comes up in the, in the show as well. Um, sort of my dad and my family are, I love on debates, but my dad, you know, he was a con, the conservative gentleman of a certain age. Wasn't great on the whole homosexuality thing. And you know, I was nervous about coming out to him, and thankfully it was absolutely, he was absolutely fine.

You know, he was great. He, uh, anyway, sorry, I got a bit tearful. He, he put his arms around me and he says, you're still my son and you're still brilliant. So it was amazing that what that, what that doesn't mean is with this stuff where you're not allowed to talk about it, uh, really and truly. You think it's right that you're not allowed to talk about it.

You, there's sort of a certain well you can do, and you have this sort of internalized thing where you go, yes, we should protect the children. You know, I shouldn't, you know, and I, I physically, I actually wrote out a letter to the daily male saying I'm a homosexual and labor trying to repeal, you know, um, section 28 is ridiculous.

They should be concentrating on, um, important matters of state. We do need to protect the children. I'm like, you know, I was a queer individual who was. Out to my family. And I, I, there was such internalized shame that I sort of fed into this narrative and, and wrote this letter to the I I I, looking back on it, I'm like, what was I thinking?

So anyway, so the, so that's, that was kind of the root of this, of joyfully grim to some extent. Um, and it was a combination of personal memoir, little bit of what I've, I've said already, history. So the, some of the stories of the. Very angry lesbians and, uh, other, other folk outage and other folk protesting it and also fairytales.

And the reason it was that combination was, it's came from a, a route of, I was asked a little while ago, a couple of months before I started writing the commission to tell a couple of stories for queer families. So there's, you know, a group of rainbow families. Here in Edinburgh, there's, and they said, would you come and tell some stories?

And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'll tell some stories. And I was, so, I was looking through, kind of back through the, the fairy cannon of fairytales thinking, oh, I'll have to adapt something. And then I, I sat there and I was like, actually, no, there's some, there's, they tried to sort of. Take it away and hide it and stuff, but it's actually there.

Queer people are everywhere. Queer people are there throughout history and they're still, they even within sort of like the sort of quite traditional grim fairy tales, right? There's a whole wealth of queer characters if you, if you want to find them. And the one that I ended up with was, um, was the Frog Prince and who's actually with the original, one of the titles of it is Ian Henry.

The reason it's called Iron Henry is because at the end of this, when the, the prince is of Prince again, and he's married the princess, his, his faithful companion comes back. And when the prince got turned into a frog iron, Henry had had three iron bars wrapped around his heart to prevent it from breaking because he was so upset that he'd lost his prince.

And as he dries off and the prince, he's reunited with the prince. These iron bars break and they fall off and I'm like, I'm sorry, love this is, this is like, I didn't, because I was like, oh, I know the frog princes, I absolutely know the frog princes. And I was like, I don't remember this bit. And so, yeah, so I was like, and it, it though that sort of erasure of queer people from history felt very much echoing what was happening with Section 28.

And sort of my sort of re reclaiming of it almost as well. And so there was that, and obviously it also fed into the fact that, and it's, it's getting, I thought it, I was hoping it was going to get better, but it's actually got worse. The sort of, it's the same rhetoric, the coming around for trans and non-binary folk now, um, protect the children.

It's like, we've done this fight already. I'm sorry, this is just exactly the same. It felt, timing wise, it felt very appropriate. 'cause it was the 21st anniversary of, uh, the repeal in 20, yeah. In 2023. It was. And it was the, um, yeah. Uh, so lots of things stacked up and I was like, I, I have to write this piece.

And it was still a lot of fun. I got, I mean, I dunno, you can't, you can probably see this is Ricky, um. Oh, Ricky the Frog. Yeah, Ricky the frog. Nice big or big Green frog. He is a big, big green frog. He's amazing. And he was the star of the show and I was like, so it's kind of, yeah, it was a fairytale show for adults really.

Or um, just kind of basically reclaiming an adolescence, which you kind of get denied. It is better nowadays, obviously. I mean, I, I, I absolutely ado seeing sort of Gen Z and Jen Alpha come out and going, I came out when I was 12. I'm like, what? That's amazing. I love you. Please never change. But at the same time you're like, I, I very tentatively came out when I was 18 and I, and were like, and I, I, I felt I was early.

Do you know what I mean? But like I say, the, the rhetoric has not gone away. Some of the legislation might have done, but the rhetoric is coming back in a different form, and it's just if we, we just need to keep telling our stories basically, because we've always existed. Those stories exist. We keep existing.

We are not going away. So it is so important to just keep telling our stories. I mean. I have a, again, also, not necessarily you can see, but I have a, I have a little rainbow necklace that I wear every day, and it's partly, it's partly for me, but it's also, it's, I I do think it's important, like if, if, if one, even one little queer kid sees it and they're feeling lonely or what have you, and just go, oh, you can be a queer adult.

That like, there is, uh, you know, a. Like going back to the TWE thing that it, it always said it does get better. Do you know what I mean? And I think the visibility Mm. Makes a huge difference. And I think with section 28, so I'm from Canada, so we didn't have section 28, but there pro I think there were others kind of social norms and things.

And also don't forget, you know, I say don't forget Mm. Also kind of is coming out or, or at the tail end of the whole age crisis Absolutely as well, which had a huge impact. So it's how I didn't have very many role models, you know, growing up even outside of the uk and we didn't have that legislation necessarily.

So it is that, you know, can I see myself as an adult? Can I see myself doing X, Y, or Z, or you know, and it is really important, just as you say, tell those stories so you know, people can have a reference point. Yeah, absolutely. And I just, and there is, and again, I am gonna pick up the Scottish scene a bit here as well.

There is a, a lot of wonderful queer artists up here in Scotland as well. And it's tough being an artist at the moment, as you know. Uh, but there is a certain amount of, there's, there's quite a lot of support and community within it. Um, I mentioned the Scott Storytelling Center and they, storytelling is often seen as quite a traditional.

Art form, and it is, and there's lots of traditional stuff there. But what people like the storytelling Center do is they manage to bridge the gap between sort of, they, they, they have lots of traditional stuff on, but they also have lots of, uh, sort of more, more innovative stuff, I guess. Not necessarily innovative, but sort of, there's a wonderful storyteller called Nile Mujani, who's, uh, often there and they tell.

Beautiful queer fairytales. And, uh, yeah, and they're also a, they're also a person of color. So there's sort of like this, this community up here in Scotland sort of helping to tell tales which own, which have sometimes been lost in the past or sort of get bulldozed or rolled over by more dominant narratives.

And there's a, yeah, it's so, it's, it's exciting. It's brilliant. And I, I think it's so important to have those stories because I think as humans we really respond to stories. Mm-hmm. More than anything else. So, you know, maybe, you know, can be seen as you say, as a traditional art, but I think it comes up in different forms, maybe in the modern world.

But we do still need storytellers. Oh, absolutely. We do. And I do think, uh, yeah, like I say, it is often seen as a, as a traditional form. But we, we tell stories all the time. You mean you go down, you go down the pub and you tell, uh, anecdotes and what have you, and they, like somebody was saying. I wish I could remember it was, but basically theater and, and art generally is essentially just a form of communication.

And that, yeah, that, that's all these stories. They don't, this art with about wanting to be too pretentious. The, this art, although I do work within these theater spaces, this art doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to these theater spaces. Do you know what I mean? These, the hallowed hall, it's like when you're enjoying telling your, your friends about.

The, your latest boyfriend or something down the pub you hold, you know, you might hold court. And this is a performance and a beautiful engagement of communication with people. Or, you know, just you, like I, um, LGBT Health and Wellbeing, who are an amazing charity, uh, here in Edinburgh as well. They do lots of outreach and artwork with people.

And I went on a, like a nature walk with them recently, and we, we came back and we, um, we, we, we collected like cones and, you know, bits of grass and bits of, bits of nature. And we did, we, we built like little figures out of them. And this was a community. I love that community art stuff. Do you know what I mean?

I think it's beautiful. So yeah, I mean much, I, I love putting on plays and, and standing on the stage and sort of reading out, claiming more poetry and stuff. The community art stuff is just important. And also, like I say, that's LGBT Health and Wellbeing, that's a, that's a another space where it's visible and an important space.

I think in terms of the fact that there's lots of different types of queer people. Queer people, particularly in the media, often you get sort of like, you get one idea of what it's like to be a queer person, and I think the majority, if I'm not, if I'm honest. Of queer people that I know don't fit that.

Yeah. And I agree with you with on that one, because there's that one narrative or kind of a very narrow narrative. But I think too, even for people who are not part of the lgbtq plus mm-hmm. Community, there can be quite a narrow mm-hmm. Narrative or for heteronormative people mm-hmm. As well. And mm. You know, it's, it's quite restricting and you get to know people, whatever, whatever their color, whatever their religion, what creed, sexuality, whatever.

Mm-hmm. And there's variation. People live differently. Oh, absolutely. But it's that social norms that kind of Yeah. We try to fit people into Yeah, they're terrifying and restrictive. And so like, even just silly little things. I mean, I'm quite. I'm not, I'm quite vanilla in ma in many respects, in terms of, I'm quite straightforward.

I like, I'm sort of a, a John Lewis shopping type of cozy, queer really. But, you know, just even think, but I, I have not done it today, but I like, I've, I really love painting my nails. I just, I like having a little bit of, a little bit of glam on my nails from time to time. I used to wear quite a bit of jewelry.

I don't wear it so much anymore. So like, have a little bling on, a little bit of bling on my nails. And again, just that visibility. And I've noticed more, I, I don't think because of me, but I've noticed, but just more generally, I think I've noticed a lot of men knocking around. I mean, to be fair, walk, go around in lots of artistic circles, but a lot of men who identify as straight and everything walking around with, with painted nails and stuff and like, and just.

Being able to, yeah, it's, it's, again, it's very twee, but just being able to be yourself. There's lots of, I'm jumping tracks again, there's lots of great things about social media, but there is, I've seen an increasing amount on social media at the moment. Very much siloing people into extremes of sort. In particular, we're talking here about masculinity and femin femininity, and there's definitely that going on and, but also, which is, which is having a weird effect, uh, weird knock on effect on the queer community as well.

I think there's a certain amount of these Yeah, it's going, it's going to extremes really to some extent. There's, there's a lot of trans non-binary, uh, and, um, gender fluid folk and, and you know, uh, gender problematizing folk knocking around and they're fantastic. And there's brilliant. There's also quite a strong siloing of, like I say, masculinity and femininity.

And then somehow recently, I dunno if it's just me, but that's been transferred onto queer relationships again and sort of without wishing to, you know, go too much down there. But there's sort of like, there's all this stuff online about tops and bottoms and it's like, it's effectively taking the traditional masculine position and the traditional feminine position.

I'm like. That's not how that works. Now, coming back to your artwork, your art Yes. Artistic side of things. The last question I have is what's next? Where do you see yourself going if, if you know? Well, I do. I mean, yes. No, so sort of yes and no. It's one of these we were talking about at the beginning really about sort of ebb and flow and sort of, so directly after my sort of.

My fringe show. I, yeah, I, I, I did, took my degree. Um, like I said, I've been knocking around making theater for 12 odd years. I finally got a piece of paper that says I'm a theater maker. Uh, 'cause obviously that's important. No. So anyway, so I sort of actually. I didn't perform much last year as such. I did a little bit of poetry performance, which was great.

It was lovely. Pushed the boat out, we're amazing and loud poets and anyway, but, uh, I did do quite a bit of writing, so, and I am, that's kind of where my, um, stuff is going at the moment. Um, is more along the more scripted written, uh, playwriting stuff. I've got a, I've got a couple of things which I'm sort of tentatively trying to get sort of.

Uh, produced and I've also got a, um, I'm really thrilled. I can't talk too much about this at the moment, um, 'cause it's still very early days, but I've got a new commission, uh, for a piece which will, which is, so in my wheelhouse, it's gonna be talking about, uh, sort of queerness and, uh, sort of, and we're gonna stick some class stuff in there as well.

We, we didn't, wouldn't necessarily have to be, but I've asked if we can sort of make it a bit more class-based as well. And they, they said yes. And um, and also family dynamics and stuff, uh, going on there, which I also, I think that's fascinating. I, I do think fa family dynamics are fascinating as well.

Yeah. And also there's sort of the major one on it again, sort of echoing, I guess the section 28 thing is sort of themes of concealing and revealing. And I'm super excited about it, but I can't talk too much about it at the moment 'cause it's still too early days. But if it comes off properly, it's gonna be a couple of years before that that hits the stage.

So. Other than that, if anybody would like to give me any more commissions, that would be amazing, obviously. And just trying to, yeah, just keep writing. I, as I, as I said, I think, I think I said at the top of the call, uh, I've always written, so there's this weird thing of, you know, always, always having written, I'm never gonna stop writing even if that's just for me.

And just, but obviously it's lovely to get, get stuff produced and performed. And one thing I will just quickly say as well, 'cause I think it's important, and we were talking about kind of ownership and creativity, I think, and um, is kind of giving yourself permission to write and that's, that's something.

And giving yourself permission to. To like call yourself a writer or an artist. It took me so long to do that. Sort of, even nowadays, even sort of like saying that out loud, there's sort of a little bit of a catch in my throat sort of going, don't be ridiculous. You can't, you're not an artist. That's just, that's just silly.

You just dabble. You just do doodle around and make silly little notes and, and things and it's like, well, no, you've done, you've put on stuff. You've got, and you're right. The reason I say that is 'cause I think it's related to sort of self-esteem and mental health and all that kind of stuff, and it really does feed in and I think it's a thing with, again, without wishing to be too pretentious, it's a, a thing that folk need to hear.

I think. I think a lot of people. Do just sit there and go, oh, I'm not really, I can't do that. I'm just, no, it's just silly. It's like, no, do it. You're, you're a human being. You're creative. Make things please. And you're, I think the, the thing I'm hearing is you're good enough. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is a, that's such a, I think.

I, the best artists I know, I think still have that kind of like, oh, this is not good enough. I can't do this. And I'm just like, why? You know, why am I, you know, this, this is rubbish. Um, this is just like, but people aren't gonna want to hear this. I'm like, no. People will want to hear it. And because as I said again, it is, it is about communication and humans are inherently social animals and we wanna communicate and we wanna talk to each other.

And if we can do it through art, that's just so, that's so beautiful. That's so lovely. I think, yeah, we, we should just do more of it. I completely agree. And on that note, I'd like to thank you for talking to us. It's great having you as a guest. Thank you so much, Heather. It's been, uh, amazing being here.

Thank you. Thanks for tuning into my conversation with James in the final episode of series six. His work brings a rare mix of vulnerability, political awareness, and imaginative flare. More information on James is in the show notes. This series may be wrapping up, but the journey continues. I'm already looking forward to bringing you more artistic voices in the next series.

Until then, stay curious, keep creating.