My Gurus

Esiaba Irobi
As an undergraduate drama student at Liverpool John Moores University I was incredibly fortunate to be taught by Esiaba. A devotee of Wole Soyinka, Poet, Playwright, Radical, political exile and self-professed ‘dangerous African man’, Esi took our scared and conservative young minds and blew them into a million pieces, with a wealth of big ideas and a bottomless well of intellectual excitement. Ranging from Artaud to Rustom Bharucha via Jan Kott, Eugenio Barba and a hundred other points of non-British reference, Esi taught not only the importance of politic and passion but of the vital need to be not ashamed of the scale or eccentricity of your ambition. He died of cancer far too young and I miss his enthusiasm dearly and mourn for the generations of students he should be laughing at, terrifying, confusing, inspiring and changing today.

Before moving to Newcastle upon Tyne Lorne was Co-Artistic Director at Greyscale, course leader of the BA Directing programme at Drama Centre, Central St Martin’s and a freelance director and theatre-maker working with The Gate, London, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Oran Mor among others. He is a graduate of the Channel 4 Young Theatre Director’s Scheme and a former Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.