Andy Barker is a certified performance coach, trainer and author with diverse work experience in the arts and corporate senior management.

He has worked in the music industry, the film industry, the world of theatre, videogames, and learning and development. Highlights include working with Jim Henson's Muppets and with Andrew Lloyd Webber's numerous West End productions. Amongst a wide range of backstage credits, he was part of the original London productions of Evita, Starlight Express and Chess, transferred Single Spies from the National Theatre to the West End, enjoyed a run on Me and My Girl in London, and was Company Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera at the Savoy Theatre.

With Brian Cooley, he runs Mind Fitness, an organisation dedicated to developing mental health and wellbeing alongside business effectiveness.

He is the co-author of Developing Your Emotional Health: The Compact Guide (Nick Hern Books, 2024) with Brian Cooley and Beth Wood.

Harley Granville Barker (1877-1946) was an actor, playwright, director and critic, who exerted a major influence on British drama both during and after his lifetime.

Patrick Barlow is an English actor, comedian and playwright. His comedic alter ego, Desmond Olivier Dingle, is the founder, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the two-man National Theatre of Brent, which has performed on stage, on television and on radio. 

As a playwright, his work includes: a stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2005, then Tricycle Theatre and West End, as well as productions in Australia, New Zealand and Broadway); The Wonder of Sex (National Theatre, London, 2001); Love Upon the Throne (Edinburgh Festival and West End, 1998); and The Messiah (Tricycle Theatre, London, 1983; revived in a new version for a UK tour, 2018).

Adam Barnard began his career as a theatre director and now increasingly writes.

His first full-length play, buckets, was produced by the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in 2015. Previous one-act plays include Closer Scrutiny (Orange Tree, 2014), I.S.S.(Y) (Wilderness Festival, 2013) and Too Small To Be A Planet (Company of Angels / Latitude, 2012). Invisible, a play for young performers, was produced by Theatre Royal Plymouth in 2015.

As a director, he has worked extensively at the Orange Tree (starting as a trainee director, 2003-4), and at Trafalgar Studios, the Finborough, Arcola, King’s Head, Salisbury Playhouse, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Lichfield Garrick, Edinburgh Fringe, HighTide and in Copenhagen and Vienna.

Until 2013 he was joint director of Company of Angels, where he created the new writing programme The Commissioners and the digital theatre programme Virtual Empty Space, and wrote and directed four short films. Previously he was founding artistic director of Activated Image. He also works sporadically as a newspaper journalist.

Barnabe Barnes (c.1571–1609) was an English poet and dramatist. He is known for his Petrarchan love sonnets and for his combative personality, involving feuds with other writers and culminating in an alleged attempted murder. The Devil's Charter is his only surviving play.

Laura Barnett is an arts journalist, theatre critic and features writer for several national newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Observer and Time Out London. She is also a novelist whose debut novel, The Versions of Us, became a number-one Sunday Times bestseller in 2015.

Photo by Sarah Lee

Genevieve Barr is a deaf writer and actor from Harrogate.

After reading History and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, Genevieve taught at a secondary school in South London before her breakout performance in the lead role in The Silence for the BBC.

As a writer, Genevieve won the Red Planet Prize in 2020 and has original series commissions with ITV and Channel 4. She contributed a monologue, Thunderbox, to the BBC's CripTales in 2020. She has also co-written a single drama for the BBC with Jack Thorne.

As an actor, Genevieve is also known for her roles in BBC's Press and Call the Midwife, BAFTA-winning series The Fades, ITV's Liar and Channel 4's Shameless. She starred alongside Sarah Lancashire in Channel 4's The Accident, which became the highest-rated drama premiere of 2019.