The Border Readers is an association of regionally based professional actors with a wealth of performing experience in all media. Since 2018 we have been presenting themed audio narratives in libraries, art centres, galleries, hostelries, village halls, theatres, pubs and historic houses across the English border counties and occasionally into Scotland.
2026 AUTUMN TOUR
We’re excited to be back on the road this autumn with Words of Love; superb short stories from great writers about people in and out of love. Touring from Friday 25th September to Thursday 3rd December across the Borderlands.
The Row by Penelope Lively is a whip smart piece of comic writing on the ups and downs of married life from the much loved Booker prize winning author. Helen Hutchinson’s Taking Flight is the poignant story of would be lovers in Victorian Perthshire and the role played by a rural library in shaping their destinies. In Plastic Heart by Jeremy Page, Jamie dumps Helen so Helen dumps the clothes he bought her…or tries to. A painfully funny take on the hidden perils of starting over. To Belong To by Kerry Andrew is a heart-warming tale of loss and redemption through the healing powers of nature and community on a remote Scottish island…..Watch this space or follow us on Facebook for more details of stories and writers, venues and readers.
Extra date: Otterburn Castle Hotel, Thurs 29th Oct. 8pm. (Awaiting final confirmation subject to refurbishment).
READERS
Janine Birkett (Reader at Wooler, Newcastle, Wingates, Amble, Cullercoats & Hexham) Born in Northumberland and raised in Newcastle, Janine spent her early career touring with Northumberland Theatre Company before joining the Northern Stage Ensemble and performing at Theatre by the Lake; the New Vic Stoke; and the Stephen Joseph Theatre. In the 1990’s Janine was Byker Grove parent, Maggie Watson for three series; and she played Jenny Elliot, Billy’s Mam, in the film Billy Elliot. Other TV and film appearances include: Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, Holby City, The Royal, Inspector George Gently, Vera and Coronation Street. BBC Radio drama includes the series My Uncle Freddie and the Jarrow March play, A Woman’s Walk. In the last four years Janine has narrated over 100 audio-books, including several by Vera author, Ann Cleeves. Jan has just recorded her role as mother in law to Matthew Macfaddyen’s character in the adaptation for BBC TV of David Nichol’s latest novel You Are Here, starring Macfaddyen and Claire Foy (Tx 2027)
Roberta Kerr (Reader at Morpeth, Hexham, Staveley & Lancaster) Theatre includes The Lovesong of Alfred J Hitchcock adapted for the stage by David Rudkin from his radio play for New Perspectives UK tour and Brits Off Broadway New York and Three Mothers by Matilda Velevitch. She has toured with the National Theatre’s UK and Ireland production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and has played in classics Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Quartet, The Lady-killers, Hard Times, Talking Heads, Stevie and Norman Conquests in repertory theatres around the North West. TV includes: Downton Abbey, Silk, Hollyoaks, The Royal, Doctors, EastEnders, Casualty, Emmerdale, Medics, Families and Brookside. During 2023 Roberta reprised her role as Wendy Crozier on Coronation Street. Film: One Last Walk, Nature of the Beast and Brick is Beautiful. Radio: Cottonopolis, Well of Loneliness and The Archers.
Grace Kirby (Reader at Allendale, Whitfield, & Cumwhitton) Grace is an actor, director and teacher who started her career after graduating with a drama degree from Newcastle Polytechnic with Tyneside community theatre company Dodgy Clutch. She performed with Hexham based Theatre sans Frontiers on their first English language play Diamonds in your Pockets by Linda France. An adaptation of Quentin Blake’s The Green Ship for Librarian Theatre toured libraries across the country. A self-devised solo show on rural isolation, Martha’s Orange, inspired by her part-time work as an NHS delivery driver, premiered at Theatre by the Lake Keswick before touring nationally to community arts venues.
JACQUELINE PHILLIPS (Reader at Newcastle, Amble & Humshaugh) Jackie grew up in Peterlee, Co Durham, studied Psychology at Goldsmiths, London and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Theatre includes; Pygmalion and The Importance of Being Earnest (Hangfire) Geordie Gaol Girls, (Workie Ticket) Salt and Smoke (Novo) Mrs Affleck’s Affiliction (Lit & Phil, Newcastle) Beyond Caring (Christina Castling) Brassed Off (Durham Gala) A Way Home (Carol W Productions) Tree, Sucking Eggs and Floorboards (AlphabettI) Food and Feuds (November Club) Blyth Tales (Novo Theatre) and an International tour of Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare’s Globe London. Film: Red Riding, Verity’s Summer, The Gathering, Bridget Jones’ Diary, The Man Who Knew Too Little. TV: Inspector George Gently, Vera, The Dumping Ground, Joe Maddison’s War, Emmerdale, The Night Detective, Casualty. Radio: The Pitman Flappers, Home Front and Fearless.
Wynne Potts (Reader at Elsdon, Bellingham & Morpeth) Born and bred in Northumberland Wynne read English at Cambridge, before studying musical theatre at the Royal Central and acting at Rose Bruford. TV includes roles in Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories (BBC) and Julian Fellowes Belgravia (ITV). Theatre ranges from actor/musician roles in This Show Is Rubbish (Alphabetti, Newcastle) to Helene & Nanny in Elysium Theatre’s tour of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Wynne plays Mrs Smithson in a feature film Seeking Persephone filmed at Raby Castle and due for release in the US this year. This October she will be in a new musical play Coal Faces by Jo Collins, set and performed in Co. Durham. Other work includes role-play for Northumbria Police, storytelling for Weardale Heritage Railway and interactive site specific roles for Live History Company.
Bekah Sloan. (Reader at Staveley & Lancaster) Originally from Lancaster, Bekah trained at Bretton Hall and has since performed in a variety of shows. These include: Mina in Dracula (Ullaloom Theatre), Anne in Persuasion (Nonesuch Theatre), Beast and Beauties (Spike Theatre), The Devil and the Three Golden Hairs (Babbling Vagabonds), Wendy in Peter Pan (Kendal Brewery Arts), Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (Foolsgold), The Harmony Suite (Collective Encounters), Mrs Claus (Gosforth Civic), Tabitha (Lancashire Terror Tours), and the Witch in The Tinderbox (Unity Theatre), among others — including Measure for Measure, Deck the Hall, and Ghostly Tales for Steve Tomlin’s Demi Paradise Productions at Lancaster Castle, so she is delighted to be joining him again. Bekah has spent many years doing both corporate touring and educational role-play work. More recently she has been qualifying as a counsellor, as her interest in people and how they tick extends beyond playing them on the page to helping them in real life.
Stephen Tomlin (Reader at all venues). West country born and raised, Stephen graduated in 1972 as a specialist teacher from the Central School of Speech & Drama. Based in Lancaster from 1976, between then and 2017 he worked in a huge variety and number of TV, theatre and radio productions as well as being a director, producer, writer/researcher, lecturer and role player. BBC Radio drama include serials The Archers, Writing the Century, Home Front and Watership Down alongside many single dramas. Also numerous commercial, corporate and educational voice overs. TV ranges from classics like The Beiderbecke Affair, Harry’s Game and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates to adaptations of Jane Eyre and Mansfield Park as well as multiple roles in Coronation Street, Brookside, Casualty, Hollyoaks and Emmerdale. Retiring to live in the north Tyne valley, Stephen founded The Border Readers in 2018.
WRITERS
Kerry Andrew is a composer and writer. Her debut novel, Swansong, was published by Jonathan Cape in January 2018 and is currently working on her second novel. She performed her debut short story One Swallow on BBC Radio 4 in 2014. Kerry is the winner of four British Composer Awards and specialises in experimental vocal and choral music, music-theatre and community music. She performs alternative folk music under the banner of You Are Wolf and sings with award-winning a cappella trio Juice Vocal Ensemble. Kerry made her short story debut on BBC Radio 4 in 2014 and our story To Belong To was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award. Originally from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Kerry lives in London.
Helen Hutchinson studied English Literature at the University of Exeter and then qualified as a broadcast journalist from University College Cardiff. She spent most of her professional career in radio and television newsrooms, with a ten year spell lecturing in journalism and media at the University of Cumbria. Until 2019 she was a freelance producer of the ITV regional news programme. She takes a keen interest in reading and writing, and regularly chairs talks at literary festivals. Her own creative writing has been a private passion all her life, but a course at the Garsdale Retreat in the Yorkshire Dales in 2022 proved the inspiration to start taking it more seriously. In 2023 our short storyTaking Flight was Helen’s winning entry for the ‘Books and Borrowing’ literary competition run by Stirling University.
Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra’s Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List, and DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London. Our narrative, The Row, is taken from Penny’s fifth collection, The Purple Swamp Hen & Other Stories (Penguin, 2017)
Jeremy Page. Jeremy’s first novel Salt (Penguin, 2007) was set among the saltmarshes of North Norfolk, where he grew up and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Jelf Award. His second novel The Wake (2009) won the prize for fiction at the East Anglian book awards and was shortlisted for the New Angle Prize. His third novel, The Collector of Lost Things (2013) was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Walter Scott Prize. Pale Winter Light, a collection of supernatural fiction, was published last year. Jeremy’s short story Do It Now, Jump the Table was a finalist for the BBC National Short Story Award. Our story Plastic Heart is as yet unpublished. Jeremy has worked in the UK film and TV industry for twenty five years, as a script editor and consultant for the BBC, Channel 4 and Film Four. In addition he has taught creative writing at the University of East Anglia, at City University, Goldsmiths, as well as for the Arvon foundation. He also teaches screenwriting at the London Film School. Jeremy lives in London with his wife and three sons.
ARCHIVE OF PREVIOUS PRODUCTIONS
Haunted, classic and contemporary ghost story readings, toured around Halloween in 2018 and again in 2019. During the Covid crisis of 2020/2021 more classic ghost stories were recorded for listening on You Tube. The Border Readers returned to live touring in Spring 2022 with a different theme. Many Deadly Returns celebrated 21 years of Murder Squad, the north of England’s leading association of crime writers. That theme continued in 2023 with Murder They Write, more gripping crime stories by Murder Squad co-founders Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards and Cath Staincliffe. In autumn 2024 and spring of 2025 the readers were back on the road with Land Lines, short stories with a contemporary countryside setting. The autumn 2025 tour was Shore Lines, modern short stories – two of which were commissioned – set on the coasts of Devon and Northumberland. We are particularly delighted that the latter two productions, along with 2026’s Words of Love, feature original art work by Borderlands based artists and illustrators.
Shore Lines toured in 2025 and again in the spring of 2026. It proved a successful entertaining line up of stories from our brilliant writer friends and supporters Ann Cleeves, Linda Cracknell, Tony Glover and Jo Scott.
Programmes 2018 – 2022 toured contemporary and classic short stories by: Chez Brenchley, Elizabeth Bowen, Amelia B Edwards, Elizabeth Gaskell, Muriel Gray, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Edith Nesbit, Christine Poulson, Muriel Spark and Oscar Wilde.
Short stories by Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Margaret Murphy and Cath Staincliffe toured in 2022
Some audience comments from library venues: ‘I was surprised just how lovely it was, as an adult, to be read to.” ” Wonderful – A great choice of stories and such a pleasure to be read to.’…Excellent – readers were clear (I’m hard of hearing). ‘Thoroughly enjoyed the evening. thank you!’…’Great – loved the ‘stage’ set too!…Very enjoyable – a different experience.’ ….’Exceptional actors. Great stories with a strong connection to the area.’ ‘Enthralled by the storylines and a sense of being in the action.’ …’A wonderful evening in a lovely venue.’…’Atmospheric set. Great stories, well read.’ ‘I love listening to a story. I like the intimate setting, the sense of place in the stories and the voices of the storytellers’.
We are always open to play new venues and also welcome private bookings to suit particular requirements. Use the Contact page and Stephen will get back to you ASAP
STEPHEN TOMLIN 