Gail Louw

I am a multi-award winning playwright and my plays have been performed throughout the world. In 2024, a Gail Louw Season of four plays was held at The Playground Theatre in London. In 2023, three plays were performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

My play 'Blonde Poison' continues to be produced widely, with productions at The Sydney Opera House, Auckland, Berlin, South Africa and several parts of the USA. Blonde Poison has won several awards and was the flagship production at the Hilton Arts Festival in South Africa. ‘Duwayne’ won Best New Play at Brighton Festival and Fringe 2014. 'Miss Dietrich Regrets' has been produced in Prague in Czech continually from 2017 to the present. 'And this is my friend Mr Laurel' began to tour in 2012 and continues to the present. ‘Shackleton’s Carpenter’ is another play that has toured throughout the UK and Ireland and performed on the Queen Mary 11, together with playwriting workshops, during a crossing from New York in 2022.

Twelve plays have been published in three collections and three standalone ones as well.

Before I became a full-time playwright and novelist, I was an academic at the Institute of Postgraduate Medicine in Brighton, where I have lived since I came to England from South Africa.

My debut novel ‘Rika’s Rooms’ has been published by Waterloo Press and is available on Kindle. This story, based on my mother's life, has been an ongoing project for many years. The story, so close to me and so relevant to the age, has appeared in one form or other in various plays as well as the novel.