Marcelo Dos Santos is an award-winning Latinx British-Brazilian-Australian writer. His play Backstairs Billy received the 2023 Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. He has been a writer on attachment at the National Theatre, the Bush Theatre, HighTide Festival Theatre, as well as the Royal Court Theatre.  In 2014 he adapted the critically acclaimed best-selling Zizou Corder novel Lionboy for Complicité, which toured extensively in the UK and internationally, including to the New Victory Theater Off Broadway, where it was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. In 2022 Marcelo received a Scotsman Fringe First award for Excellence in New Writing for his monologue Feeling Afraid as if Something Terrible is Going to Happen directed by Matthew Xia, starring Tony and Olivier-nominated Samuel Barnett. Critics hailed the play as “A masterclass in comic delivery” (WhatsOnStage), “razor sharp” (Scotsman), and “Frank, funny and occasionally filthy… following in the footsteps of Fleabag” (The Independent). The production transfered to London’s Bush Theatre in November of 2023. Marcelo’s other theatre work includes Trigger Warning at Camden People’s Theatre; The End of History, a site-responsive play staged at St Giles In The Fields in Soho; Open Plan at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama; Knights directed by Michael Longhurst at Tristan Bates Theatre; and New Labour directed by Richard Wilson at RADA. 

Matthew Xia is the multi-award-winning Artistic Director of ATC (Actors Touring Company). He was previously Associate Artistic Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, (where he established OPEN EXCHANGE, an artist development scheme for over 400 next generation theatre-makers); Director-in-Residence at The Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse; and Associate Director at Theatre Royal Stratford East. He was Associate Artist at the Nottingham Playhouse alongside James Graham and Amanda Whittington. 

Directing includes: Small Island (Leeds Playhouse/ Nottingham Playhouse / Birmingham REP / ATC); Tender (Soho Theatre); The Harder They Come (Stratford East); Bodies of Water (ATC/GDIF); Skeleton Crew (Donmar Warehouse); The Architect (GDIF/ATC/Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation); Tambo & Bones (ATC/Theatre Royal Stratford East); the Olivier Award-winning Hey Duggee – The Live Theatre Show (Kenny Wax Family Entertainment/Cuffe & Taylor); the Fringe First Award-winning Feeling Afraid as if Something Terrible is Going to Happen (Francesca Moody Productions/Bush Theatre); Rice (ATC/Orange Tree); The Wiz (Ameena Hamid Productions/Hope Mill/BBC Big Night of Musicals);Family Tree (GDIF/ATC/Belgrade/Brixton House); 846Live (Stratford East/GDIF); Amsterdam (ATC/Orange Tree/Plymouth Theatre Royal); Blood Knot (Orange Tree); Eden (Hampstead Theatre); One Night In Miami… (Nottingham Playhouse/Bristol Old Vic/HOME); Into The Woods, Frankenstein (Royal Exchange); Wish List (Royal Exchange/Royal Court); Shebeen (Nottingham Playhouse/Stratford East); Sleeping Beauty, The Blacks (Stratford East); Dublin Carol (Sherman Theatre); Blue/Orange, The Sound of Yellow (Young Vic); Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Young Vic/Eclipse); I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky (Co-Director, Stratford East/Barbican); Suckerpunch Boom Suite (Barbican/NitroBEAT). 

Steven Webb began his career starring as the titular character in Sam Mendes’s production of Oliver! (London Palladium). Since then, he has appeared in a wide range of film, television and theatre. Stevie most recently performed in the UK premiere of Tony Award-winning musical comedy Shucked at the Regent’s Open Air Theatre after previously performing in the tour of the Dolly Parton Musical Here You Come Again as ‘Kevin’. Prior to this he completed a long stint starring as ‘Elder McKinley’ in the West End run of The Book of Mormon. He’s also perhaps best known as ‘Posner’ in the second casting of The History Boys. Other theatre credits include I Want My Hat Back, On the Shore of the Wide World (National Theatre), As Is (Trafalgar Studios) as well as many productions at the Lyric Hammersmith including seven shows in Sean Holmes’ creative ensemble ‘Secret Theatre’. 

He also has many television credits, having previously played roles in the much beloved BBC series Miranda , E4’s The Inbetweeners and ITV’s Believe Me.