The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.
Performances will be approx 20 minutes.
Grace O’Brien - Falling off Endz: A Lyrical Odyssey
Falling off Endz: A lyrical Odyssey is a fictional, underscored, spoken-word exploration following Ava from her council flat in South Wales to the Big Smoke; she falls into low-level coke dealing to escape credit card debt using her boyfriend's ice cream van and we witness her subsequent demise. It's semi-autobiographical in that it draws on personal experience as a Working-Class, Autistic ADHDer from The Valleys who spent time living in Northeast London.
Ava’s Disabilities contribute to her entrepreneurial flair & the text explores the challenges of late-diagnosed, high-masking Women/Girls and the link with executive function challenges, impulsive decision-making and substance abuse.
Grace O'Brien is a Welsh-Irish, Working-Class, Disabled/Neurodivergent multidisciplinary from Rhymney in South Wales; she's a Writer, Actor, Producer & Artistic Director of Purple String Productions. Grace's style is a fusion of spoken word, poetry, playwriting & Welsh language long-form fiction. Her writing project 'The Welsh Lxdies' was long-listed for the RSC's 37 Plays & recently undertook R & D supported by ACW for further development. Grace is an AuDHDer with OCD & participated in 'Reinventing The Protagonist', via Literature Wales & Disability Arts Cymru, which inspired the piece that she's performing at Hay. She's hoping to develop this further on Representing Wales 2025-2026.
Safiyah Zanabi -1001
‘Do you believe in God?’
‘What do you want me to say?'
‘Don’t be diplomatic.’
Tom and Leila have been together for 2 years, 8 months and 2 days… 1001 nights. In the early hours of the morning, before the funeral of their mutual friend, they begin to tell each other stories to get back to sleep. But the stories they tell betray unspoken truths; their relationship is put to the test. As the sun rises and the funeral creeps closer, Tom and Leila are forced to find ‘endings’ for the stories they have begun telling, and to confront what ‘endings’ really mean.
Safiyah Zanabi is an Algerian / British writer and actor based in London. Her writing has previously been performed at Theatre503, RADA studios, the Oxford Playhouse, Burton Taylor Studios, and the Edinburgh Fringe. She is currently developing her recent play as part of Soho Theatre’s Studio Writers Group. She recently graduated from an MA in Text & Performance at RADA and Birkbeck.
