We explore the role of friendship in creative collaboration and vice versa with theatre practitioners Emma Adams and Joshua Goodman. Emma is a queer, neurodiverse script writer from Bradford. She’s written plays to be performed in houses, libraries, swimming pools, graveyards and on stages too. Emma has worked with companies including: Leeds Playhouse, Red Ladder, Theatre 503, Paines Plough, Longboat Pictures, Shiny Button & CBBC. 3 of her plays have toured nationally and 2 (Ugly and Animals) are published by Oberon. Emma started Old Bird (a Bradford based theatre company) with Deborah Pakkar-Hull in 2025 and wrote the inaugural show Otherhood which premiered in the Bradford City of Culture 2025 programme. She’s currently writing a new queer musical The Dandy Lions with Josh Goodman and is an Artist in Residence at Bradford Pennine Gateway National Nature Reserve. Her new play, For One or a Hundred Voices, written in response to this residency, will be performed in woodland on Harden Moor and the St Ives, Estate, Bradford, on the 29th and 30th of October 2026. Emma is a core team member of The Writing Squad, mentoring young writers in the north of England. Joshua Goodman is a multi-award-winning theatre maker, producer, composer, writer and performer whose career has taken him across pretty much every corner of the theatre world. He is currently Executive Producer at London's Park Theatre, where he helps bring an eclectic mix of stories to the stage. Over the past 15 years, he's made theatre in all sorts of places, from major stages to community halls, working across musicals, new writing, experimental performance and projects that put people and their stories centre stage. Joshua originally trained as a composer and can still occasionally be found moonlighting in a recording studio, orchestra pit or behind a piano. His creative work has been described as ‘genuinely euphoric’ (The Guardian) and ‘charmingly perfect’ (KulturFreak). He's particularly drawn to work that is playful, provocative, queer, collaborative and unafraid to get a little messy. The episode transcript is available on our blog.
