The Farmer’s Wife

Eireann is an actor and writer from Carlisle and a 2022 graduate of The Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company. She also Trained with The National Youth Theatre.

Theatre credits include ‘DNA’ (New Wolsey Theatre).

Screen credits include ‘California Schemin’ (Studio Canal), ‘The Dumping Ground’ (BBC), ‘The B@it’ (Channel 4) as well as several independent short films. Namely Cumbrian-made ‘Leaver’s day’ (Dir. Stuart Armstrong) and ‘Landing Nowhere’ (Dir. Sam Mason).

As a writer, she has also had work long listed for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting.

Theatre Beyond These Walls (Northern Broadsides), The Effect (Boulevard Theatre), Sense and Sensibility, Bold Girls, Rails (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick), The Twits, Hope, Primetime, Narrative, The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Royal Court), Billy the Girl (Clean Break/Soho), As You Like it, The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Morte D’Arthur (RSC), Silence, Six Characters in Search of an Author (Gielgud Theatre/Headlong/Chichester), Half Life (National Theatre of Scotland), C’est Vauxhall! (Barbican), Genetics for Blondes (Soho Theatre), The Wedding (Southwark Playhouse), Vassa (Almeida Theatre), A Family Affair (Theatr Clwyd), Edward Gant (Theatre Royal Plymouth), Ubu Kunst, Missing Jesus, Fine (Young Vic), People Shows 100-103.

TV and Film Ridley, The Listeners, Vera, Doctors, Attachments, Holby City, Mothers & Daughters, At Dawning, A&E, Where the Heart Is, Dalziel & Pascoe, Storm Damage, Deeper Still.

Radio Murmuration, Doyouwishtocontinue, Secret Kebabs, Idle Hands, The Effect, Remorse, Heredity.

Christine also works as a writer and director. This year she won the inaugural Jerwood/Royal Court New Play Commission. Her short film Manhunt recently won Best Short at The Female Pilot Club Festival and her new work Breakages plays at TBTL this November.

Roberta enjoys working on new writing for theatre, most recently Kin for Best Girl Productions, Between the Acts for Liverpool Literary Festival, Three Mothers for Useful Productions, The Lovesong of Alfred J Hitchcock for New Perspectives UK tour and Brits Off Broadway New York, and verbatim piece Lancastrians for Junction 8 Theatre tour for Liz Stevenson.

Other favourite theatre work includes the National Theatre Productions UK tour of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, Before The Party at Salisbury Playhouse, Hard Times a site specific for the Library Theatre Manchester, A Doll's House at The Lowry Salford, Talking Heads A Cream Cracker Under The Settee at The New Vic Newcastle-under-Lyme, The Ladykillers and Blithe Spirit Oldham/Basingstoke/Harrogate, Norman Conquests and Two at Bolton Octagon, Can't Pay, Won't Pay and The Elephant Man at The Old Vic Stoke-on-Trent, Quartet at Oldham Coliseum, Intimate Exchanges, Stevie, Humble Boy Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf, Talking Heads Bed Of Lentils at Dukes Lancaster.
Television work includes Downton Abbey, Coronation St, Emmerdale, Silk, Hollyoaks, Doctors and Eastenders.

Recent Film Shorts include Gone to Seed currently in post-production and Semi- Finalist for Shore Scripts funding, Pink Carnations and Purple Hyacinths - winner of Best Drama RTS Student Awards 2024.

Roberta previously worked at Theatre by the Lake in The Borrowers 2008. She is looking forward to working with Liz again for this project.

Helen Rebanks is a farmer, author, and advocate for sustainable agriculture, rooted in the landscape and traditions of the English Lake District. Shaped by a childhood on a Cumbrian farm, where her family has worked the land for generations — her family farmed dairy cows, beef cattle, and sheep, and her grandfather bred pedigree Clydesdale horses — she brings both heritage and lived experience to her writing.

A graduate of Fine Art with first-class honours, Helen worked in Oxford before returning to Cumbria, where she farms alongside her husband and raises four children. Her Sunday Times instant bestselling memoir, The Farmer's Wife, is a compelling account of modern rural life — honest, grounded, and deeply human.

Hannah Khalil is Writer in Residence at Bristol Old Vic (2025-2030). Recent work includes critically acclaimed My English Persian Kitchen which had a sell out run at the Traverse as part of the Edinburgh Festival in August 2024, then transferred to Soho Theatre, London followed by a UK and Irish tour. It opens at Atlas in Washington DC this autumn in a Culture Ireland funded production. 

Hannah was the 2022 Resident Writer at Shakespeare’s Globe, while there the Globe produced three of her plays: Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights, Henry VIII and The Fir Tree (2021 and 2022). Hannah’s other stage plays include A Museum in Baghdad (Royal Shakespeare Company) which marked the first play by a woman of Arab heritage on a main stage at the RSC,  Interference (National Theatre of Scotland) and the critically acclaimed Scenes from 68* Years - shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award (Arcola Theatre, London, 2016). Her first libretto for a new Key Stage 2 Opera called The Great Stink toured the UK in 2024 with English Touring Opera. 

Hannah held the Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova University in 2021 and was a Creative Fellow of the Samuel Beckett Archive for 2021/2022. She co-conceived and acted as co-artistic director for the Not Beckett international festival of new plays. She is currently an Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck University. In 2022 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is an Associate Artist of Shakespeare’s Globe.

Liz Stevenson is Artistic Director and Joint CEO of Theatre by the Lake. For TBTL she has directed: Steel (National tour - winner of the UK Theatre Award for Excellence in Touring 2025), Every Brilliant Thing (nominated for The Stage Award for Best Community Project 2024), Brassed Off (with Stephen Joseph Theatre, Bolton Octagon - nominated for What’s On Stage Award for Best Regional Production 2025), Tom’s Midnight Garden, Home I’m Darling (with Stephen Joseph Theatre, Bolton Octagon), The Secret Garden (with York Theatre Royal) and Handbagged.

Other work as a director includes: A Christmas Carol (Theatr Clwyd); How My Light is Spent (Royal Exchange Theatre, Sherman Theatre, TBTL) and Barbarians (Young Vic – nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre).

Liz is a recipient of the JMK Young Director Award. She was formerly the co-founder and Artistic Director of Junction 8 Theatre, making new plays with, for and about the community in her hometown of Chorley, Lancashire (Under the Market Roof and Lancastrians).

Olivier Nominated for Best Production in an Affiliate Theatre, Offie Nominated for Best Costume Designer for The Daughter-in-Law at the Arcola Theatre and Suite In Three Keys at The Orange Tree Theatre. Best Set Designer for Tonight at 8.30 at Jermyn Street. OldVic12 and JMK Finalist.

Olivier Nominated for Best Production in an Affiliate Theatre, Offie Nominated for Best Costume Designer for The Daughter-in-Law at the Arcola Theatre and Suite In Three Keys at The Orange Tree Theatre. Best Set Designer for Tonight at 8.30 at Jermyn Street. OldVic12 and JMK Finalist.

Theatre credits include Pride and Prejudice, Around the World in 80 Days, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Handbagged, Single Spies, Bold Girls, Miss Julie, Creditors, Lady Killers, Little Voice, Dear Uncle, (Theatre by the Lake), The Circle, Suite in Three Keys (Orange Tree Theatre), Homo Alone (The Other Palace), Krapps Last Tape / Eh Joe / Old Tune, Love All, Original Death Rabbit, For Services Rendered, Tonight At 8.30, Tomorrow At Noon, Creditors, Miss Julie (Jermyn Street Theatre), A Place For We, The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson (The Park Theatre), Stewart Lee Content Provider / Snowflake / Tornado / Man-Wulf (UK tour and BBC 2), Beautiful Game(Arts Ed), Three Birds (Bush Theatre/ Royal Exchange Manchester), Good Soul (Young Vic), Egusi Soup (Soho Theatre), Mud (Gate Theatre), The Daughter-In-Law, The Dog, the Night and the Knife, A Game of Love and Chance (Arcola Theatre), Blythe Spirit (Beijing), (Jermyn Street Theatre), The Minotaur, My Father Odysseus (Unicorn Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (NAPA Karachi), Lost Land (Jenin, Palestine), Shakespeare Untold, The Magic Playroom (UK tour, Pleasance Theatre), Emilia (GSMD), I Am A Superhero (Old Vic New Voices at Theatre503), Buttons (King’s Head, Islington), Potted Sherlock (Vaudeville Theatre, UK tour), Ladies That Dig (The Dukes and UK Tour).

Opera credits include Messiah (Danish opera, Frankfurt opera), Carmen (Dorset Opera), Banished (Blackheath Halls), Der Tsar Serse / Der Kaiser (RSC Glasgow), Der Zar lässt sich photographieren, Montiverdi Madrigals, Opera Makers (GSMD), ETO Autumn Scenes 2020 (UK Tour), The Magic Flute, Carmen, La Bohème, Albert Herring, The Marriage of Figaro (costume design for Co Opera Co).

Dance credits include Nostalgia (Northern Ballet), Nora / She Persisted (English National Ballet), The Nutcracker (Shanghai Ballet), Egle (Lithuania National Ballet), ENB Choreographics Programme 2015 - 2017, Dance Journeys 2016/ 2017/ 2019 (English National Ballet at Sadler’s Wells/The Barbican).

Associate Credits include Manor (The National Theatre) Designed by Lez Brotherston, Siegfried / The Ring Cycle (Gothenburg Opera) Designed by Alison Chitty, Greif (The National Theatre) Designed by Alison Chitty, Pirates Of Penzance (ENO) Designed by Alison Chitty.

Associate Designer to Theatre by the Lake and Jermyn Street Theatre.

Curator for the Theatre By The Lake 25 Years Exhibition, The National Exhibition of Performance Design UK Tour and Future Worlds at The Royal Exchange Manchester.

Simon is an award-winning lighting designer, working internationally in theatre, dance, and opera.

Recent highlights include Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (Seoul) and Viola’s Room (London / New York); Mayflies, Ballad Lines, the world premiere of Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Islander (US Tour / off-Broadway / London / Edinburgh), Vanishing Point’s What I’m Here For (Denmark / UK), Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (Japan / UK) and Metamorphosis (Scotland / Italy), Vox Motus’s Flight (worldwide) and Robert Lepage’s production of The Magic Flute (Quebec City).

Closer to home, Simon has designed shows for National Theatre of Scotland, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Traverse Theatre, Citizens Theatre, Tron Theatre, Perth Theatre, Dundee Rep & Pitlochry Festival Theatrel and for companies including Vox Motus, Vanishing Point, Grid Iron, Raw Material Arts, Magnetic North & Tortoise in a Nutshell.

Simon has won a UK Theatre Award for Best Design, a Profile Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Lighting and an Offie for Best Design. He has been awarded the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland for Best Design five times. Over the years, his lighting has created a Guinness World Record, brought 30,000 people to a windswept Highland Forest, and caused reports of an alien invasion.

Mark Melville is a composer and sound designer for theatre and film and trained at
Leeds Conservatoire.

Recent theatre includes The Fifth Step (West End), Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
(Vanishing Point/Kanagawa Arts Theatre, Japan), Kin (Gecko/National Theatre).

Mark is also a member of the Association of Sound Designers and a Creative Associate with Vanishing Point theatre.

Jess is a Movement Director and Choreographer, she trained at the London Contemporary Dance School and the Laban Centre.

Recent Theatre includes As Movement Director or Choreographer: Nye (National Theatre), Hamlet Hail to the Thief (RSC, Factory International, Barbican), Our Town (Welsh National
Theatre), Richard III (The Globe), Lost and Found (Factory International, Aviva Studios), The Boy with Two Hearts (The Wales Millennium Centre/National Theatre), Poor (Gate Theatre,
Dublin), Please Please Me (Kiln), Outlaws (Grosvenor Park, Storyhouse) Atlantis, Snake in the Grass, Rope, Cinderella, Mother Goose, Celebrated Virgins (Theatr Clwyd), Hair (Konzert
und Theater St.Gallen), Around the World in 80 Days (Theatre by the Lake), Byth Bythoedd Amen, Merched Caerdydd (Theatr Cymru), A Little Piece of You (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Blood Harmony, Petrichor (ThickSkin), A Walk is Not Just a Walk (Lyric Theatre Belfast), Constellations (National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai).

As Associate Director or Associate Movement Director work includes I Think We Are Alone, The Unreturning, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Frantic Assembly), The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Beginning (National Theatre), Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning
(National Theatre of Scotland).

Pippa Hill is an award-winning producer-dramaturg and is the co-director of Rum and Raspberry, a writer led theatre company.

She was Head of New Work for the Royal Shakespeare Company for seven years, commissioning and developing of all the company’s new work most recently Hamnet, Ben and Imo and My Neighbour Totoro. She held Literary roles at Paines Plough and Hampstead Theatre developing new work and leading nationwide initiatives to support emerging talent.

She is a trustee for Theatre 503 and a judge for the Adopt a Playwright Award. She co-wrote the adaption of Can Dundar’s incendiary book #WeAreArrested which was produced by the RSC at The Other Place in Stratford upon Avon in 2018 and transferred into London 2019.

Polly previously worked for five years as casting associate at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester before going freelance in 2013.

Theatre credits include: The Virgins (Soho Theatre); Wolves on road, Paradise Now! (Bush Theatre); The Secret Garden, Robin Hood, Antigone, Peter Pan, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, To Kill A Mockingbird tour, Running Wild tour (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Earthworks, Chasing Hares, The Secretaries (Young Vic); Private Lives (Rose Theatre Kingston/Bolton/Northern Stage/Bristol Old Vic) First Touch (Nottingham Playhouse); Life of Pi (Sheffield Theatres, UK Tour & West End); Silence (Tara); Run Rebel (Pilot); The Railway Children (Bradford City of Culture); Tick Tick Boom, Snake in the grass, Kill Thy Neighbour, Rope, Constellations, The Great Gatsby, Pretty Shitty Love, Milky Peaks, Celebrated Virgins, Curtain Up and For the Grace of You Go I (Theatr Clwyd); Santi & Naz (Carbon Theatre); Shandyland (Northern Stage); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Tribes (Sheffield Theatres); Our Lady of Kibeho, Soul, Merlin, Peter and the Starcatcher (Royal & Derngate); Macbeth, Two Trains Running (ETT); Approaching Empty (Kiln, Tamasha & Live Theatre); The Lovely Bones (Royal & Derngate, Birmingham Rep and Northern Stage); All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Caretaker (Bristol Old Vic); The Government Inspector, Tommy, Our Country’s Good (Ramps on the Moon Consortium); The Island Nation (Arcola); Brideshead Revisited, A View from the Bridge, Sherlock (York Theatre Royal); Anita & Me, Peter Pan, Of Mice and Men, A Christmas Carol, 101 Dalmatians, What Shadows, Folk, Winnie And Wilbur, Back Down, Feed the Beast, I Knew You (Birmingham Rep); Waldo’s (Extraordinary Bodies/Bristol Old Vic); The Kitchen Sink, Educating Rita (Hull Truck Theatre); Sweet Charity, Wit, The Ghost Train and Little Shop of Horrors (Royal Exchange Theatre as freelance Casting Director - numerous others as casting associate).

Anna Berentzen is excited to be joining Theatre by the Lake as the Associate Director from August.

This year, Anna has directed Idyll for Storyhouse and is Project Manager of Outdoor Opera House, an arts and wellbeing festival run by Buxton Opera House and Buxton Civic Association. In 2025 she was selected to be ThickSkin’s Jerwood Associate Artist, where she was Associate Director on It Walks Around the House at Night UK tour, as well as a lead creative workshopping new work and making Generator alongside Neil Bettles.

Other directing credits include Leave No Trace (Buxton Opera House in Association with Buxton Civic Association), A Very Odd Birthday Party (Hawkseed Theatre UK Tour), Astronauts, The Survivors’ Guide to Living, All I Want for Christmas (Royal Exchange Theatre). As Associate or Assistant Director Life Out There (Ransack), Hamlet Hail to the Thief (RSC and Factory International), Rumpelstiltskin, Hare & Tortoise (Buxton Opera House), Utopia, The Tempest, We Were Told There Was Dancing, Bruntwood Prize Ceremony (Royal Exchange Theatre).

Anna is Co-Founder of Hawkseed Theatre where she regularly runs community events and workshops including the popular Scribbles Social! and Songs and Stories. She was part of the Royal Exchange Theatre Young Directors’ Programme and was later selected to be part of Headlong Origins scheme for regional directors.

Anna regularly creates work with access at its heart and is currently studying towards British Sign Language Level 4.

Jessica is a set and costume designer and associate designer, having trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has designed many shows, including for opera, plays and children's theatre. Jessica's associate designer credits include Creditors and Suite In Three Keys (Orange Tree Theatre) and Pride and Prejudice (touring production), all as associate to Louie Whitemore.