Michelle Read

Michelle Read began her career as a writer/performer working as a stand-up comic on the London comedy circuit in 1988, where she performed regularly at most of the original venues including The Comedy Store (Leicester Square), the Red Rose Club and the Tunnel Club. Since moving to Ireland in 1991 she has continued to work as a writer/performer, producing sketches for Irish TV, five new stage plays as well as radio writing for both RTE Radio and BBC Radio 4. In 1996 she set up ReadCo, which she co-runs with colleague Tara Derrington and which produces written, devised and improvised work.

Her first play, The Lost Letters Of A Victorian Lady premiered at the 1996 Dublin Fringe Festival and has been published in the Irish anthology Seen & Heard. In 1997 her second play Romantic Friction was also premiered at the Dublin Fringe, and then went on to win a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998 prior to a five-week tour of Ireland. In May and June 1999 Romantic Friction played at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London's Covent Garden and was subsequently adapted for BBC Radio 4 as a series (broadcast October 2001). Her adaptation of the autobiographical piece Play About My Dad was broadcast on RTE radio in June this year. Michelle has also written plays for Macra Na Feirme and the Gaiety School of Acting. Her most recent piece is a new play for READCO, The Other Side, staged at Project Arts Centre in August this year.

As an actor, Michelle's work is also varied. She played the villain to Angela Lansbury's FBI heroine in the TV movie, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax and also took a lead in the Irish, comedy feature; Separation Anxiety. Other TV and film includes; The Ambassador - BBC, Lucky Lucan, The Governor - ITV, Saturday Live for LWT, Cursai Elaine, Making The Cut, The Basement, Rant, Gerry Ryan Tonight, You Can't Be Serious and the comedy, sketch show Couched for RTE.

Theatre includes; Bickestaffe's MacBeth at Kilkenny Castle, Mrs. Elton in Emma for Storytellers, Edith in her own play The Lost Letters Of A Victorian Lady, Joyce in Bond's Early Morning and Inge in Obituary as part of Bedrock Theatre Company's Theatre of Cruelty season, Monique in the Irish premier of Quay West by Bernard Maria Koltes also for Bedrock, Anna in Romantic Friction in Edinburgh, on tour and at the Tristan Bates Theatre, London. She played Mother Jasper and Nobby Stripes in Saint Aguna's...It's A Nun Thing, the improvised soap-opera which she also co-developed as well as performing in Human Stories 1-6, Living Space and Play About My Dad all with READCO.

Michelle is a founder member and core player with the Dublin Comedy Improv and has performed iimprov and stand-up at the Catlaughs International Comedy Festival in Kilkenny, at the Edinburgh Festival and all around Ireland.