I am currently open for commissions as a storyteller, researcher, trainer, dramaturg and director. I am particularly keen on doing more dramaturgy and directing work for storytellers.
My full academic CV can be found here.
Training: Storytelling and Public Engagement
Storytelling directing and dramaturgy (2021-ongoing)
I have worked as a director/dramaturg with several storytellers, including Tim Ralphs, Carmel Page and Tamar Williams. I also have extensive experience in working with actors in one-person shows, including my work with Dark Tales at the Arena Theatre and the Manchester Cathedral Monologues.
Working as a solo performer can be very isolating, and I can help with everything from initial research for a storytelling show (with expertise in medieval to early modern stories) to helping with structure, flow and the honing the performance itself. I particularly enjoying helping performers explore movement and rhythm in their performance; playing with delivery and timing and crafting poetic imagery. Get in touch to see how we might work together.
Commissioners: Carmel Page; Tim Ralphs; Tamar Williams (for her Adverse Camber-funded project on The City of Ladies)
Storytelling and Communication workshops (2021-ongoing)
I run a regular portfolio of training workshops for academics from various disciplines, arts and heritage practitioners on using storytelling in public engagement. These have included Storytelling for PhD Students, where I get students from STEM and humanities subjects to explain their PhD research and its importance as an engaging story; tailored subject-specific workshops such as Storytelling for Medievalists or workplace-specific workshops such as Storytelling for Public Communication in Heritage Work; and workshops in storytelling skills for the general public audiences at literature and folk festivals and in secondary schools (including presentation and performance skills).
Commissioned by: Universities of Oxford; Leeds; Reading; Sheffield; Manchester; St Andrew’s; Tromsø (Norway) and Fribourg (Switzerland). The AHRC Being Human Festival; Wolverhampton Literature Festival; Sidmouth Folk Festival; Country Dance and Song Society (USA); Leeds International Medieval Congress; Gender and Medieval Studies Conference; Medievalism in the Modern World conference.
The Seven Sages of Scotland (May 2023-September 2024).
This ambitious multi-language research project made a database and translations of a medieval story cycle that includes thousands of manuscripts and print editions in Arabic, English, Scots, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Persian, Polish, Scots, Spanish, Turkish, Welsh, Yiddish and other languages.
As part of this project, Scottish storytellers performed tales from the medieval Scots version at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and the Byre Theatre (St Andrews). In 2023, I was commissioned to run training for the academics and storytellers involved across the whole project on adapting medieval tales for modern audiences. This training covered practical strategies for collaborating with academic researchers to communicate key elements of their research; ways of adapting medieval tales with elements alien to modern audiences; dealing with racist, misogynist or otherwise objectional elements in medieval materials; and playing with story perspectives to create emotionally and intellectually engaging performances for modern audiences. In 2024, I ran a workshop for academics and students on working creatively with historical sources using Seven Sages material.
Commissioned by: University of St Andrews and the UKRI as part of The Seven Sages of Rome research project.
Public Engagement for Researchers (January, July and October 2025)
I have run specialist public engagement workshops for postgraduates and academics. This has included workshops for the AHRC on getting into broadcast journalism and applying to the AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme; University researcher workshops on getting started in public engagement work from scratch and measuring the impact of public engagement; and workshops on devising and writing successful Research Excellent Framework Impact Case Studies.
Commissioners: Arts and Humanities Research Council; University of Bern; University of Wolverhampton.
Creative Writing workshops (2022-ongoing)
My Storytelling with Historical Materials workshops cover the creative research skills involved in working creatively with historical sources. This can include working with individual objects, artefacts or pieces of artwork; building a story around fragments; working with annals; building ‘character’ out of historical records; using multiple perspectives and recreating tangible historical landscapes and medieval cultures in storytelling.
Commissioners: Keele University; University of Wolverhampton; University of Hull.
Teaching with Storytelling (April 2023; January 2019)
This workshop looks at the place and importance of storytelling in teaching practice, from the use of storytelling in lecturing and presentations to emotionally and intellectually engage your students to storytelling in assessment and using storytelling principles in course and module design to help guide students’ learning.
Commissioners: University of Warwick; Durham University, University of Oxford (forthcoming).
Directing, Dramaturgy, Theatre
Dark Tales for Winter at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton (November to December 2022; 2023; 2024; 2025)
Each year, I work as a dramaturg and researcher for Dark Tales for Winter at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton, which stages Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories each winter. This involves working closely with the play writers, director and actors to research the plays#’ historical contexts and use these to inform everything from script to set, costume and acting choices. Over the years, this has involved researching the Victorian contexts of the M.R. James ghost story Number 13; researching Scottish medical practice and graverobbing in the 19th century for The Body Snatcher; Victorian botany and scientific experimentation for Carnivorine and occult culture, seances and stage magic for In the Séance Room.
Commissioner: The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton
The Modern Decameron (March-April 2020)
In the first few weeks of pandemic lockdown, I organised The Modern Decameron: an online storytelling festival hosted on YouTube and Facebook and based on Boccaccio’s Decameron. Eighty-three professional and amateur storytellers around the world recorded 120 tales, and I included some of the medieval stories I have used in my research. This also involved training other storytellers on telling to a camera. The project has had 23,476 views to date.
https://www.youtube.com/@amoderndecamerontendaysahu8731
Commissioner: Self-directed.
The Manchester Cathedral Monologues (2014-2015)
I was commissioned to research, devise and direct a series of six historical monologues based on characters from the history of Manchester Cathedral to be performed as part of the Cathedral’s arts programme. These were performed in key spaces within the Cathedral, and covered the historical span of the building, including the Elizabethan period (Dr John Dee); its role in abolition campaigns (William Wilberforce); the Industrial Revolution (Joshua Brookes) and the Manchester Blitz. The project lasted almost two years, and several of the monologues ended up being performed elsewhere.
Commissioner: Manchester Cathedral.
The Alchemist’s Daughter (April 2015 and March 2015)
The original Dr John Dee monologue originally developed as part of the Manchester Cathedral Monologues was revived and redeveloped into a longer play for the Manchester Cathedral and Chetham’s Library’s joint public engagement project ‘Decoding Dr Dee’, starring Rev. Rachel Mann. The performance included some of the Library’s original Dee books. The play was later commissioned again by the Royal College of Physicians, London, as part of their exhibition ‘Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee’.
Commissioned by: Chetham’s Library (Manchester), and the Royal College of Physicians (London).
Broadcasting
I have appeared on BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and World Service programmes talking about everything from glittery villains and wolves to Christmas carols.
- 8th September 2026: Interview and storytelling performance used in BBC World Service, Stitches in Time: The Bayeux Tapestry.
- 23rd May 2025: BBC Radio 4 Arts and Ideas special episode on Wolves.
- 8th September 2024: BBC Radio 3 mini documentary, Proms Nottingham: Music from Sherwood Forest.
- 23rd February 2024: BBC Radio Oxford and Berkshire guest appearance, talking about my work in medieval studies and storytelling.
- 19th February 2023: BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature: Will Kempe: A Jig into History
- 11th March 2022: BBC Radio 4 documentary about the Bayeux tapestry, Women in Stitches: The Making of the Bayeux Tapestry
- 19th March 2020: BBC Radio Sheffield, talking about the Modern Decameron project.
- 3rd March 2020: BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking, talking about women in performance and the history of gossip.
- 29th December 2019: Wrote and presented a BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature, Glitter and Villainy
- 21st December 2019: Kat Cowan’s Morning Breakfast Show for BBC Radio Sheffield, talking about Sheffield traditional carols and storytelling.
- 14th October 2019: BBC Radio Sheffield’s The Monday Night Social on folklore.
- 2nd April 2019: Wrote and delivered BBC Radio 3’s The Essay: Cooking and Eating God in Medieval Drama.
- 29th March 2019: BBC Radio 3’s In Tune: reading an extract from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
- 23rd October 2019: British Library Anglo Saxon Kingdoms exhibition reviewer for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Free Thinking’.
- 23rd May 2018: BBC Radio 3’s ‘Free Thinking’, talking about Noah’s Wife and motherhood.
- 10th March 2018: Panel member at BBC’s Free Thinking Festival, Gateshead.
- 21st February 2015: Radio interview for Hannah’s Bookshelf, North Manchester FM (106.6 FM).
- 8th July 2013: Tiger Aspect Productions. Interview on English Folk Dance for the TV show Doctor Dance (aired 2014).