A staged-reading double-bill of plays by Simon Beyer
Talking To Dad and Blank – Gallery
Tuesday 28th October 2025 7.30pm
The Drayton Arms Theatre, Old Brompton Road, London
Talking To Dad
Talking To Dad is a funny and heartwarming tale of father and daughter as they spend an afternoon together and attempt to reconnect through nostalgia and casual chat about newspapers, friends, and relationships in this gentle comedy about the family bonds that keep us together and apart.
Cast
Susannah – Holly-Anne White
Peter – Moke Benley
Steven – Tom Hodgson
About The Cast
Holly-Anne White is an Actor, Director, and Filmmaker and A graduate of Drama Studio London (2021)
Outside her role as General Manager at The Playground Theatre, she has expanded her creative practice into production. Recent credits include serving as Production Assistant on Ruby Wax’s national tour I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was and as Deputy Manager on Rehab: The Musical (2024), a production she continues to support.
As a director, Holly-Anne has worked across showreels, short films, and events. Her most recent film, Eat The Rich, won the People’s Choice Award at the 24 Hour Film Festival. She directed the premiere of Wifi-Sexual at The Penge Bridge House Theatre in 2023, before two subsequent runs in 2024. The production transferred to The Playground Theatre in September 2024, where it earned an Offie nomination for Best New Play. She also collaborated with Broken Gods Productions, directing D.C Richard Head (2024) earning a nomination for Standing Ovation Awards.
Her stage acting credits include Rowena in A Level Playing Field (dir. Jonathan Guy Lewis), and Nan King in Tipping The Velvet (dir. Jelena Budmir). On screen, she has appeared as Shona in Piqued Interest (dir. Kieran Jenkins) and Inara Vilani in Doctor Who Guardian (dir. Dan Clark).
Tom Hodgson
Growing up in Yorkshire, Tom moved to London in 2017 to pursue a career in acting, enrolling at Drama Studio London in West London.
Tom began to explore writing for stage and screen around the beginning of the pandemic, tweaking various short projects before co-writing his debut play WiFi Sexual with one of his fellow graduates. which has had several successful London runs and earned an offie nomination for best new play.
Outside of the creative world, Tom works in live events as a rigging technician for festivals and major music events in London and across the UK, as well as an avid rock climber, chess player and intense bookworm. His credits include; The Play with Speeches, Brockley Jack; All Creatures, Great and Small, Channel 5; WiFi Sexual, Greenwich theatre/ Playground Theatre.
Moke Benley
Moke has been a professional actor since 2024; 2025 stage appearances include Judge Brack in Hedda Gabler and the Porter & Old Siward in Macbeth; He was a reader at the recent Goldsmith’s Scriptwriting MA Graduation Showcase. Moke is represented by Ignite Elite Artists.
Blank
Two people one problem – they both think the other person is in the wrong place and wrong time. A comical look at the boundaries that define us and what happens when these bonds are taken away. A whimsical tale for a world in confusion.
Cast
One – Joanna Ventura
Two – Eva Ceroni Marti
About the Cast
Joanna Ventura is an Angolan/Portuguese actor and singer songwriter.
With an obsession for what makes people tick, Joanna has always had a magnetic pull to the acting world and exploring what it means to be human, through stories. She has featured in a variety of short films ranging from the comedic to the deep.
Last year she co wrote and starred in Kwami-Teye Canacoo’s Black voice White noise at Camden’s Etcetera theatre and she most recently played in Joel Marlon’s The Statesman at Theatro Technis. You can also currently find her in Justin Hardy’s The children of the Wickerman.
The dream is to act, act, act and then… act some more.
Eva Ceroni Marti trained at Drama Studio London’s where she obtained an MFA in Professional Acting with Independent Production. She is also a member of the National Youth Theatre. Eva is British, with Spanish-Italian origins and speaks Italian, Spanish, and Catalan fluently.
You can currently find her in The Paddington Bear Experience at the County Hall. Theatre work includes Tit(s) for Tat (which she also produced, at TheSpace on the Mile), Knockouts (Grange Theatre), The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Playground Theatre), Endings (with NYT), The Nutcracker (Phoenix Theatre). Performances whilst in training include Richard III, She Stoops to Conquer and The Cherry Orchard.
About the Writer/Director
Simon Beyer is a freelance theatre-maker who works both creatively as a director, writer, composer, designer (sound/lighting) and musician; and in production as a producer, production manager, and technical and stage manager. He is Artistic Director of Paper Breadcrumbs production company.
Theatre credits include: A Level Playing Field, Riverside Studios (producer); When The Lilac Blooms My Love, Leicester Square Theatre (director); My Fifteen Minutes The Musical, New Wimbledon Studio (writer/director); Studies For A Portrait, White Bear Theatre and transfer to Oval House Theatre (producer); Romeo and Juliet, Polka Theatre, Offie Award Winner 2025 Sound and Music (sound designer), Plastic Drastic Fantastic, Akademi national tour (production manager).
Written works include stage plays Talking To Dad, Windows, Blank, Fractures, Ghosts in the Attic, La Ronde translation and adaptation, and musicals My Fifteen Minutes, Evie and The Friendly Dragon, Moving On.