Over the past 17 years in the industry, Paula has played regular roles in continuing dramas (Kylie Platt Coronation Street 2010-2016) and currently Emmerdale playing series regular Ella Forster. Paula has also had many guest roles including Father Brown, Call The Midwife, Doctors and Going Postal.

Paula has a wealth of stage experience, playing leading roles with Northern Broadsides (most recently as Phoebe Throssell in Quality Street) and starring in Playful Productions Kinky Boots UK and Ireland tour as Lauren.

Voice work includes BBC Radio Drama, Commercial and recordings for Northern Broadsides’ Christmas Broadsides podcast playing Anne Lister.

Paula resides in West Yorkshire and runs Lane Shaw Academy Drama Workshops in Hebden Bridge alongside her husband, Tom Shaw.

Andrew has worked extensively in theatre throughout his career.

Theatre credits include: Little Shop of Horrors (Ipswich Wolsey/Bolton Octagon/Theatre By The Lake/Hull Truck), The Book of Will (Queens Hornchurch / Bolton Octagon / Shakespeare North), the World Premiere of The Book Thief (Bolton Octagon), Say Yes to Tess (Leeds Playhouse / Camden People’s Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing, A Christmas Carol, Cyrano, The War Of The Roses, School For Scandal, The Bells, The Merchant Of Venice, Henry V, A Woman Killed With Kindness, Antigone, Poetry Or Bust, Oedipus, The Cracked Pot, The Merry Wives Of Windsor, King John, Alcestis, Romeo & Juliet, Samson Agonistes, The Passion, Antony And Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Trackers Of Oxyrinchus Canterbury Tales, An August Bank Holiday Lark, She Stoops to Conquer, The Winter’s Tale and The Twelve Tales of Christmas (Northern Broadsides), Wind in The Willows, Witches Promise (Birmingham Rep); Dangerous Obsession (Esk Valley Theatre); Sleeping Beauty (Qdos – Beck Theatre); The Wife of Usher’s Well (Quondam Theatre); Rogue Herries, A Chorus of Disapproval, Summer Lightning, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Around The World In 80 Days, Under The Blue Sky, Rebecca (Keswick Theatre By The Lake); Unsung (Liverpool Playhouse), The Glee Club (Library Theatre Manchester); Cinderella (Harrogate Theatre); Richard II (Royal Exchange Manchester); The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (New Vic); A Christmas Carol and Toast (Hull Truck); The Wind In The Willows (Oldham Coliseum); The Grapes Of Wrath (American Drama Group Europe); The Cost Of Living (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Little Sure Shot (West Yorkshire Playhouse / The Egg, Bristol / Old Laundry Theatre).

Andrew’s television and film credits include: Coronation Street, Brassic, The Runaways, Emmerdale andThe Big Chance.

His radio credits include: Stone – ‘Dead Fishes’, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Alcestis, The Cracked Pot (BBC). As a Musical Director, Andrew wrote and produced the music for the award winning Tongue Twister (24:7 Festival).

Kash is a Scottish/Pakistani director and theatre maker based in Yorkshire, and trained on the National Theatre Studio Directors Course 2019.

He was Associate Director at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough from 2021 – 2023 and Trainee Artistic Director at Freedom Studios from 2017 –  2019.

Recent directing work includes: The Jungle Book (Theatre by the Lake), Around the World in 80 Days (Bolton Octagon), These Majestic Creatures (Stephen Joseph Theatre), Cinderella (Imagine Theatre), An Adventure (Bolton Octagon), Oliver Twist (Storyhouse), 10 Nights (Bush Theatre), Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile (Freedom Studios,) Airplays (Leeds Playhouse) and Memories of Partition (Royal Exchange)

He is an Associate Artist of National Youth Theatre and Mentor Director for National Theatre Connections. 

Kash is a trustee of Hubbub Theatre Company in Derby and is on the Artistic Advisory boards of the Stephen Joseph Theatre and Northern Broadsides. He is also Northern Broadsides’ Park Youth Theatre Director.

Martin Clarke is an experienced and versatile Production Manager with over two decades working across theatre, live events, and music. His career spans a wide range of genres and scales – from West End musicals and international tours to community festivals and site-specific contemporary dance. He has delivered work in theatres, arenas, courtyards, and found spaces across the UK and internationally, with a special pride in collaborating with artists and organisations in his home region of West Yorkshire.

Martin is currently working on several major projects for Bradford City of Culture 2025, managing large-scale public events and installations. He is also Production Manager for this year’s Transform Festival in Leeds and is delivering a site-specific dance production as part of Manchester International Festival. In Bradford, he’s supporting a local performance project in partnership with SpinArts.

Recent highlights include his long-term role at The Piece Hall in Halifax, where he managed large outdoor concerts, installations, and community celebrations in a Grade I listed setting, and touring internationally as Production Carpenter for SIX the Musical. He also previously served as Head of Technical & Operations at Square Chapel Arts Centre, and as Production Manager on the 2020 tour of Northern Broadsides’ Quality Street.

Martin runs his own company, Reverse Triangle Event Production Ltd, offering production and technical management with a strong focus on safety, logistics, and collaboration.

Claire Dodds is an experienced freelance British Sign Language interpreter, based in Hebden Bridge. She specialises in performance interpreting and has worked both on stage and with Deaf creatives in the rehearsal room, at theatres across the North, including Leeds Playhouse, Home in Manchester, The Dukes in Lancaster, Bolton Octagon and Oldham Coliseum. 

In Halifax, she has enjoyed working at the Victoria Theatre, Square Chapel and The Piece Hall.

Kate Ireland is a freelance costume maker and supervisor with 25 years of experience working in professional theatre and TV.

She graduated from the London College of Fashion with a  first class honours in Costume for the Performing Arts in 2001, and since then has worked on a wide variety of high end productions including We Will Rock You, Mama Mia, The Royal Ballet and Opera, WNO, BBC, ITV, Endemol, Giffords Circus, Sheffield Theatres, Opera North, The Globe, Birmingham stage Company, The Nottingham Playhouse and The Curve.

Having lived and worked in London, Bristol, Nottingham and New Zealand, Kate now lives in her native Sheffield and is a regular cutter/maker for The Crucible Theatre. She has an eye for detail, texture and storytelling through clothing.

Ali is a photographer, videographer and director from Halifax. He supports the smooth running of Northern Broadsides’ Park Youth Theatre, as well as more generally on the Iron People project, having worked closely with our community acting and writing company. 

Liz Lane is a British composer who has been described as ‘the fine composer who’s got such a gift for melody’ (Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3) and whose music has been lauded as ‘creatively brilliant’ (4barsrest.com), ‘easily appealing, yet musically reputable’ (Musical Times), ‘quite stunning – a beautiful work’ (Will Goodchild, composer) and ‘spell-binding… touched the very core of one’s heart’ (David Fanshawe, composer and explorer). Her music has been broadcast on BBC 1, ITV and BBC Radio 3. Liz’s many diverse works range from music celebrating aerospace engineering for 280 musicians aged 7-70; a 40th wedding anniversary song cycle, recorded and played at a surprise party; a full length ballet for the London Children’s Ballet; a co-creative event with older people choirs and dancers facilitated by Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance; and music for brass band and Bhangra.

Her music has been performed throughout the UK and abroad, including Europe, USA and Japan, and in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Fairfield Halls Croydon, Barcelona Cathedral, Wales Millennium Centre and even under the wings of Concorde at Aerospace Bristol. She is Composer in Association with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band and Composer in Residence with Lydbrook Band in the Forest of Dean.

Liz gained a PhD from Cardiff University in 2010 and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Music Technology at UWE Bristol, and an Associate Lecturer at the Open University and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Current compositional projects include the set test piece for the youth division at the World Music Contest, Kerkrade, Netherlands in 2026.

Chris was born and raised in West Yorkshire where he still lives with his family. He is one of twenty studio artists at the prestigious Dean Clough Mills arts and business complex.

His work ranges from children’s publishing to theatre and film, having produced a long backlist of children’s titles, theatre posters, editorial cartoons for major newspapers and character development work for animated features.

Highlights include: The Iron Man, War of the Worlds, A Boy Called Christmas, Animal Farm and Something Wickedly Weird. He exhibits his artwork regularly and commits to an ongoing programme of events.

Andrea’s background in world-class music education is matched by two decades of experience in performance at the highest level. With her keen ear, outstanding analytical skill, and ability to inspire through her constructive and caring feedback, she is in increasingly high demand as an adjudicator both in the UK and internationally. As Head of Lower School at Chetham’s School of Music, Andrea is at the forefront of music education and pedagogy. With a stellar career as a percussionist for bands including YBS and Black Dyke, Andrea has won every major brass band competition, recorded numerous CDs, and toured the world as a performer.

She is also an extremely successful composer with a wide range of published and recorded works including several pieces on graded examination syllabuses, and as a conductor she has worked with a number of youth and adult bands, most recently the Rainford and Wingates bands in the North West. Andrea has adjudicated at a wide range of regional, national, and international competitions including several regional area contests across the UK and the National Youth Championships. She is incredibly passionate about the future of brass banding and particularly enjoys working with youth bands; she has been involved with the National Youth Brass Band and the Greater Manchester Youth Brass Band for many years and is a strong advocate for improving diversity and equality.

Northern Rascals are a multi-disciplinary performance company based in Yorkshire, run by co-Artistic Directors Anna Holmes and Sam Ford.

Driven by social conscience, Northern Rascals uses theatre and contemporary dance to lead audiences to original narratives rooted in the current socio-political climate.

Nationally recognised, the company is renowned for their raw yet poetic interpretation of today’s world and the people that inhabit it and celebrated for their dedication to using Northern voices to spearhead that poeticism.

Nick’s work as a Sound Designer, over more than 30 years, has seen him collaborate on productions across the world, in wide range of genres including drama, family theatre, dance and performance art.

From the West End to Broadway, Sydney to Halifax, LA to Beijing, his work has often bridged the worlds of soundscape and music, sometimes immersive and intimate and at others theatrical extravaganza on a grand scale.

Most recent Sound Design credits include: Mary Said What She Said (New York), Pessoa (Paris & Lisbon), Horrible Histories (2025 UK Tour), Awful Auntie (UK Tour), Jungle Book (World Tour) and Tree of Codes (World Tour).

Nick has also provided the sound design for three Olivier award nominated productions.

When not travelling the world being ‘creatively noisy’ he is also a Music Producer and Songwriter at 3507 Studio Recording, specialising in developing new and emerging music artists.

Elland Silver Band is currently one of the regions’ most successful brass bands. 2025 sees the organisation celebrate its 175th Anniversary.

From January 2025, the band was re-graded as a 1st Section Band having endured a highly successful 7 year period in the Championship section from 2017 to 2025.

The band has a very active Calendar of local concerts, where they support a number of charities and also to raise funds to support the running costs of the band. The band has also performed on the ITV dramas Where the Heart Is and Last of the Summer Wine.

The bands repertoire is very comprehensive including arrangements of popular orchestral classics, from film music to jazz and popular selections, and of course, brass band standards and marches.

All of our members are amateur musicians, many come from different walks of life, several members are under 18 years of age and have graduated into the senior band from our youth band. Many of the players have been with the band a number of years.

Jess found her passion for theatre studying at the North Halifax Grammar School and is now training to be a Stage Manager at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. She works closely with both the cast and creative team to bring Iron People to fruition and is thrilled to be working in her home town on such an incredible project.