Phoebe McIntosh

Phoebe McIntosh is a London-based actor, playwright, and novelist whose creative work builds on her training at ArtsEd. She first gained attention with The Tea Diaries, then toured with her solo show Dominoes, eventually adapting it into her debut novel Dominoes, published in 2024. Her plays (The Soon Life, etc.) have been shortlisted or longlisted for awards such as the Tony Craze Award and Alfred Fagon Award. McIntosh’s writing frequently explores themes of identity, belonging, and the lasting effects of history, including the British slave trade, through character-driven storytelling that is rooted in both personal and social legacy.

Phoebe McIntosh: London-Based Actress, Playwright, and Author Shaping Conversations on Identity and Heritage

Phoebe McIntosh is a London-based actress, playwright, and author whose work interrogates race, heritage, and belonging with clarity and force. Across theater and literature, she confronts the legacies of empire, the weight of cultural inheritance, and the intricacies of modern identity, creating narratives that resonate on personal and collective levels. Her ability to situate intimate relationships within broader historical and social frameworks has secured her reputation as a vital cultural voice in contemporary British arts.

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Early Life and Career

McIntosh studied English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London before completing professional training at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, a foundation that grounded her work in both scholarship and performance. She entered the theater world as an actress but quickly established herself as a writer with a distinct perspective.

Her debut play, The Tea Diaries (2013), premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival and a proving ground for new talent. The play explored interracial relationships and cultural belonging through the lens of a modern love story, balancing humor with pointed social insight. Audiences and critics responded to the relatability of her characters and the sharpness of her dialogue, marking her as a playwright capable of merging accessibility with cultural critique.

McIntosh’s career continued to develop with works that deepened her exploration of identity and heritage. Her later play Dominoes (2019) examined the lasting consequences of Britain’s colonial history on personal relationships, situating one woman’s story within a wider examination of race, power, and legacy. Performed at festivals and regional theaters across the UK, Dominoes confirmed McIntosh’s ability to transform historical questions into urgent contemporary drama.

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Literary and Theatrical Career

Building on the momentum of The Tea Diaries, Phoebe McIntosh went on to write and perform her solo show Dominoes, which toured venues across London and the South East in 2018. The production tackled questions of mixed-race identity, privilege, and the enduring consequences of Britain’s colonial history through the lens of one woman’s personal reckoning. Performed entirely by McIntosh, Dominoes invited audiences into an intimate confrontation with themes often left unspoken in British theater. The play drew strong reviews for its candid treatment of race and power, as well as McIntosh’s ability to balance vulnerability with sharp critique, solidifying her standing as a playwright unafraid to press difficult cultural conversations onto the stage.

Her growing reputation brought her into key development platforms that support innovative and underrepresented voices in British theater. She was selected for the Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab, a program known for nurturing groundbreaking playwrights, and for the inaugural Tamasha x Hachette creative writing initiative, which connects playwrights with the publishing industry. Her play The Soon Life advanced her recognition further, earning a place on the shortlist for the Tony Craze Award, receiving high commendation from judges, and securing a longlisting for the Alfred Fagon Award, one of the most respected honors for Black British playwrights. These achievements reinforced McIntosh’s reputation as a writer of both artistic skill and cultural importance, with work that speaks directly to the evolving conversations about race, heritage, and identity in the United Kingdom.

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Transition to Novel Writing

Phoebe McIntosh extended her storytelling into fiction with the adaptation of her stage play Dominoes into a novel, published in 2024. The project carried her theatrical themes of identity, colonial legacy, and personal reckoning into a new medium, allowing her to reach a wider readership beyond the stage. Even in manuscript form, the novel drew recognition, securing a place on the 2021 Bath Novel Award longlist, an international prize known for spotlighting emerging novelists of exceptional promise. Judges praised the work for its layered narrative and emotional resonance, signaling McIntosh’s seamless transition from playwright to novelist.

The novel follows Layla McKinnon, a mixed-race teacher in London preparing for her wedding, whose seemingly ordinary plans unravel when she discovers troubling links between her fiancé’s ancestry and her own. What begins as a personal milestone becomes an excavation of history, heritage, and complicity, forcing Layla to reckon with questions of love, loyalty, and the weight of generational memory. McIntosh structures the novel around this discovery with the same precision she brings to her plays, using narrative tension to illuminate how personal lives are inextricably tied to the unresolved legacies of empire. In transforming Dominoes into prose, she confirmed her versatility as a writer and her commitment to telling stories that challenge audiences to confront the past within the intimacy of the present.

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Advocacy and Impact

Phoebe McIntosh’s advocacy extends across both her creative practice and her professional involvement in programs that address underrepresentation in the arts. She has worked with organizations such as Tamasha Theatre Company, a long-standing champion of culturally diverse voices in British theater, and participated in the Tamasha x Hachette creative writing program, which pairs writers from minority backgrounds with industry mentors to improve access to publishing opportunities. Her selection for this inaugural cohort highlighted her position as a writer committed to expanding the space for stories often overlooked in the UK literary and theatrical landscape.

She has also spoken at literary festivals, university panels, and community events about the barriers facing artists of color and the importance of developing support structures that foster long-term careers rather than token visibility. These appearances have placed her at the intersection of art and advocacy, where she contributes to discussions on how systemic inequalities in casting, commissioning, and publishing can be dismantled.

Within her own work, McIntosh confronts the gaps in cultural representation by writing characters whose lives reflect the layered realities of mixed heritage and postcolonial identity. Plays like Dominoes and its later adaptation as a novel challenge audiences to consider how Britain’s imperial history continues to shape personal relationships today. By embedding these issues directly into her creative output and pairing them with active involvement in development initiatives, McIntosh demonstrates how an artist can use both craft and public engagement to reshape the conditions under which future writers and performers emerge.