Tandem at Ten: A Festival of Words

Saturday 27th September, 7.30pm

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Nests, created by Morag Smith (Traverse Bar)

Morag’s visual poetry work focuses on themes of the need in all creatures for sanctuary, and the threat to nature and wildlife from human development, but also the power of resilience and transformation. Created mostly from recycled and found materials, nest is about the need for home and the threat to nature and biodiversity posed by humans and the detritus they create. It is also about the resilience of nature. Nature thrives, even in wastelands and birds and animals will try to create homes wherever they can and with whatever they find.

Arrival and transition music originally composed and performed by Gillian Cunnison

Gillian has composed original music for this event and will be playing as the audience enter the theatre and providing musical interludes as the pieces transition.

The Will of the People by Charlotte Smith, performed by Nicola Roy, Jenny Hulse and Jamie Marie Leary

In a near future where political tensions are at a boiling point, a recently elected progressive MP sits in a hospital waiting to find out what mystery substance has been thrown at her by a protester. Quarantined with her anxious bodyguard, the pair discuss how the world is changing, and whether seizing power to protect people is possible when it's directly against the will of the people you're protecting.

Nobody Told Me by Jennifer Adam, performed by Nicola Roy and Zoe Hunter

Emma meets her health visitor for the first time, but something is off. Something is definitely not normal. A play about motherhood and mental health.

Dinnertime on the Royston Road by Mhairi Quinn, performed by Mhairi Quinn

A spoken word piece about the telepathic nature of birds...and their stomachs.  

Guidance by Laura Tansley performed by Jamie Marie Leary

A poetic exploration of the relationship between rave, parenthood, and mental health. Following the rhythms of a "succession of repetitive beats", GUIDANCE aims to take the audience through the highs and lows of the early parts of newborn life.

INTERVAL - 15 MINUTES

Head Brain by Jennifer Adam and Benjamin McToy, performed by Elspeth Turner

Head Brain is one segment of a trilogy of poetic monologues set to an epic cinematic score exploring survival and the power of the mind.

Non-Fiction Writer Rebecca Smith shares an extract from her new book

Rebecca will read from her new nonfiction book which will be published next year. In it, she explores the role of a forester, charting our relationship with trees and timber over the centuries and how, as the climate changes and our future becomes more unpredictable, we will need their knowledge and experience more than ever before.

Preparing for the Afterlife by Mhairi Quinn, performed by Jenny Hulse and Zoe Hunter

Two sisters in their childhood home with only their father’s coffin for company. Someone or something looms outside. An absurd play about grief and home.

Selection of songs written by Grayling, performed by Grayling

Grayling is a Glasgow based musician and songwriter grounded in rich story telling and classic Americana influences. This will be her first show back, following a 1 year hiatus after a surgery - performing pieces from her Cardinal Fire EP and some new songs based on growth and repair.

Find out more about the Tandem at Ten cast and creatives

Jennifer Adam Co-Founder/Playwright/Producer/Event Curator

Jennifer is an award winning Scottish Playwright. Her professional credits include Ivor (Play, Pie and a Pint, Oran Mor/Traverse Theatre) which was developed with Tandem Writing Collective; HER (Strange Town Theatre Company); Balisong (Strange Town Theatre Company) and Looped (BBC Radio Drama Shorts). She was also recently invited to share new work at the inaugural Offspring Festival at Summerhall Arts run by Kolective Theatre. HER and Balisong are plays for young audiences, both have been published by Salamander Street Publishers and the latter has been seen by over 44,000 young people, touring schools in every local authority in Scotland. Jennifer was shortlisted for the Tron Theatre’s Mayfesto Award in 2019 and has been mentored by Lynda Radley (Playwrights Studio Scotland Mentorship Programme) and Stef Smith (Tandem Writing Collective's Rock, Paper, Scissors Project) She also created The 4am Feeding Sessions - an online collection of poetry from the middle of the night featuring 20 plus micro-poems on new parenthood which she wrote from home in lockdown.

Mhairi Quinn (she/her) Co-Founder/Playwright/Producer/Event Curator

Mhairi is a Scottish playwright, poet and screenwriter whose work spans theatre, television, film, and children's television.  Her plays have been performed at the Tron Theatre, Traverse Theatre, Dundee Rep, Assembly Roxy, CCA Glasgow, and Òran Mór. She was a finalist for the Tron's Progressive Playwright Award while her short play ‘Preparing for the Afterlife’ was commissioned for the Take Me Somewhere Festival and directed by Andy Arnold. She was selected for the Playwrights' Studio Scotland Mentoring Programme, developing ‘Politics of the White Stuff ‘ under the mentorship of Morna Pearson. Mhairi’s play ‘Billie’, produced by Fast Forward and Rolled Up Productions, toured schools all across Scotland through funding from GambleAware. Alongside her theatre work Mhairi writes for television and film. Her screen work includes the short film ‘Little White Lies’, co-produced by INDELIBLE INK through the Glasgow Film Accelerator Scheme led by Sigma Films and the Scottish Film Talent Network. The script of which was shortlisted for the Underwire Festival. Mhairi was selected for the BBC Scottish Voices programme by the BBC Writers room. Mhairi has built an extensive career writing for children's television. She was part of the writing team for ‘Winnie and Wilbur’ for Milkshake! on Channel 5, based on the bestselling books by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. Following recognition for her CBBC comedy monologue Packed Lunches, Mhairi was invited to join the BBC Children's New Voices Scheme. She has since contributed to many programmes for young audiences including Roots and Fruits, Mr Tumble and Balamory.  A qualified Drama and Pastoral Care teacher, Mhairi can communicate in British Sign Language. She was delighted to be selected as a ‘BAFTA Connect’ member and is committed to continually developing her craft.

Sarah Rose Graber (she/her) Associate Director

Sarah Rose Graber is an award winning multidisciplinary theatre maker, director, and facilitator. She graduated from Northwestern University and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Graber is a Circumnavigator Scholar having traveled around the world to the US, UK, South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina researching and creating theatre for social change across cultures. She won a Fulbright award to create devised work throughout the UK, was named "One of 15 Women to Watch" in Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine, and shortlisted for the Amazing Women Awards with No.1 Magazine. She has given several keynotes inspired by her TEDx talk on her research with Serendipity in creative practice which looks at the ways we welcome happy accidents into our work.

Morag Smith (she/her) Visual Poet

Morag Smith lives in Paisley and was brought up in working class Glasgow. She started writing poetry 8 years ago and since then has been published in e-zines, magazines and anthologies, including the Scottish Poetry Library Best Scottish Poems of 2023 (Dec 2024), Poetry Ireland Review and Gutter. She was a Mirrorball/Clydebuilt apprentice in 2019-21. She has won and been shortlisted for various prizes. Her first pamphlet, Background Noises, published by Red Squirrel press in November 2022, won the inaugural William Bonar poetry award. Morag has worked/collaborated with various writers and visual artists and was part of the Offpage visual poetry project in 2025, exhibiting at Many studios and gallery. She was also part of the Stanza White Cubes exhibition at Stanza 2026. Her second pamphlet will be published by Art Riot Press in October 2026.

Gillian Cunnison (she/her) Musician

Gillian Cunnison is a musician, music therapist, composer and educator. Over the years she has been very fortunate to have the opportunities to work and perform in many countries across three continents. Today, alongside performing, Gillian is an HCPC-registered Music Therapist and founder of The Therapy Programme, combining her passion for music with improving mental health and wellbeing. She published her first book, The Power of Music Therapy, in 2023 and released her debut single Here As I Stand and album Piano Solos last year. Gillian is delighted to be returning to the Traverse Theatre, where her composition Looking Through Glass was performed by the Red Note Ensemble as part of the very first Noisy Nights series in 2009.

Charlotte Smith (she/her) Playwright

Charlotte Smith is an Edinburgh-based playwright, with a Masters in Drama Writing from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She was longlisted for the David MacLennan Award in 2022 and 2024, and shortlisted for WonderFools' Positive Stories for Negative Times programme in 2024. As part of Playwrights' Studio Scotland's 2025 mentorship cohort, Charlotte was mentored by playwright Morna Young. Charlotte's body of work is sometimes surreal, often supernatural, and always queer. 

Laura Tansley (she/her) Playwright

Laura is an emerging playwright based in Glasgow with an interest in exploring under-represented voices in theatre, particularly those of older women. She was a mentored playwright with Playwright Studio Scotland in 2019 and has had extracts of scripts performed at Stage 2 Page and Progressive Playwright at The Tron. In January 2026 she was awarded a place on Dogstar Theatre’s script development programme, and an extract of a script was performed at Framework Festival in June 2026.. A performance of her full-length play, ‘Dead People Don’t Have Personal Data’ will be performed at Gateway Festival in November 2026.

Rebecca Smith (she/her) Writer and Journalist

Rebecca Smith is a writer and journalist. Her first book, Rural: The Lives of the Working Class Countryside, was published in June 2023 by William Collins. She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Sunday Times and teaches non-fiction writing courses with Moniack Mhor and Write Like A Grrrl.  She is the prose editor for Gutter magazine and is currently working on her second non-fiction book.

Grayling (she/her) Singer/Songwriter

Glasgow artist Grayling has quickly established herself as a standout voice in the Scottish music landscape. Earning a SAMA nomination and building a reputation for mesmerizing live shows, she has already opened for acclaimed acts including The Teskey Brothers and Emily Scott Robinson. Grounded in the rich lineage of Scotland’s indie, folk, and americana scenes, her performances deliver dynamic energy, soaring melodies and authentic storytelling.

Benjamin McToy  (He/Him) Composer

Benjamin McToy is a Scottish-born composer specialising mainly in music for visual media. His work has accompanied productions broadcast in the UK on BBC, ITV, Sky Arts, Sky History and TG4, and internationally on Discovery+, ZDF, BBC Earth and National Geographic. His music has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In both 2025 and 2026, Benjamin was nominated for the RTS Scotland Award for Best Original Soundtrack, for his work on The Emerald Isles with Ardal O'Hanlon and Uncharted Amazon with Ash Dykes respectively. In recent years, Benjamin has been working as Composer-in-Residence with One Tribe TV. He studied composition in New York and Aberdeen and is now based in Newburgh, Aberdeenshire.

Elspeth Turner (she/her) Actress

Elspeth Turner is originally from Fife and is a mother of two. An actor, writer, director and dramaturg, she creates works in theatre and film in English and Gaelic. As an actor, she has worked with a variety of companies acorss the UK and North America, including the National Theatre of Scotland, Theatre Gu Leòr, The Engeman Theatre NY, Eastern Angles, The Lion and Unicorn, The Traverse, the BBC, and Black Camel Productions. Recent TV credits include An t-Eilean, Rebus and Loch Nam Madadh. Her writing/directing work includes national tours of plays The Idiot at the Wall and Spectretown, 4 part radio drama Nìghean an Dorsair, currently on BBC Sounds, a short film, Marram seen on BBC Alba, and an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard currently in development.

Nicola Roy (she/her) Actress

Nicola Roy is an actor from Edinburgh who has worked extensively across UK Theatre as well as tv and radio. She is also the host and creator of celebrated arts podcast ‘The Cultural Coven’ *Time Newspaper Podcast of the week. Now having interviews 2 First Ministers! Acting Credits include: Locker Room Talk (Traverse), An Edinburgh Christmas Carol (Lyceum Theatre) Liz Lochheads ‘Tartuffe,’ (Adelaide Festival- Critics Circle Award.) ‘Belles Startegem’ (Lyceum Theatre), FutureProof (Dundee Rep/Traverse Theatre) BBC Scotland’s ‘River City,’ and ‘Scot Squad.’ Multiple BBC Radio Dramas including: Rebus, A World Elsewhere, 44 Scotland Street

Jenny Hulse (she/her) Actress

Jenny is from Edinburgh and trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Recent theatre credits include- ‘Lear’ (Pitlochry Festival Theatre) ’The Stamping Ground’ (Raw Material) ’Doris, Dolly & The Dressing Room Divas’, ‘Take The Rubbish out Sasha’, (Oran Mor) ‘Tomorrow’, ‘Wonderland’ (Vanishing Point) ‘The Authorised Kate Bane’ (Grid Iron); ‘Everyone’, ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ (Royal Lyceum), ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (Citizens theatre), ‘Be My Baby’ (Derby theatre) , ‘4000 Miles’ (Ustinov Theatre/ The Print Room)’Hot Mess’ (Arcola) ‘The Voice Thief’ (Catherine Wheels), ‘Bright Black’ (Vox Motus)

For the past ten years Jenny has played series regular, Amber Murdoch in BBC’s ‘River City’

Other TV and Film work includes, ‘Outlaw King’ (Netflix) ‘In Plain Sight’, ‘Taggart’ (ITV) ‘Walter’s War, The Adventures of Daniel’ (BBC) ‘The Wee Man” (Carnival Films)

Zoe Hunter (she/her) Actress

Zoë Hunter is a writer/director/performer. She holds a law degree from Glasgow University, trained at Central School of Speech and Drama in London and has a background in devised theatre. She was a member of Brighton based Unpacked Theatre, co-creating/writing, producing and touring their work for a decade.

As an actress / performer, Zoë has performed and worked with, amongst others, National Theatre of Scotland, BBC, Blazing Griffin, The Edinburgh Royal Lyceum, Dante or Die, Horse and Bamboo, Twenty Stories High, Metal Rabbit and many more. She has appeared in numerous short films working with the London Film School, London Met, SFTN etc. She received an Offie nomination for sell-out show Lardo and starred in two series of CBBC's Scottish BAFTA winning Last Commanders. In 2025 she starred in one woman show Jocasta for Play Pie and a Pint and co-created and performed in Visible Fiction’s critically acclaimed show UP which was listed in the top ten Scottish productions at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2026 she performed in the new sexy, ambitious and outrageous Birds of Paradise show (We Indulge in a Bit of Roll Play) at Glasgow’s Tramway. Zoë has just performed one woman show, Slayers, which won a Fringe First.

Since returning to Scotland she has continued to work in theatre and started pursuing her passion for film. Her first feature, HEAVY, was supported by the BellRock screenwriting programme (mentored by Ian Sellar) and was short listed for the Austin Film Festival Features competition in 2024. Since then she has completed the NFTS John Yorke Screenwriter’s Academy. Zoë directed audio drama Dark Soul (a film for the ears), which won a Torc Award for Excellence at the Celtic Media Festival in 2024. In 2025 she was lead artist and producer for sold out multidisciplinary show Bethlehem Calling for Celtic Connections.

Jamie Marie Leary (she/her) Actress

Jamie is a Bajan-Scottish actress who Trained at Langside College. Since graduating in 2014 Jamie has worked regularly in Scottish theatre. However for the past few years she has been adding to a growing list of Tv credits including Traces, Ralph & Katie, River City and Currently staring in Casualty.

Theatre credits:

Cyprus Avenue, Nae Expectations, Aganeza Scrooge (Tron Theatre ) Anna Karenina (The Lyceum Edinburgh/Bristol Old Vic); Expensive Sh*t (Soho Theatre/ Traverse Theatre); Class Act: Silver (Traverse Theatre); Locker Room Talk (Traverse Theatre /Latitude festival), Stand By (Utter Theatre/The Byre); Breakfast Plays: B!RTH (Traverse Theatre); 549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War (Wonderfools); Cinderella,  A Christmas Carol (Citizens Theatre); Holding/ Holding On , Tero Buru (National Theatre of Scotland)

TV Credits include: Ralph & Katie (BBC); River City (BBC); The Nest (BBC); Traces (Alibi/BBC); Casualty (BBC)

Film Credits: Midgies (Mythic Picnic) I Swear (Tempo Productions), Hen-Do (BFI), Car Sick (Particular Films) Shepherd (GC Films), Super November (14c Studios), Where Do We Go From Here (Worrying Drake)

Tandem Writing Collective would like to thank:

Creative Scotland; Traverse Theatre; National Theatre of Scotland; Playwrights’ Studio Scotland; Scottish Society of Playwrights; Tron Theatre; Assembly Roxy, The Dram; Cannonsgait Pub; Tom McGrath Fund; Mo Gallagher, Emma Quinn, Steve Small, Strange Town, Perth Theatre Creative Hub; Eloise Curran, Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, every artist who has been part of a Tandem event in the last ten years; and you the audience, for supporting new writing.