Izzy Parriss Productions presents the first public reading of
How to Bury Imogen
by Yasmin Afifi
Directed by Izzy Parriss
Daisy is a funeral director.
She has everything she's supposed to want. A steady career. A loving partner. A comfortable home. She's even trying for a baby. From the outside her life looks perfect.
Everything is great.
Fine.
Really.
Until Imogen dies.
Izzy Parriss Productions will present this work in progress event following a workshop process supported by Arts Council England, Theatre Royal Bath, and Southwark Playhouse.
How to Bury Imogen is the darkly comic theatrical debut of BAFTA award winner Yasmin Afifi (Jellyfish and Lobster).
Artwork by Max Allen and Elliot Adcock.
Support helplines and links for those affected by the themes explored in How to Bury Imogen are listed at the bottom of this page.
We’d love your feedback: Anonymous Feedback Form
27 October
6:30 PM
Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath.
Creative Team
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Izzy Parriss is a freelance theatre director. She is the Artistic Director of Izzy Parriss Productions and Associate Director at Tightrope Theatre.
Izzy returns to the Ustinov Studio to direct How To Bury Imogen, following her role as Associate Director on Hedda (directed by Matthew Dunster and starring Lily Allen) earlier this year.
Her directing credits include AFTER SEX (Arcola Theatre, 2024), SCRATCH (Old Red Lion Theatre, and Lion and Unicorn Theatre, 2023) and DEAR LITTLE LOZ (Edinburgh Fringe, 2022).
Her associate directing credits include HEDDA (dir. Matthew Dunster, Theatre Royal Bath, 2025), COLD WATER (dir. Philippa Lawford, Park Theatre, 2024), IKARIA (dir. Philippa Lawford, Park Theatre and National Tour, 2022/2023).
Izzy has been assistant director to Lindsay Posner (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, BA acting showcase, 2022) and Edward Hall (Ambassador Theatre Group, Duran Duran musical workshop, 2022).
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Yasmin Afifi is a London-based writer and director. She is a graduate of the prestigious National Film and Television School’s Directing Fiction MA, where she was awarded a full scholarship from BBC Film, with whom she is now developing her debut feature.
Her graduation short film, Jellyfish and Lobster, which she wrote and directed, won the Best British Short award at the 2024 BAFTAs.
Afifi is also developing a slate of other film and television projects. Her work often blends dark comedy, magical realism, and absurdism to explore taboo or challenging subject matters. Often placing complicated, resonant characters into more heightened, conceptual worlds to create narratives that are both imaginative but grounded in emotional honesty.
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Max Allen and Elliott Adcock are production designers and costumers whose work blends subcultural sensibilities and classical knowledge with a visceral passion for craft.
With prior experience in fashion, as well as detailed and varied research into historical, ethnological and archival costumes and textiles, their work moves between art, fashion and costume with a knack for ‘DIY, sequin-and- feather splashed, outrageously high camp extravagances’ (The Standard, 2023).
Their lasting status on the London art and culture scene has made them desirable for regular design consultancy and special commissions for Shakespeare globe, the Garrick Theatre, Selfridges, Vogue, Jo Malone, Magliano, Martine Rose, BBC Proms and Glastonbury Festival.
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Philippa Lawford is a writer and director from London. Her debut play, Ikaria, won one of 5 runner-up awards for the Ambassador Theatre Group Playwrights’ Prize 2022, in association with Platform Presents and Time Out, and was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Philippa directed Ikaria’s ACE-funded UK tour in 2023, culminating in a run at the Park Theatre and the production received an OFFIE Short Run Commendation. She directed her second play, Cold Water, in an OFFIE-nominated run at the Park Theatre in 2024, and it was staged by Little Engine Theater in New York City for a sold-out production in March 2025, directed by Michael Herwitz. Both plays have been published by Methuen.
Philippa is Artistic Director of Tightrope Theatre, a company she established while a student at Oxford University. She now lives in Brixton with her identical twin sister and also works as a freelance director, facilitator and reader.
As an associate/assistant, Philippa has worked at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Henry V, 2024, dir. Ed Hall), Theatre Royal Bath (By Royal Appointment, UK tour, 2025, dir. Dominic Dromgoole), the Arcola (After Sex, 2024, dir. Izzy Parriss) and Jermyn Street Theatre (Saviour, 2022, dir. Donnacadh O'Briain). Philippa is on the literary team at the Park Theatre and she runs a playwrights’ residency in Cheshire at Clonter Opera Theatre and a regular new writing night in London.
Philippa trained on an MSt in writing for performance at Cambridge University and the John Burgess Playwriting Course.
Philippa is a dual UK/US citizen. She is represented by Julia Tyrrell Management in the UK and by Sam Barickman and Emily Dunetz at CAA in the US.
Cast
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Tilda Fassih has recently graduated from Italia Conti where she studied on the CERT HE course before continuing on with the BA Acting course. Before this she was on the Preliminary Acting course at Guildhall for three months where she began her training. She was born and bred in North Norfolk and was fortunate enough to grow up at Sheringham Little Theatre which helped harbour her love for theatre. Tilda loves to be mischievous and thoroughly thrives on working as part of an ensemble.
She is currently working with Poor Penny Theatre Company to write an all female led piece. So Tilda is incredibly excited to be working with the new writing for How to Bury Imogen for her first professional venture.
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Joanna Roth is a British actress who trained at RADA. Shehas appeared in film, television and theatre and known for her portrayal of Ophelia in the film Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
Theatre includes: The Sisterhood (Belgrade Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith), Phaedra’s Love (Arcola Theatre), The Devil is an Ass (RSC), 50 Revolutions (Whitehall Theatre), All Things Nice (Royal Court), When We Were Women (NT/Edinburgh Festival), A Bright Light Shining (The Bush), Brittanicus; Phedre (Albery Theatre & BAM, New York), The Seagull (ETT – Donmar & Tour), Morphic Resonance (Donmar).
TV includes: In Plain Sight, Endeavour, The Widower, Threesome, A Touch of Cloth, Blue Boy, In Deep, New St Law, Inspector Rebus, Midsomer Murders, 2000 Acres of Sky, Spooks, Judge John Deed, Mrs Bradley Mysteries, Scarlett Pimpernell, Van Gogh, Sea of Souls, See You Friday, Taggart, The Real Charlotte.
Film includes: Row, Damaged, Away, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Snow White in the Black Forest, Stalin, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
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Jenny Galloway is an award-winning British actor whose career spans stage, film and television.
She is best known for her Olivier Award–winning performances in Mamma Mia! (Prince Edward Theatre) and The Boys from Syracuse (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), as well as acclaimed roles in Les Misérables (West End, Broadway, and 25th Anniversary at the O2) and My One and Only (Piccadilly Theatre – Olivier nomination).
Other notable stage work includes Ballet Shoes, The Welkin, Absolute Hell and After the Dance (all National Theatre), Heisenberg (Arcola Theatre), Mr Foote’s Other Leg (Hampstead and Theatre Royal Haymarket), Anna Christie (Donmar Warehouse), and The Music Man (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Screen credits include Fleabag, Good Omens, The Split, Endeavour, A Knight’s Tale, About a Boy, Johnny English, and Wicked Little Letters
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Will Kerr is an actor and graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. He has worked across stage, voiceover, and screen, with experience in classical and contemporary performance.
Training: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama 2021
Theatre: U/S Helstein + As Cast + Courtier in THE SCORE (Theatre Royal Haymarket &Theatre Royal Bath), As You Like it (Theatre Royal Bath), Paul/Officer in YEMI AND FEMI GO WINDRUSH (Kings Road Theatre), Earnest Vane in MASKS AND FACES (Finborough Theatre)
Training Credits: A DOLL’S HOUSE, ALL THAT I AM, TWELFTH NIGHT: REMEMBERED, THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
Other Credits: THE CUTTY SARK ALIVE – BEYOND SOLACE (Voice Over), AFRIN (Commercial)
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Lowri is a Welsh actress and comedy writer from South Wales, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
She is best known for her role as ‘PC Mari James’ in both series of the critically acclaimed bilingual Welsh drama Hidden (Craith) on BBC. Her film credits include Y Sŵn (Picturehouse) and Brian and Charles (Film4), the latter earning her a place on the BAFTA Breakthrough long list in 2022.
Other television credits include Casualty (BBC), Sitters (BBC Three) and Doctors (BBC).
Lowri’s stage work includes Huno (The Other Room); Spoffin (Birmingham Rep); Curtain Up (Theatr Clwyd); The Comedy of Errors (Storyhouse); Wolfie (National Theatre Wales); Lord of The Flies (Sherman Theatre); A Midsummer Nights Dream (Wilton’s Music Hall); Votes for Women (New Vic Theatre); I Capture The Castle the Musical (Original Cast); Much Ado About Nothing (The Faction); The Tempest (Orange Tree Theatre) and Hela (Theatre503).
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Mari is a fluent Welsh speaking Actor/Writer from Bridgend, South Wales. She appears in BFI/Film4 Feature Brian and Charles and was nominated for a Stage Debut Award in 2020 for her dystopian bilingual play Hela.
She trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and then on the MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Further credits include: Sitters (BBC), Brian & Charles (Film 4/BFI), Pride & Prejudice (Regents Park Open Air Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC), Spoffin (Birmingham REP Theatre/Sky Studios), Comedy of Errors (Storyhouse),Wolfie (National Theatre Wales), Lord of the Flies (Theatr Clwyd/Sherman Theatre),Mametz (National Theatre Wales), Gwaith/Cartref (S4C) and Dr Who (BBC)