Writing

Since her first production, Aesop’s Fables in 2011, Belle wrote several short plays which were performed at The Village Pub Theatre, and was a mentored playwright with the Playwrights’ Studio. That same year she also received funding from Creative Scotland and the Tom McGrath Trust to develop a mixed-media piece called Shame, which later was performed at the 2017 Fringe, produced by Tidy Carnage. She was a finalist for the Tron Theatre’s Progressive Playwright Award in 2016 with another play, Boudicca’s Daughters, and in 2017 wrote a specially commissioned piece with musician Heir of the Cursed for TYCI at Declaration Festival.

She was also commissioned to write Dear Human with musicians Audrey Tait and Lauren Gilmour for the Measuring Humanity project by Dr. Marisa de Andrade of the University of Edinburgh. This piece was later published by The Lancet medical journal.  Belle, Audrey, and Lauren also worked together on Closed Doors which ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018. That same year they were commissioned by Hopscotch Theatre Company to write Check, One, Two, a play with songs about maths for children age 7+ which toured Scotland that Autumn.

Her spoken word piece High Land, created with musician Altered Mode, premiered at Coastival Scarborough in February 2019. Later that year she won the ICONS commission from Perth Museum and Art Gallery to create an installation about the life of Flora MacDonald. Since then she has received support from Creative Scotland and The Playwrights’ Studio to develop a new musical about the Jacobite heroine.

Belle was delighted to be selected as one of BBC Writersroom’s Scottish Voices 2020. She wrote three spec screenplays during the attachment and fell in love with writing for the screen. During this lockdown year, Belle had a comedy short Showing Face commissioned and published by BBC Scotland Short Stuff and made a short film LAPSE for The End, a web series led by female filmmakers.

In 2021, Belle’s TV project High Land was selected for the Celtic Screen Talent Showcase at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and was a shortlisted screenplay at the Screen and Story Film festival. It also placed in the top 10% of the BBC writersroom Open Call for scripts. In 2022 her comedy pilot, Pantoland also placed in the top 10% of the BBC Open Call.

In 2022, Inheritance premiered at A Play, A Pie and A Pint in co-production with An Tobar & Mull Theatre. She also received further Creative Scotland funding to develop a musical about the life of Flora MacDonald.