Vici is a writer/director for theatre, screen and radio from the North East of England where she is founding Artistic Director of internationally acclaimed Little Cog (2011), a disabled-led theatre company. The company is a powerful advocate for change in the arts sector, working with many mainstream partners, and most importantly with other disabled artists and communities. The company is noted for pioneering, powerful, award-winning work which shifts the lens on disability by creating new disabled characters, in lead roles, telling new disabled stories with wide audience appeal.
Vici is driven by principles of collaboration and community, establishing networks and collectives of disabled artists regionally and nationally. A leading figure in the UK Disability Arts Movement, she has campaigned for the cultural equity of disabled people for over thirty years. She developed the pioneering model of disabled-led practice in mainstream settings, Cultural Shift, in partnership with ARC Stockton where she is a proud Associate Artist. A unique, dynamic disability arts hub has grown out of this work which she has been invited to speak about internationally.
Vici was commissioned by the BBC to write and direct her short film Hen Night creating one of the first ever pieces of broadcast British drama by a disabled women-led team. Films include Funny Peculiar starring BBC Silent Witness actor Liz Carr for Northern Stage and ARC Stockton, Siege was commissioned by Home Manchester and ARC Stockton Homemakers with her accompanying non-fiction series The Wrong Woman Discussions featuring four other disabled women performing in the public eye.
Vici’s original theatre work includes UNRULY (ARC Stockton and Live Theatre, Newcastle, a finalist for the Arts Council England Award at the North East Culture Awards), Three Acts of Love (Live Theatre, Newcastle), and World’s on Fire, (commissioned by the community in Stockton-on-Tees). Butterfly (Best One Person Play 2018 British Theatre Guide, National Tour), Lighthouse (bilingual piece in English and BSL, British Premiere ARC Stockton), Another England (National Tour), The Art Of Not Getting Lost (ARC Stockton and Northern Stage), Vote for Caliban (Northern Stage), Deadly Devotchka (Edinburgh Fringe), Moll Cutpurse: A Comedy for the 21st Century (UK and Ireland Tour). Vici has many directing credits and has mentored many disabled writers to bring their work to the stage.
A long term collaboration practice with award-winning learning disabled ensemble Full Circle in Tees Valley, UK, having made eight professional productions together is a great source of pride, together winning the Catalyst Award for Art and Culture. She is founding Artistic Director of Our Stomping Grounds Festival and the Take Up Space Conference celebrating learning disability culture.
Nominated for a broad range of prizes and awards Vici was selected as one of the commissions by the New Play Commission Scheme by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, in partnership with Live Theatre for her play Useless F*cker. She is also the recipient of a commission from ARC Stockton’s Make New Work programme for her ambitious, large scale community play, World’s on Fire, based in Stockton-on-Tees. This new play is currently being developed and will feature a large community choir and a community performance ensemble working with professional composer, movement director and actors.
In 2021 Vici was awarded the North East Art and Culture Award for Outstanding Contribution to the arts in the region. She is a collectivist with a strong belief in community and unity, founding Disconsortia Collective of Disabled Artists in North East England, Funny Ha Ha disabled women comedy writers collective and IN/Visible National Disabled Women’s Art Collective. Vici is co-founder of On Whose Shoulders We Build which is a living archive of disability arts in the North East.
Vici is a PhD practice-based candidate researching Radical Acts of Representation: Creating Disabled-Women Led Practice in Theatre and Television and is a world-leading expert on the subject of representation, radical performance, language and disability. Vici is a highly respected disability equity strategist and has shared her model of disabled-led art in mainstream cultural settings across the world, supporting many organisations in the UK to adapt their own models of disability equity policy and practice.