About Cat

Cat was born and raised in Liverpool, where her great-uncle fell off the Liver Building, her grandmother saw an angel and her grandfather donated his shirt buttons to Beatles fans. Her ancestry is a mingling of Irish and Welsh blood – a natural result of Liverpool being the Celtic crossroads of Britain.

Cat studied drama at the University of Hull and has been a professional performer ever since. She began her career as an actor, spent several years as a singer then moved into arts in education. In 1997 she discovered storytelling and soon developed her distinctive performing style: bold, lyrical, physically expressive – and shamelessly seductive!

Storytelling and performances

Her British storytelling festival appearances include Beyond the Border, Festival at the Edge and The West Country Storytelling Festival. She has performed at the three leading literature festivals in the UK – Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh – and a score of others, including Brighton, Bath, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Hull, Swindon and the Isle of Man.

International festival and story club appearances include Babel Contes at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Graz Tales in Austria, the Fabula festival in Stockholm, the StoryBaZaar in Copenhagen, Verteltheaterdagen in Utrecht and the International Storytelling Festival in Singapore. In 2010, she will be appearing at Fabelhaft! (Austria), Alden Biesen (Belgium), Zwolle (The Netherlands) and also in the Storymoja Hay Festival (Kenya) and the Moscow Book Fair.

Cat performs regularly in arts centres, story cafes, schools, libraries, museums, woods, castles and hotels across the country, She is also one of the busiest and best-loved storytellers on the National Rural Touring circuit. She began village touring in 1999 with her show Seductive Stories. Since then, she has visited countless village halls, community centres and churches, performing her shows for thousands of spellbound villagers. She has also performed at some of the most prestigious venues in the land, including the South Bank Centre and the Barbican Pit in London, and St David’s Hall in Cardiff – where she told stories to 1400 children

Ghost Stories

Because Cat specialises in ghost stories and has two medieval shows in her repertoire, she is often invited to perform in unusual venues. These include a haunted hotel bedroom, a beautiful abandoned Welsh chapel, various medieval barns, a Staffordshire pottery kiln (like an enormous chimney) a railway shunting shed, a still-consecrated church on Hallow’en (with pumpkin lanterns on the tombs outside) and a ruined bishop’s palace at night, with bats flying in and out of the window behind her…

Educational Storytelling

In education, Cat formed her own Cat & Company in 1997 to specialise in workshops and performances for primary aged children. This has since expanded in both directions, with Cat receiving regular bookings from nurseries and high schools. Over the years, she has worked with thousands of children in hundreds of schools and enjoyed residencies as both a storyteller and a visual artist. Cat is an acknowledged expert on contemporary playground games and her book Primary Playground Games is published by Scholastic.

Cat live

Television

On television, Cat has been a guest presenter on Carlton’s Heart of the Country. On radio, she has made recordings for Radio France and performed live for two million listeners on Radio 4’s flagship arts programme Front Row. She has also told stories on Radio Three’s The Verb, Radio 7’s Big Toe Show and Go For It! and numerous local radio stations.

Writing

As a writer, Cat has had three children’s novels published by Puffin – Barkbelly, Snowbone and Wild Magic. She has also written books for Pont (Jaco the Leek) and Caterpillar Books (By Lantern Light) Cat occasionally writes for adults, including a short story for primetime Radio 4 and pieces for The Times.