Sarah is a writer/director. She originally trained in law and then as a performer at the London School of Musical Theatre. Her original play HABIBTI DRIVER (written with Shamia Chalabi) had a run at the Octagon Bolton and is currently in development for television with Sister Pictures.
She was Writer’s Assistant to Jeffrey Lane (Tony Award winner) on the West End production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and is currently on the BBC New Talent Hotlist. Her play for Delirium Theatre, From Where I’m Standing received 5 star reviews and The Stage’s ‘Must See’ badge in Edinburgh. Writing credits include: Burkas and Bacon Butties, Getting Out, Getting Away, After the Turn, Cinderella, From Where I’m Standing, Streets (Offie nomination for Best New Musical and Most Promising Playwright), Another Way (Offie nomination for Best New Musical), Muted (Offie nomination for Best New Musical) and The Unblinding. ‘Burkas and Bacon Butties’ – an ‘East-meets-Wigan’ comedy, co-written with Shamia Chalabi, is published by Nick Hern Books and is currently under option for TV by Hartswood Films. Sarah is exceptionally collaborative and loves working with talented multi-disciplinary teams. She’s written with Tori Allen-Martin (also with the Artists Partnership) on numerous projects for Interval Productions and enjoys creating in the room with actors. She’s an NLP trainer and enjoys running workshops both in the arts and corporate sectors. Sarah is also a co-founder of the ‘Netflix of UK Stand-Up’ – NextUp Comedy.
Tori Allen-Martin is an actor/writer/singer-songwriter who was listed on the BBC New Talent Hotlist 2017. She co-founded Burn Bright with Sarah Henley, an organisation that aims to level the playing field for women and women identifying writers. Tori is currently writing a musical called Soul Sister and a television drama for Sky called Little Me. The Park theatre also recently commissioned her to write ‘Park Bench’ a two-hander, two part piece to be performed online and socially distanced in 2021. Her one-woman show The Hardest One was in development for TV with Drama Republic and now Duchess Street Productions and Tori has participated in writers’ rooms for Flack (Hat Trick), Beanoverse (Beano) and was employed to shadow Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin on Kate and Koji for UTC as part of comedy’s 50/50 scheme. Tori was commissioned to turn Idris Elba’s miMandela album into a musical, ‘TREE’.
Tori founded her multi-award nominated theatre company Interval Productions in 2009 and has produced eight original theatre productions and an arts council funded season of new writing under that banner, including STREETS for which she received an Off West End Nomination for Most Promising Playwright. Tori is currently in talks with various television production companies about future collaborations, is the book writer on ‘Soul Sister’, a new musical in development with Kilimanjaro, and recently received a Peggy Ramsay grant to write a new play about emotionally abusive relationships. As an actor television includes: Cherry in Pandemonium (BBC1), Billie in London Kills (PGMTV/Acorn TV – BBC later this year) Sandra in Unforgotten (ITV); Libby in Pure (Drama Republic/Channel 4); and Sarah in Cleaning Up (Sister Pictures/ITV).
