In this rich and energising conversation, host Laura Bailey speaks with Tony Cealy, an acclaimed theatre practitioner and cultural producer, about the transformative power of drama, improvisation, and play in community and justice settings. Tony shares how he moved from an initial career in accountancy to working with some of society’s most marginalized groups through creative and participatory theatre. We explore how Tony uses forum theatre, psychodrama, and improvisation to promote behavioural...
Jul 04, 2025•59 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Dan Hopewell is a lifelong advocate for social justice and community empowerment, whose work spans international public art, grassroots activism, and pioneering community-led health models that integrate creative health. In this episode we have a rich conversation about Dan's life, work, and philosophy around community, creativity, and health. He discusses his early belief in social justice and activism and the 15 years he spent in Nicaragua developing community-based public art, which led to ed...
Jun 20, 2025•59 min•Season 4Ep. 25
The third and final episode of a mini series of audio stories I've been creating as part of a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England is about the health and wellbeing benefits of singing. I spent time with 3 different community singing groups, capturing their singing sessions and interviewing participants about how it makes them feel and what benefits it brings to their lives. Monday Music was set up by Grenville Hancox to promote the benefits of singing for genera...
Apr 25, 2025•30 min•Ep. 24
The second in a mini series of audio stories I've been creating as part of a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England comes from The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge in Canterbury, Kent. The Beaney describes itself as a 'pioneering therapeutic museum' which uses its unique building and collections to create a ‘tonic’ to enhance a visitor’s experience and improve their health and wellbeing. Its been at the forefront of wellbeing in museums for over a decade. I spen...
Apr 11, 2025•27 min•Ep. 23
My guests in this episode are leading nature-based wellbeing opportunities for communities in South West England. They joined me for a fascinating conversation about how their services operate, some of the challenges they face and the wide-ranging impacts of being in green spaces. Laura Tween is Director of Able Hands Together, a CIC based near Salisbury focussed on therapeutic farming for the benefit of the community and providing safe, accessible but life-changing long-term opportunities for a...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 22
During 2024, I started further developing my skills and experience in recording, producing and editing sound as part of a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England. I've been working with a range of organisations, professionals and participants who put health and wellbeing at the heart of their creative and cultural practices, to capture the stories and impact that being creative has on everyone involved. The first in the series comes from Abbey Physic Community Garde...
Jan 17, 2025•28 min•Ep. 21
Sir Michael Marmot has been Professor of Epidemiology at University College London since 1985 and is Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity. He has led research groups on health inequalities for nearly 50 years and in 2000 he was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen, for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities. More recently, Marmot was appointed a Companion of Honour in recognition of his services to public health in the King’s 2023 New Year Honours. In this e...
Oct 18, 2024•55 min•Season 3Ep. 20
Grenville Hancox MBE is a musician, teacher, performer and conductor who has been at the forefront of initiating and researching music and health activities throughout his career. In 2003 he was a co-founder of the Sidney de Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health and later in 2012 founded the charity Canterbury Cantata Trust which developed a collection of singing groups including Sing to Beat Parkinson's, all demonstrating the principle of caring through singing. Grenville was awarded an MBE ...
Oct 04, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 19
My guests in this episode came together through a puppetry and mask making project commissioned by West Kent Mind called The Forest Project. Cath Jackson is a Wellbeing Worker and Counsellor with the charity, Dani Thompsett is a guardian and big sister who joined the course as a participant and Russell Dean is the Artistic Director of Strangeface Theatre Company. The four of us had a lovely conversation about the work of West Kent Mind and Strangeface Theatre Company, why puppetry and mask makin...
Sep 20, 2024•59 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Ash Nugent is a celebrated artist, writer and founder of RiseUp, a charity that uses creative arts to work with people in prisons and communities. In this episode he discusses his own journey from experiencing racism in the leafy suburbs of Liverpool, finding school unsatisfactory and uninspiring to becoming a disruptive youth and ending up in a Jamaican prison at 17. His turning point came through being open about his love of writing, finding like-minded souls and pursuing an education. This al...
Sep 06, 2024•58 min•Season 3Ep. 17
Professor Kevin Fenton is a senior public health expert and infectious disease epidemiologist, who has worked in a variety of public health executive leadership roles across government and academia in the UK and internationally, including taking a leading role in London’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was awarded a CBE in the 2022 New Year honours list for services to public health. Kevin is so articulate and generous with his knowledge about what 'public health' is in its widest sense a...
Aug 23, 2024•51 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Creativity and Wellbeing Week is a festival led by London Arts and Health and the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance and funded by Arts Council England. This is a special commissioned episode reflecting on the festival week past and present to help understand the value of it to the creative health sector. I spent time listening at online events and interviewed a selection of people representing a range of organisations and perspectives about their work, how and why they get involved, and how ...
Aug 09, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 15
I'm taking a short break over April. In the meantime, I want you to send me your creative health story! Do you have a creative health story you'd like to share which could inspire other people? Send me an audio recording, no more than 5 minutes long, about how you're engaging with creativity for health or wellbeing to include on the podcast. Or write it down in no more that 750 words and I may read it out. Tell me about you and what you do: Your name (anonymous is fine too), maybe where you live...
Apr 05, 2024•4 min
Mark Kilbey is former police officer and detective who retired from the force after 20 years through mental ill-health after which followed a long period of mental illness including suicide attempts. He set up the peer-led mental health charity Take Off to support people in similar situations. Sarah Winn is a theatre maker who works with young offenders, vulnerable adults and diverse communities . After the loss of her cousin by suicide, Sarah set out to create a piece of verbatim theatre to hig...
Mar 22, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Amal Lad is a GP and musician from Birmingham who has made a career out of exploring the intersection between art and medicine. His ability to reveal the connection between music and well-being has been recognised by the BBC and TEDxNHS, as well as countless listeners around the globe. He is the host of the Creative Medicine podcast, which also explores how people use creativity to improve health and wellbeing. Along with being a GP and podcast host Amal composes and releases his own music and i...
Mar 08, 2024•43 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Christopher Bailey is the Arts and Health Lead at the World Health Organization and a co-founder of the Jameel Arts and Health Lab. Educated at Columbia and Oxford Universities as well as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, after a career as a professional actor and playwright, Christopher worked at the Rockefeller Foundation before joining the WHO. Christopher has also performed original pieces such as Stage 4: Cancer and the Imagination, and The Vanishing Point: A journey into Blindness and...
Feb 23, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Kiran 'Kiz' Manley is the UK’s first Hip Hop Therapist. In 2012 she set up Hip Hop HEALS, a mental health social enterprise that spreads knowledge and research about Trauma-Informed Hip Hop. She hosts and produces her own podcast called 'Glowwiththeflow' on therapeutic Hip Hop, offering radical solutions to homelessness and mental ill health. The work stems from her own lived experiences of loss and grief and she now uses this to amplify the voices of others and people powered change to improve ...
Feb 09, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Sian Stevenson is Creative Director of Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company. Sian has worked in theatre, opera and participatory arts for over 30 years. She has extensive experience in applied theatre, with specialist knowledge in movement, inclusivity, and disability. Her work with Moving Memory is focused on the creation and promotion of a distinctive, movement-based, peer-led, collaborative, creative practice which enables people (especially women aged 50+) to tell their own stories and expres...
Jan 26, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 10
On the 27th November, London Arts and Health invited everyone interested in the intersections of health and culture to come together for a day of exchange, reflection, boundary pushing and action planning. Together, we imagined London as a creative health capital city, laying the building blocks to see it become reality. Creative and health organisations and practitioners all see health and culture working together to address health needs across the UK’s capital city, however, for too many Londo...
Jan 17, 2024•52 min
Daniel Fulvio is currently Deputy Director of Audiences (Community) at Rambert contemporary dance company, where he leads the learning and participation programme. Prior to Rambert Daniel’s roles have included leading the participation programme at Camden People’s Theatre and a producer of innovative, new queer performance projects with Opening Doors London and The Albany. He’s also been an award-winning journalist featured in the Guardian and the Times and was Deputy Editor of Attitude magazine...
Jan 12, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 9
A quick message about what's coming in the New Year! I'm taking a little break and will be back in January with a special bonus episode, plus series TWO!!! Next year I'll be looking to develop the podcast with more on location recording. If you have a creative health story which needs to be told and heard, please get in touch via the website or socials: creative-health.co.uk @creativehealthpod Until then Happy New Year! See you back here in 2024!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more ...
Dec 29, 2023•3 min
Lynne Parker is Founder and CEO of Funny Women, an acclaimed not for profit community for women to build self-confidence and develop their own distinctive voice. Lynne founded Funny Women in 2002 in response to a comedy promoter who told her that 'women aren't funny'. She went on to create the Funny Women Awards and, 20 years on, the rest is history. Funny Women provides a safe, diverse, creative platform that empowers women to perform, write and use humour in business and everyday life. Lynne d...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 8
Natasha Boardman-Steer is a creative practitioner specialising in health, wellbeing and community engagement. She founded her organisation ‘Creatabot’ in 2010 to provide opportunities for creativity of all kinds to support people to feel better about themselves and where they live. She is currently on the public advisory group for the Health Determinants Research Group Collaboration in Medway and studying for a BA (Hons) degree in Health and Social Care. Natasha brings lived experience to the wo...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Natasha Reid is founder of MATTER . SPACE . SOUL, a specialist design consultancy shaping places for health, wellbeing and social sustainability. She focuses on the social, psychological and emotional impacts of places and often speaks at conferences on forward-thinking approaches to pressing urban issues. She a “Healthy Places and Inclusive Design” expert for the Redbridge Council design review panel, an associate of the Quality of Life Foundation, a sounding board member for Future of London’s...
Nov 17, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Dr Tola Dabiri is the National Lead for Arts and Culture at the National Academy for Social Prescribing. Tola has worked across the cultural sector since 1995, beginning her career in public libraries and archives. She has also worked at the Museums Libraries and Archives Council, The National Archives, and the UK Centre for Carnival Arts. In our discussion, Tola talks passionately about the history of carnival arts and why it's still important in Caribbean culture today, and about inclusive his...
Nov 03, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Cedi Frederick has held senior leadership positions across the private and public sectors for over 30 years and is currently chair of NHS Kent and Medway. He’s been named on four occasions as one of Britain's ‘100 Most Influential Black People’. In our conversation we discuss his long and successful career in the health and social care sector and how his motivation to support others comes from his parents who came to Britain from Grenada in 1955. We talk about what good leadership is, being able...
Oct 20, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Alexia Gazi is an interior designer, self-taught artist, macramé maker, crafter and aspiring art therapist. She runs a small creative business teaching macrame as a form of mindfulness for wellbeing. Alexia openly discusses her addiction to alcohol and being a recovering alcoholic. She describes her relationship with alcohol and the detrimental effects it had on her life, along with her journey to sobriety including therapy and attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Two years into her recovery jou...
Oct 13, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Carolyn has worked as a Senior Producer and Arts Manager within theatre, young people’s work, outdoor and site-specific shows, UK and International touring, and festivals. She’s a passionate advocate of racial and social justice and currently Executive Director and Joint CEO of Talawa, the UK's outstanding Black theatre company and a co-opted member of UK Theatre Board. Carolyn and I discussed her own career path including roles in children’s theatre and the importance of creativity when you’re ...
Sep 29, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Helen Chatterjee is a professor of human and ecological health working at the forefront of the creative health movement. She joined me for a conversation about her career journey in creative health from the Zoology Museum at UCL to overseeing a major national programme called ‘Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’ led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She talks about giving everyone the opportunity to improve their health creatively, wherever they live and whateve...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Creative Health Podcast is coming! I'm so excited to be launching a new podcast all about how and why creativity is good for our health and wellbeing. I've got some wonderfully inspiring guests lined up to talk about art, culture, health and wellbeing. If you're a creative or health professional, or an academic whose work is embracing the benefits of creativity, or someone with lived experience of creativity transforming your health and wellbeing and want to tell your story, please get in touch ...
Aug 19, 2023•2 min
