Ruth

GARTH BARDSLEY
Award-winning writer and opera director, Garth Bardsley studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and at the Royal Northern College of Music. He made his operatic debut with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and was a soloist for various opera companies. He has extensive experience in musical theatre (A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, Pacific Overtures Leicester Haymarket, The Light in the Piazza Curve, Assassins Derby Playhouse, Baby on Board Stephen Joseph Theatre, Assassins New End Theatre, Scrooge the Musical National Tour) and starred in the West End productions of Jerry Herman’s The Best of Times and as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera. As a director, Garth has produced for numerous leading conservatoires and international festivals. His production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream won the Manchester Theatre Award Best Opera 2016. His first book, Stop the World – The Biography of Anthony Newley, was serialised in The Daily Mail, and garnered 5* reviews from the national press. He has written several plays and, as a poet and lyricist, collaborates with British composer Ben Parry. Their numerous works have been performed and broadcast across the world including the RAH, Christmas at Kings, Sage Gateshead, Washington DC’s National Cathedral and The Kennedy Center. Their one-man opera My Father Cannot Speak, starring Roderick Williams will be premiered in October 2026 at Britten Pears Arts in Snape Maltings. Garth has been a senior lecturer and tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal College of Music, University of Plymouth and Bath Spa University and was a visiting professor at New York University, Manhattan and The Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam NY.

PADDY DUFF
Paddy is a Scottish actor from Aberdeenshire
Theatre Training: Rose Bruford
Television credits include Outlander (Series 8, Lionsgate + / STARZ); Emmerdale (ITV); Doctors (BBC)
Stage credits include The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare in the Squares); Romeo and Juliet (International Tour / Action to the Word); The Mousetrap (St Martin’s Theatre); Stick Man (UK Tour / Freckle Prductions)

JOHN FAAL
John’s recent credits include: Colonel Brandon/John Dashwood in Sense & Sensibility: The Musical (Arcola Theatre & UK Tour), Antipholus of Syracuse/Antipholus of Ephesus in The Boys from Syracuse (Upstairs at The Gatehouse), and Æthel-Rún/Nanki-Poo in The Mikado (UK Tour & New York City).
Other credits include the BBC UK arena tour Doctor Who: Symphonic Spectacular, tenor soloist in Mozart’s Requiem, recital tour to Sweden, Songs of the British Isles and Frederic in Pirates of Penzance.
As a postgraduate, he trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the Royal College of Music.
John is represented by Engers Portelli.

SARAH LAWN
Training:  Guildford School of Acting and Middlesex University]
Theatre includes:  Noises Off, Woman in Mind and Blithe Spirit (all West End);  Princess Caraboo (Finborough Theatre),  Dick Whittington (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); Absent Friends and Peter Pan (both Gordon Craig Theatre);  Seasons Greetings (Rhodes Theatre);  Farndale Avenue… Murder Mystery (Frinton Summer Theatre);  Anyone Can Whistle (Bridewell);  Much Ado About Nothing (Tour).
Screen work includes: Bridgerton (Netflix);  Bergerac (UKTV);  Eastenders (BBC);  Slave Market (MBC); and feature films The Flash,  The Real Charlie Chaplin and Mumbo Jumbo.
Sarah has been an actor volunteer for the child mentoring charity Scene & Heard for the last 23 years.

CONNOR PAYNE
Connor is a 2025 graduate of The Royal Academy of Music.
Credits whilst training include: John Wilkes Booth in ASSASSINS; William Carney/Carson/Breton Beret /Oscar Wilde in A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE; Usnavi /JD /Jamie/Wellerstein /Ensemble in THE LAST 25 YEARS; and Trigorin in THE SEAGULL.
Further training: Bath Spa University and The Urdang Academy.

ALICE REDMOND
TMA nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Tracey Beaker Gets Real
Trained: Royal Academy of Music and Middlesex University.
Theatre includes: Cats (UK and European Tour) Oklahoma! (Gordon Craig Theatre) Sweeney Todd (Emporium Theatre) Les Miserables (Pimlico Opera) Annie Get Your Gun, Oliver! A Bunch of Amateurs, and My Fair Lady (Frinton Summer Theatre) I Love You, You’re Perfect Now Change (English Speaking Theatre Hamburg) Tracey Beaker Gets Real (Nottingham Playhouse and UK Tour) Alice in Wonderland (West Yorkshire Playhouse) Mexican Hayride (Saddlers Wells Studio) Cabaret (The Broadway Theatre Catford) Little Shop of Horrors (Landor Theatre) Tom Gates (Birmingham Stage Co and UK Tour) Cleo, Camping, Emanuel and Dick (Southwold Summer Theatre) Seasons Greetings (Gordon Craig Theatre).
Opera includes: She Said The F Word (Tete a Tete Festival) in The Homosexual Necrophilliac Duck (Tete a Tete and Natural History Museum) It’s Not What He Says It’s How Deep It Goes (Natural History Museum) Carmen (New Vic Stoke and UK Tour) Ainadamar (Scottish National Opera), Monkey; Journey to The West (London’s O2), The Threepenny Opera (Pimlico Opera)
Pantos include: Jack and the Beanstalk (Nottingham Playhouse) Cinderella (Nottingham Playhouse), Cinderella (Jordon Productions), Sleeping Beauty (Enchanted), Alice in Wonderland (New Theatre Portsmouth), Sinbad and The Diamond Princess (The Theatre Chipping Norton), Aladdin (Theatre Royal Stratford East).
TV, Film and Radio: The Enfield Poltergeist (Apple TV), Red White and Royal
Blue (Amazon Films), Believe It (BBC Radio 4), Consider Yourself (Mob Films), Ape (Rogue Films), McCready and Daughter (BBC), Life Begins (ITV).
Cabaret: An evening of Musical Theatre (Streatham Festival) The Redmond Sisters (The Pheasantry, Water Rats, Gay Pride, Too2Much, Jermyn Street, Café Royal Regent Street, Streatham Festival) The Music of Dan Gillingwater (Waterloo East) Sloane Square Syncopators (Queen Elizabeth Halls).

BIBI SIMPSON
Bibi Simpson is a recent graduate from the Guildford School of Acting.
Screen Credits: Olive Thomas, Theatre Hauntings (2026)
Her drama school credits include Rusty in Footloose and Virginia Jones in Grab Me a Gondola, inspired by Diana Dors’ experience at the Venice Film Festival, for which she also made a professional cast recording.
Bibi is thrilled to be making her professional debut as the role of Ruth.

HANNAH TRAYLEN
Hannah is a graduate of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts and a recipient of the Sir Alec Guinness Award. Her career has spanned TV, Film and Stage.
Feature Film credits include Boiling Point, Hounded, Synthesized and The Wanting. On the small screen, she has appeared in Sexy Beast, Casualty, Call the Midwife, Boiling Point, The Responder, Beyond Paradise, Harlots, Ridley Road and many other productions. Her extensive theatre credits include Educating Rita, Constellations, Blessings, Folk, Hoxton Street, The Kneebone Cadillac, A New and Better You and Heroine. Hannah’s debut Feature Film, as Writer and Executive Producer, is currently in pre-production with It’s All Made Up Productions.

FREDDIE WILLIAMS
Freddy Williams trained at the Oxford School of Drama (Acting), and Trinity Laban Conservatoire (Musical Theatre).
Theatre credits: Young Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (Falkoperan – Stokholm), Brutus in Julius Caesar and Duke Orsino /Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (Bowler Crab tour), Dr Armstrong in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), Finley/Ford in Snakes and Ladders (Southwark Playhouse) and Roland in the sold out revival of Constellations by Nick Payne (Studio Jack Theatre).
Musical credits: Ralph in new British WW2 musical Yours Sincerely (Living Portrait Productions).
Freddy has also been seen in a collection of independent short films.

MEI-LI YAP
Mei-Li trained at Rose Bruford.  This is her professional stage debut.
Growing up in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Mei-Li has been surrounded by theatre all her life. Being mixed-race (White/Chinese), she has a passion for all forms of theatre – musicals, contemporary/musical singing and children’s theatre – especially where it has a message and helps to educate. Through education, she’s had the opportunity to travel and study in Birmingham [BOA], Kent [Rose Bruford] and Washington DC [CUA]. Graduating in September 2025 from the American Theatre Art programme at Rose Bruford College, Mei-Li looks forward with great anticipation to working across all media in the business she’s devoted herself to and is passionate about.

AND

IAN PULESTON-DAVIES
Ian has appeared in numerous TV and Film Productions over the years including: After The Flood (ITV), The Cage (BBC), Madfabulous (Creative Wales), Daddy Issues (BB), (Pennyworth (Warner Horizon), Tin Star (Sky Atlantic), The Responder (BBC) Archie ( ITVX), D.I. Ray (ITVX), Marcella (Netflix) Silent Witness (BBC)…
His stage work includes: I Love You, Now What? (Park Theatre), A Passionate Woman (Harold Pinter Theatre), Everybody Loves A Winner (Royal Exchange), Lebenstraum (Kings Head), She Stoops To Conquer (Bristol Old Vic)…