2BU Productions

We empower people with lived experience of long-term health conditions to take agency over their health journeys. By deeply listening to their stories, we create award-winning, memorable, and affecting pieces of art that are often funny, shocking, and poignant. Our work spans creative letter writing, memoir and drama. Alongside this, we offer creative coaching that helps you find your voice, develop your craft, achieve your creative goals and foster better dialogue within teams.

Stories

Podcasts, theatre, writing, graphic novel, prose.

Arts&health Projects

Bringing research and ideas to life, to stimulate debate and discussion, imaginative evaluation and public engagement.

Consultancy and Courses

Communications Consultancy, Podcast Consultancy. Leadership and Management development. Creativity courses for all ages.

We specialise in:

At 2BU Productions, we wish you health and safety during the Covid-19 recovery. We are continuing to strive for ways to keep learning and listening, to use our knowledge and experience, so that we can be of service any way we can.

2BU Productions: Awards

2BU Productions have won a healthy number of awards these last few years: Winner Media Production Company of the Year 2024/5 Corporate Livewire; Winner, Most Creative Community Support Enterprise, Southern Enterprise Award 2023 and Winner, Most Innovative Communications Consultancy Bristol, Innovation in business Media Innovator Awards 2023

For our podcast drama Tobias and Syd, released in January 2023, we came 3rd in the Audio Fiction World Cup 2023 and are the top UK podcast! Winner Best Audio Fiction Standalone, Sydney Webfest 2023, Winner Best Audio Fiction Standalone Apulia Web fest 2023; Winner for Best Narration for an Audio Fiction Podcast at Baltimore Next Media Fest... Ell Potter. Rio Webfest Official Selection, Best Podcast Fiction and Best Director. Selected for Hollywood Series Webfest. LA Webfest 2023 Nominee, Minnesota 2023 Official Selection and Nominee for Best Podcast Director, Cusco Webfest 2023 Official Selection. For Baltimore Next Media Web Fest, Nominated for Best Dramatic/Slice, Best Podcast Director, Best Actor (Sion Daniel Young), Best Sound Design (Iain Hunter)

A team of diverse expertise and lived experience

Our team is female led and made up of award winning professionals and consultants working in the creative industries, academia, medicine, TV, theatre or on-line. We work with organisations such as Arts Council England, The Wellcome Trust, The Heritage Lottery Fund, Universitets hospital Danmark, Durham University, Nailsea Town Council, West of England Centre of Inclusive Living, EHCAP, Arts&Health South West, Theatre Orchard, The Technology Strategy Board, Bristol, Bath, Exeter universities, Discovering Blackdown Project, Regional Development Agency, the NHS and the BBC. Scroll on to find Testimonals and our Diary below.

We strive for diversity by supporting artists and members of the public with lived experience, who might be living with disability or be marginalised in some way. We work to enable their personal experience – their ‘little whispers’ to influence every aspect of our work from inspiration to evaluation.

Thank you so much all our funders, we are truly grateful, in particular to Arts Council England, for helping us make a difference by bringing creativity and exemplary art works to the lives of many people with lived experience, as well as those working within arts and healthcare.

Our Funders

Listen to our podcast drama, Tobias and Syd here:

Prepare to be hooked. Tobias and Syd is a four part podcast play about our relationship with tobacco, our relationships with each other, and with desire itself. In this time travel romance, Syd is at once seduced by and suspicious of the shape shifting Tobias, as he launches his new product. Join us for 4 linked events with inspiring speakers.

What are people are saying about the play?

Really great ! Bold and true and loved the idea of tobacco being a parasite. The piece was unusual and brave.

The production succeeds in showing a tone human frailty and addiction-proneness. Writing, actors, timeshifts, romance, "data": it's all harnessed absorbingly. Donne, Columbus, Raleigh, Colston, Davis, Crawford, Rogers, Grant! *In-spire*. Bravo. It's really good. You've marshalled a complexity here into clear and innovative drama

Listened to the Omnibus this morning, which was excellent. What an amazingly imaginative and original idea! I like the way it moves easily across time and across the world. The message is clear - that tobacco - and the Tobacco Industry - needs us as much as we need it.

An adventure… I loved it, it was emotional, the language was beautiful, the humour, I liked the subject matter, and the way you approached it… the inner voice, the dreamlike quality, the personification of tobacco, the power and politics… so much there. The relationship between Tobias and Syd was gripping but the most fascinating is what Syd goes through – and the question of who is in control? And how Tobias is flirty, playful and then dominates. We do strange things to justify our behaviour. The lies we tell ourselves. The cognitive dissonance. It is fascinating, also in a theatrical way

I have just got to the end of part 3. It is genius! The wisdom in the writing shines brightly. It is perfect for highlighting some many aspects that Connect emotional health to our mental and physical wellbeing.

What others say about our work

April 2025

📣 Looking forward to the second meeting of the Brigstow Seedcorn cohort 2024-25 this week. It’s a valuable opportunity to share updates on our “Whispers from the Archive” project exploring creative approaches to kidney disease storytelling, and to connect with other innovative teams. Grateful for this collaborative community as we continue developing ways to amplify chronic illness voices through artistic expression. Project details: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/projects/whispers-from-the-archive-chronic-illness-creative-responses-and-

This month brings the beginning of a new project – Creative Encounters in the Archive, an interdisciplinary collaboration funded by AHRC Curiostiy Fund at University of Bristol. Elspeth, of 2BU Productions, is proud to be a co-applicant and Creative Lead for the work ahead.

Elspeth is also offering more availability for her growing creative coaching service: find out more: Creative Coaching with Elspeth Penny

March 2025

It’s an exciting time, working at the Theatre Archive in Bristol with our medical and academic collaborators. We are, however, very sad to hear of the death of John Fox, who set up and ran Welfare State International along with his wife Sue. Our thoughts are with all of John’s family and friends at this very sad time. We also want to mark and celebrate the work that John did, which changed the landscape of theatre and community art in the later decades of the twentieth century.

January 2025

We’re beginning a newly funded research project, Whispers from the Archive: Chronic Illness, Creative Responses and Community – Funded by Brigstow Institute at Bristol University to explore kidney disease stories through creative practice, working with Dr. Barny Hole, Dr. Lucy Plumb, Dr. Barbara Caddick and Julian Warren at the Theatre Collection. In particular, this will be through exploring the Welfare State International archive – which records the legacy of an extraordinary theatre and arts company. This is just the beginning of a much bigger planned project, so hopefully I’ll be able to report more over the next year or two. Learn more: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/projects/whispers-from-the-archive-chronic-illness-creative-responses-and-

November 2024

Delighted to announce we have been successful in an AHRC bid on an exciting new project: Creative Encounters in the Wills Tobacco Archive: exploring public and cultural health through interdisciplinary collaboration. It builds on our project Tobias and Syd. Elspeth will be Creative Lead for the project. We have had two initial meetings with the core team so far.

Did you know that we have another service – Consult and Train? At Consult and Train, we offer coaching that fosters better dialogue and stronger relationships within teams and for individuals, drawing on a rich toolbox of techniques from the arts. Take a look at www.consultandtrain.co.uk

October 2024

Winner, Media Production Company of the Year: Corporate Live Wire. 2BU were shortlisted in the Global Awards Program for Corporate Live Wire, for the category, Media Production Company of the Year and have now been selected as their 2024/25 winner!

We also have some other great news about some funding, soon to be announced in further detail.

May 2024

In Press! Our jointly written paper: Tobias and Syd: a research-based podcast audio-drama is now in Press with Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, due to be published in January 2025 written by the Dream Team – Dr Alice Malpass, Professor Andrew Russell and myself. This will be my 3^rd co-written paper, so grateful for such brilliant collaborators.

Delighted to hear that our play Tobias and Syd is in the suggested reading list of a Durham University module now – on the Anthrology of Tobacco. Thank you Professor Andrew Russell for giving it that honour.

Honoured to present a workshop on Compassionate Leadership to 21 women in Bristol for Forge, a support group of women and non binary film makers …. a truly stimulating session and afternoon.

April 2024

An Arts Council England bid goes in, this time for a round of Develop Your Creative Practice. As we wait for the results of bids, we’re planning, catching up on admin and creating a web-site, to show case our communications work.

In Press! Our jointly written paper : “Tobias and Syd: a research-based podcast audio-drama about tobacco: Tobias and Syd” is now In Press with Radio Journal, due to be published in January 2025.

February- March 2024

With the help of Dramaturg Sara Davies, Elspeth has written the first 15 minutes of a new audio drama, along with a treatment of the whole play.

Also, she has started to use VoicePrint again with a number of clients. It is a brilliant communication consultancy diagnostic tool, which sheds light on how skillful we are in our conversations, and provides insight and tools to get more skillful.

January 2024

Working on my graphic novel, Tips and Tricks for Girls in Trouble; attending Safe Space for Hard Stories, a support group for graphic memoir creators, run by Wallis Eates. I am totally chuffed by illustrators telling me that they like my visual style – it has taken years to develop so something must be working. Now it is time to put this piece of work down for some perspective… will be back in a month or so.

With an awe-inspiring team of academics, museum and artist partners, we have written a new ambitious bid to take our Tobacco project forwards, to explore another angle of our use of this plant. Our play Tobias and Syd, also about tobacco, won three awards, you can listen on this page, above.

December 2023

For the Final Audio Fiction World Cup Ranking, we have come third, and we are the top UK podcast!

November 2023

For our podcast drama Tobias and Syd, released in January 2023, we are currently ranking 4th in the Audio Fiction World Cup and are the top UK podcast!

We are also Winner! Best Audio Fiction Standalone, Sydney Webfest 2023, Winner Best Audio Fiction Standalone Apulia Web fest 2023; Winner for Best Narration for an Audio Fiction Podcast… (Ell Potter). Rio Webfest Official Selection Best Podcast Fiction and Best Director. Selected for Hollywood Series Webfest. LA Webfest 2023 Nominee, Minnesota 2023 Official Selection, Cusco Webfest 2023 Official Selection. For Baltimore Next Media Web Fest, Nominated for Best Dramatic/Slice, Best Podcast Director, Best Actor (Sion Daniel Young), Best Sound Design.

Elspeth and Alice Malpass are also excited to be part of an online panel at Rio Webfest in November, talking about our work.

We are applying for funding to take the project on to it’s next stage, and also reigniting a few collaborations on some favourite projects.

October 2023

More great news! We won the Best Audio Fiction Standalone, Sydney Webfest 2023, so chuffed and honoured.

Thank you also to Rio WebFest, for Selecting Tobias and Syd in your Fiction Podcast category, we are very proud, so happy we have been nominated in the following categories: Best Podcast (Fiction) for all the team, and a second Best Directing (Podcast) for Elspeth Penny.

September 2023

Breaking news! Tobias and Syd: Winner! Best Audio Fiction Standalone Apulia Web fest 2023!

Delighted to get an award – for The Most Creative Community Support Enterprise 2023, Southern Enterprise Awards. Also, for our audio drama Tobias and Syd we have been selected for a bunch more festivals… here are all of them so far:

LAWebfest 2023 Official Selection and Nominee,
Baltimore Next Media Web Fest 2023,
Sydney Web Fest 2023,
Apulia Web fest 2023 Official Selection,
Minnesota 2023 Official Selection,
Cusco Webfest 2023 Official Selection

Elspeth has been on a graphic novel residency in August at The Grange, run by Nicola and John Streetan. It was a brilliant week which really informed where our current project Tips and Tricks for Girls in Trouble is now going, lots of technical grappling with Photoshop, some sculpture which will feed into the visuals, and I had help making my own fonts for the story.

2BU Productions are the owner or licensee of all the intellectual property rights in this website, in all the images, videos and audio material here.