About Us
ALSO is put together by a co-operative, so why not take the time to meet the team before seeing them in the field?
Midnight
I’ve been writing and performing comedy for 20 years, often resulting in actual laughter.
I’ve performed in lifts, in the dark, in public toilets, a swimming pool, a nudist resort and a double decker bus.
My cabaret show, Marcel Lucont’s Cabaret Fantastique now has a monthly residency in Soho, which is always a joy to put on. Highlights for me include a joyous tour of New Zealand, putting on my last show with a terrific live band and sharing bills with comics I once watched in awe as a punter - Daniel Kitson, Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery etc.
And, though I sadly never got to meet him, being told by the producers that Robin Williams saw my set on the Set List TV show and loved it.
I have been photographing and giving talks at ALSO for 4 years now. I absolutely love the magic that takes place there, seeing old faces, meeting new people and finding new angles to capture the stories and the uniqueness that is ALSO.
Two of the highlights for me are feeling part of a team, rare in a freelance career and getting to go to any talk or show i want!
I have oversight of all things involving technical production - lighting, sound, scenery, visual effects – I’m always striving to ensure the natural beauty of the landscape remains centre stage.
My early career in the Royal Marines did teach me the importance of remaining calm in the midst of apparent chaos – which I have found is sometimes useful in my role – and running the production of ALSO
My theatre career highlights are quite diverse include working with the Bolshoi Ballet’s divertissement season at the Royal Opera House - and performing the role of Maurice the Muscleman in the Sooty Show.
I've spent my working life flitting between live events and software development, always trying to learn something new. I'm also not afraid to put my hand down a blocked toilet.
Career highlights: ALSO 2020 - delivering a fun, social, festival in the midst of a global pandemic. ALSO’s Disco Bunker - a hidden disco made of straw – it was the first ALSO folly – we add one crazy thing each year which really stretches us. But at ALSO and in my coding work – I pride myself on creating stuff that lasts hence some code I wrote twenty years ago still being used is a career highlight.
I’m the researcher and producer, developing the content and overarching themes and strands of the festival, developing different ways to deliver new and big ideas in extraordinary ways.
I have worked with a variety of arts, media and publishing organisations including Salon London, The Literary Platform, Word Factory, Guardian Masterclasses. I’m the producer for online creative courses at Yodomo and have delivered live content at venues around the UK, including for Latitude Festival, London Craft Week, Festival No 6, Art in the Park, UEA and the Barbican. I love to research and write and am also studying part time for a PhD.
One of my favourite moments was managing and delivering ALSO’s first ever dynamic roaming in-festival bookshop! It was a huge success and we can only see it getting bigger and better in 2020.
I design the festival so that everyone there will find something that they need to know but they don’t know they need to know. I try to bring the transformative spine of the festival alive by any means necessary. So, I guess I’m the creative director of ALSO.
My intolerance for the dull, boundless belief that we all want to do more with what we’ve been given and ability to devour books at a ridiculously fast pace are essential skills for this job. I’m the opposite of being bored by experts, I think we need to seek out the best information we can from the best people we can find. To make sure we’re up to date with ideas I spend the month of October away reading everything we need to read for the following year and working out how we can turn those books in to interesting ALSO sessions.
Career highlights, we have created moments of such great beauty at ALSO between us, and it is the best feeling ever, in fact creating beauty is addictive. I want more. Much more.
I’m Judy, I oversee the design elements (although Capability Brown’s legacy isn’t too bad), programme our experiences, and run around onsite often wielding flowers and chalk pens...and oak branches bigger than me, pursued by a band of brilliant volunteers.
My background is in theatre, event, and interior design - I love creating theatrical environments that help fuel the imagination, and at ALSO I get to do this with nature and the most idyllic landscape.
My career highlights include designing a West End show and national touring productions whilst raising 4 children, winning Best Salon Design (niche!), ALSO Festival featuring in The Guardian Top Ten Festivals, and meeting and working with a whole range of incredible, interesting, and inspiring people. ALSO 2019. At sunset.
I curate the programming for music, audio adventures, the voice, and our choir strategy, threading this through the wider programming at ALSO. I’m a singer, composer, vocal coach and choir director who is passionate about supporting individuals and communities to develop their voices and creativity.
I have coached Grammy, Brit, MTV Europe and MOBO award winning artists and am the lead vocal coach on two of the UK’s biggest entertainment shows - ITV’s The Voice and appearing regularly on BBC1’s Michael McIntyre’s Big Show preparing the Unexpected Stars for the performance of their lives.
I have performed and collaborated with innovative artists including Damon Albarn, Imogen Heap, Paloma Faith, alt-J, Yoko Ono, Seal and Ringo Starr and have written music for film, TV and radio.
I am in charge of operations - I work on the planning and logistics and try to ensure the delivery of the festival runs as smoothly as possible.
I love a spreadsheet -and I’m not sure I understand why the rest of the team laugh at this. How else – I ask them – do you run a festival without a spreadsheet? I’m an organiser with a creative background and find the festival brings out both of these parts of me, I personally enjoy the challenge of pulling together something complex with various moving parts.
In a previous operational role, we averaged 30 - 40 event days a month, but one particular month a few years ago we had 76 booked in, so getting through that and everyone being in the right place and the right time doing the right thing felt pretty good. God I love it when a plan comes together.
I’ve been running dining at ALSO since the beginning and food has always been a huge part of the festival – I have a passion for all things alimental, and I develop our dining events from conception to execution, with specific focus on creative food, concept experience design and development. Want to see this in action? Don’t miss the Pudding Procession!
My passion for food came from my Basque grandmother who cooked for us every day, even my MA at Central St. Martins focused on how the multi-sensory can help with bonding relationships when eating together.
Now I work bringing the best chefs, production, produce and future thinkers together to create diverse, multi-sensory experiences! I am based in Ibiza, where I am managing director of The Last Supper Club – a leading clandestine catering company and work with local producers and crafts on the Island to create the best food experiences available.
I run the main bar (unofficially known as “The Northern Bar”) I DJ in there and the Disco Bunker, book DJ’s, help with music, perform comedy, sometimes do interviews, and help out with general running around.
I love running the bar because we have a great bunch of staff who keep the place bouncing as the social hub of the festival. We have all sorts of music in there from funk and soul, Northern Soul, chilled tunes and dance music. The bar can be a real tranquil escape looking out over the lake during the day and then at night it morphs into a bouncing nightspot. I had a successful career as a house music DJ for twenty years and I also REALLY like good bars. I know what I want from a bar, so we try to provide that and more!
Helping to set up and run Also is one of my highlights. It’s getting better and better and is a hell of an achievement in the current climate. We have such an amazing team who graft their hearts out. It’s quite surreal for it to be heading into the seventh year!
I’m head of build and I plan and manage the build of ALSO, and the team who create it.
I'm organised and can work well under immense pressure (thank god) I can visualise how we want things to look from concept to creation and love the challenge and excitement of being in the elements and creating a festival from the landscape.
I have so enjoyed working with the diverse range of people I have met during my career in the construction industry, working on a range of different projects from Victoria Palace Theatre, Royal Albert Hall, bespoke hotels and historic art galleries.