Sue & Andy
Collaborative Action
Across many years, Sue and Andy have worked together through anthropology, play, theatre, education, therapeutic practice and social change. Their shared work has taken many forms, from writing, workshops and performances to international projects, podcasts, fieldwork and new ways of thinking about creativity, people and transformation.
Shared work
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Temiar
The Temiar have been part of Sue and Andy’s lives since the early 1970s, when Sue took her children to live in the Malaysian jungle for two years. During that time Sue carried out the research that became her PhD, while Andy began learning how to observe, photograph and research the world around him. They have returned many times since, for personal visits and for a wide range of shared projects, including four NDP in the Jungle programmes, two education projects with Temiar children, several shorter research visits and a Temiar healing project. Both Sue and Andy were adopted into the Temiar kinship network, and over the years their relationship with the community has included far more than formal work. They have returned for weddings and funerals of friends and kin, shared everyday family life, and travelled together, with the Temiar, beyond the jungle to beaches, city centres and abroad. What began as an extraordinary two year experience became a relationship stretching across generations.
International
Sue and Andy’s shared work has taken them across many countries, bringing together theatre, play, training, performance, research and social change in very different settings. Their international projects have included work in Romania, Malaysia, Germany, Spain, Poland, Singapore, Greece, France, Norway and China, alongside tours, workshops, conferences and creative collaborations with local practitioners and communities. Projects including Transform With Action, The Railway Boys, Project Wolf, Anti Violence Village, Creative Psychodrama, Messy Play, Nourishing Hands and Nature Play created opportunities to exchange ideas, test approaches in new contexts and learn from those they worked alongside. International work has never simply been about taking a method somewhere else. It has also been about adapting, listening, sharing and discovering what changes when people, cultures and ideas meet.
Writing & Publications
Writing has been another meeting place for Sue and Andy. Across the years they have written together, contributed to each other’s books and carried ideas from practice into print. Their joint writing includes Order and Challenge in Education and Therapy: The Influence of Temiar Beliefs and Practices and Pause for Thought: Action or Stillness with Young People. Andy has contributed chapters to books edited by Sue, including Dramatherapy: Theory and Practice, Volume 3 and Dramatherapy and Social Theatre: Necessary Dialogues, while Sue contributed The Dramatherapy Group As An Agency For Change of Stereotyped Behaviour to Andy’s Groupwork manual. More recently, The Handbook of Neuro Dramatic Play, edited by Clive Holmwood and Sue, includes Andy’s NDP in the Jungle chapter with Ming Yang. Together these publications show ideas moving backwards and forwards between their work, changing shape as practice, research and experience develop.
Explore their wider writing and publication records in Publications & Media.
Podcast
Play Absolutely has grown into an ongoing conversation between Sue and Andy, with more than fifty episodes exploring play, creativity, people, ideas and the unexpected places a discussion can lead. The podcast gives them space to think aloud, share stories, disagree, laugh, revisit old ideas and discover new ones together. It is informal, curious and playful, and often connects personal experience with wider questions about education, therapy, culture and social life. A new episode is released every Tuesday at 5 pm UK time.
Performance & Theatre
Theatre has been part of Sue and Andy’s shared story for a very long time. Sue regularly took her children to the theatre while they were growing up, and they also became involved in many of her drama projects. As an adult, Andy has worked with Sue on a wide range of shows and performances, including Alyson: The Story of a Green Witch, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Silent Scream, Jacques and His Master, The Railway Boys, Playing in the Jungle, Clash and Mrs Freud and Mrs Jung. For several years they also ran On Stage, a theatre in Camden, London. Performance became another place where their ideas could be tried out in front of an audience, combining story, play, experimentation and social questions in ways that continued to feed into their wider work.
Events & Training
Training and events have given Sue and Andy another way to work together directly with people. Their shared work has included Transform With Action, NDP in the Jungle, Creative Psychodrama, Messy Play, Nourishing Hands and Nature Play, alongside presentations and workshops at the National Counselling Conference in Malaysia, Enrich Kuala Lumpur, the UK National Anti Bullying Conference and the Romania National Anti Bullying Conference. They have also worked together on prisoner training in Brasov, NDP Advanced Diploma training and action method training with PERKAMA, Persatuan Kaunseling Malaysia. Their approach has usually been practical and participatory, with people learning through doing, trying things out, playing, reflecting and discovering what happens when ideas are put into action.
