Academic Research

I trained in theatre at the Desmond Jones School of Physical Theatre in London and in Paris at École Philippe Gaulier.

Alongside my performing career, I have created actor-led scare attractions, researched and developed living history performances for historical tourist attractions, and maintained a keen interest in the darker side of history, ghosts, and folklore.

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My first solo show, Phantasmagorical, was created through research into Victorian Spiritualism in relation to performance magic and social attitudes toward female practitioners of spiritualism and magic.

​Coinciding with this research was the phrase, “Burn her, she’s a witch,” which I repeatedly heard after performing a particularly effective close-up magic trick. This innocuous phrase opened the door for further exploration of medieval witchcraft theory—specifically, the notion that women were considered more prone to deception and, therefore, more susceptible to the temptations of the devil.

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My second show, The Last Séance, combines Victorian Trance and Materialisation Mediumship, medieval witchcraft theory, and performance magic. This performance was created as part of my doctoral research at the University of Birmingham in 2025. It is the culmination of extensive study, drawing upon my writing and research on women who performed magic,second sight, and practiced trance mediumship or believed in reincarnation—and who, as a result, were judged and held to account, either as witches or pathologised as ill or defective. Along the way, I used theatrical performance as a reflection of my research and a medium for portraying and communicating meaning.

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I took Phantasmagorical to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, and it now tours small theatres and museums. I have performed it at the London Horror Festival, the Brighton Horror Festival, and historical venues such as The Coffin Works, Robert Smail’s Print Works (NTS), The Old Operating Theatre in London, and the Anglican Chapel at Arnos Grove Cemetery.

Along the way, I have created other shows and set pieces for Magic Alley in Stratford-upon-Avon—a tourist experience and eclectic gift shop that hosts theatrical evenings of entertainment. I also collaborated with Newhampton Arts Centre in Wolverhampton on a show to reopen the theatre during the COVID-19 pandemic and created a piece for The Dickens Society Symposium, based upon Dickens’s account of visiting a London medium in his hugely popular journal, All the Year Round.

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Awards and Funding

I joined The Magic Circle in 2008, and they support my academic research through The Maskelyne Award for Academic Research.

I won the Screaming Goat Award for Magic from The East Coast Spirit Sessions, USA (2018)—a convention dedicated to the art of bizarre and theatrical séance magic—and The Eugene Burger Legacy Award from the McBride Magic & Mystery School, Las Vegas (2020).