Ep 9: A Bit of a Kerfuffle - Part II

Tayo Aluko is a playwright, a stage and TV actor, and a singer born in Nigeria, and living in Liverpool. His one-man play about Paul Robeson, titled CALL MR ROBESON, has taken him as far afield as the North West Territories of Canada and Australia and New Zealand, and to New York’s Carnegie Hall. A second play, JUST AN ORDINARY LAWYER, deals with Black liberation struggles worldwide, and has also been performed on three continents. He has initiated an international project titled MAPPING “GREATNESS,” in which people of the Global Majority worldwide film themselves performing his poem GREATNESS IN A TIME OF COVID in many languages, as a response to Imperialism and the global pandemic. His audio play PAUL ROBESON’S LOVE SONG is available online. He continues to write drama which demonstrates how Black History is everybody’s history, every day of every year, and is a history of resistance, resilience and triumph.

Christopher graduated from East 15 Acting School in 2018 and has been working in
various sectors of the industry since. He has much previous experience as an actor, as
well as a singer, writer and musical director.
Recent acting credits include Widow Twankey in Aladdin (Beverley Artistes); The
Narrator in Bonny and Read (Novanda Productions, Brighton Fringe/UK Tour); Aladdin
in Aladdin, Dugdale Centre, Enfield; Davie McD/Sam/Tobias Grenfell in Tell Me A Story,
produced by Kibo Productions for Zoom; Squire Bogey (and others) in Jack and the
Beanstalk, with M&M Theatrical Productions; God in It’s Aboot Adam, at last year’s
Edinburgh Fringe; Various characters in The Sherlock Holmes Experience, at Madame
Tussaud’s, London; and Fairy G/Sugar Plum in Bad Cinderella, at the Cockpit Theatre, in
December 2018.
In April 2021, alongside fellow producer Mark Hunter, he co-wrote, co-directed and
was Musical Director on Robin Hood: A Virtual Pantomime, which took place on Zoom,
and was very well received – they currently looking to revive it this year.
Christopher has also written a new musical – Star Streaker: The Musical – which he
hopes to revive in the not so distant future.
Find out more about what Christopher is doing at www.christophermcdougall.co.uk

Flloyd Kennedy (aka Fairy Bessie), Australian-born actress, performance poet, singer-songwriter, director and voice/speech/accent coach, took part in the British folk revival in the late 60s, performed street theatre, cabaret and fringe theatre in Scotland throughout the 1980s and 90s, returned to Australia where she undertook research into the performing voice (specifically Shakespeare) for her doctorate. She has performed, directed, and taught voice and acting skills at colleges and universities in the UK, US and Australia. Now resident in Liverpool, UK, Flloyd tours her one-person versa plays with music around the world, performs her songs and poems at open mics in and around Liverpool. She also coaches student and professional actors, private individuals and community and corporate groups through her private studio Being in Voice. She is artistic director of Thunder’s Mouth Theatre (theatre of poetry, passion and philosophy), a Certified Teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork and is an Associate Artist with ISAAC (International School for Acting And Clown), She has now published two collections of poetry, songs and essays, Sunsets & Kites and Home is Where I Hang My Hat. Her songs are available on Bandcamp, as well as all major online streaming services.