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Directors
Robin Belfield – Director
After graduating from the University of Bristol, Robin was awarded a Bursary on the Channel 4 Theatre Director Scheme. He spent 18 months at The Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, where productions included The Entertainer, _Skinny Dipping
, _Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Duck Variations. For the Dukes Theatre, Lancaster: A Christmas Carol and Charlotte’s Web. For Show Of Strength: rehearsed readings of new monologues at Paintworks, Waiting at the Southville Centre and Shiona Morton’s Celeb for Brunel and Partners on railway stations across the South West. Other recent work includes Pericles (The Egg, Bath Theatre Royal) and Dat Bahamian Ting and Oleanna for the Nufield, Southampton.
Alan Dossor – Director
Alan Dossor has been directing in the theatre since the 1960s, and making films for TV since the 1970s. In the 70s he was Artistic Director of Liverpool Everyman, with a series of companies that produced many of today’s best known film and TV actors. He has worked at many of our leading regional theatres, in the West End, amd on Broadway. For Show Of Strength he directed The Wills’s Girls (2002/3), You’re Not Singing Any More (2004) and An Audience With Sarah Guppy (2006). Other recent work includes a national tour of Stephen Lowe’s play The Spirit of the Man, a celebration of the life of Brian Clough.
Actors
Stephanie Cole – Actor
Stephanie Cole was brought up in the West Country and trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Her formidable list of theatre credits includes Rose with Glenda Jackson (Duke of Yorks); Noises Off (Savoy Theatre); Steel Magnolias (Lyric Theatre); The Relapse (Old Vic); A Passionate Woman (Comedy Theatre); Whom Do I Have the Honour of Addressing? (Chichester); Equally Divided; Quartet (Albery Theatre).
Her television work has been equally diverse although she is probably best known for her roles in the hugely popular series Tenko; Waiting for God (British Comedy Award for Best Actress) and Doc Martin. Many other TV roles include Open All Hours; A Bit of a Do; Soldiering On; Memento Mori; The Return of the Antelope; In the Cold Light of Day; Going Gently; Poirot; Keeping Mum; Other Animals and Housewife, 49.
Her autobiography A Passionate Life came out in 1998, and in 2005 she was awarded the O.B.E. in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Stephanie Cole is a Patron of Show Of Strength Theatre Company.
Kim Hicks – Actor
Bristol born and bred, Kim has enjoyed a wide-ranging career, working for radio, TV, in film and on stage. Over the 27 years since she left the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School she has become best known for her one woman shows. Courtship –scenes from the novels of Jane Austen (launched 1981), Couples? –short stories and poetry by Dorothy Parker (launched 1982) and All Aboard –Victorian diaries written on board the SS Great Britain (launched 1999).– Kim has had a long association with Show Of Strength but this is her first one-woman performance for the company. She also regularly records unabridged books for BBC Audio Books.
Designers
James Helps – Designer
Head of Design at the Arts Theatre Ipswich and Nuffield Theatre Southampton before freelancing for Canterbury, Northcott Exeter and Bristol Old Vic. James designed for several seasons at the Lyric, Belfast where he was awarded Designer of the Year 1989 (The Plough and the Stars and After the Fall). He has designed for feature films and TV as well as for community plays for Belfast Opera House, Theatre Workshop in Edinbugh, Bristol’s Headley Players and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory. James has worked with Show Of Strength at the Hen and Chicken, Quakers Friars and the Tobacco Factory.