At the moment I'm spending a lot of my time exploring how the digital space can provide actual encounters in real time and space. That's what I'm missing about theatre - or at least some of what I'm missing.

​You'll find a few of these experiments below.

This first film, though, was already long into preparation before, you know, all this. We filmed it a few weeks before lockdown and it's been fascinating to see how the current context has seen its meanings change, while its content remains exactly the same.

Welcome to Your New Day
​
Commissioned by Northern Stage
Written and performed by Daniel Bye. Music by Ziad Jabero.

Northern Stage's new artistic director, Natalie Ibu, got in touch to say that they were producing a series of digital pieces designed to interrupt the cycle of doomscrolling we all know so well. Pieces for those particular contexts, places, or times of day when you find yourself idly reaching for the twitter app on your phone. This audio piece, Welcome to Your New Day, was created for first thing in the morning, when your day hasn't yet started and already you're off on the wrong foot.

Palm Reading

Commissioned by Absolutely Cultured and Northern Broadsides


Two people meet in real life for the first time since lockdown.
​
One is played by you.

The other is played by someone you’ve never met.

​​Palm Reading is a live online performance encounter for you and a stranger. Meeting one another for the first time through this script, you’ll experience closeness and distance in a whole new set of ways.

To experience Palm Reading, you’ll need to find a partner. You could ask around via your own social media, or you could find someone through the comments on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter . Then just download the document, and make sure you read the instructions a few hours in advance.

Palm Reading is available to download here​.

 The second film in the These Hills Are Ours series - A Song for Clougha Pike​ - was released on Thursday 11th June at 8pm. You can watch it here, or click through and subscribe to my channel on YouTube.

​The third and fourth films are indefinitely postponed.

​We will make them, just as soon as it's possible to gather a community together to sing, and escape together to the hills.

An Exchange of Views (left) was made on my phone in response to a request from Beaford.

They wanted something optimistic that would encourage their community to get outside.

​I was more than happy to attempt something stupid in order to provide that.

This was also the first thing I made under lockdown, the first attempt at finding a quality of exchange and interaction in digital media. Please watch and share your views.

Also:

For Pitlochry Festival Theatre I've written a short piece called Recovery, part of their Shades of Tay season. You phone a number and listen to a voicemail message. Maybe you'll leave a reply, maybe you won't.

This is the most analogue piece of performance imaginable and I'm delighted to feature it on this page.

There'll be more of this sort of thing forthcoming during the course of 2021.

Since you're here, I may as well draw attention to the fact that several of my extant theatre shows are available to view online free.

​On your left there is Going Viral, my Fringe First-winning 2015 show about a global pandemic.

Below are ​The Price of Everything and How to Occupy an Oil Rig​.

Click through for full credits.