McQueen: or Lee and Beauty

James Phillips is a writer and director. Plays include: The White Whale (Slung Low/Leeds) The Rubenstein Kiss (Hampstead); City Stories (St James); Hidden in the Sand (Trafalgar Studios); The Wind in the Willows (Latitude/ Theatre503); Time and the City (Slung Low/Hull); Bobby and the Chimps (Florida); The Little Fir Tree (Sheffield Theatres). The Rubenstein Kiss won the John Whiting Award and the TMA Award for Best Play.Directing credits include: The Rubenstein Kiss, Hidden in the Sand, City Stories, Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune (Sound Theatre); Macbeth (Sheffield Crucible); Trettondagsafton (National Academy in Stockholm); Touched (Soho Theatre). His first professional production, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at the Pleasance, London, won an award from NESTA, the national endowment for the arts. He was an Associate Director of Sound Theatre, London. He is a selector for the National Student Drama Festival. TV credits include: If We Dead Awaken (Channel 4/Touchpaper). His first film script, The Watching Tree, is being produced by Blonde to Black Productions. His first book of documentary photography, Nicosia: The Last Dividing Line, was published in Cyprus in 2013. His photographs can be seen at www.jamesphillips.net.

James Phillips's script . . . is knotty and thoughtful, as it explores the responsibilities we have to the planet and to each other, the dangers of fundamentalism in many forms, and what we mean by society and justice.