Kris Haddow

Born in Dumfriesshire in 1981, Haddow was raised in Kelloholm in the former mining village of Kirkconnel and schooled in neighbouring Sanquhar. He moved to Paisley, Renfrewshire, in 2000 with the ambition of pursuing acting as a career. He spent ten years appearing in musicals and plays with various community theatre and profit share companies in Glasgow, while also working as a supporting artist with companies such as Scottish Ballet, the National Theatre of Scotland and BBC Scotland. Haddow graduated the University of Glasgow with an MLitt in creative writing with merit in 2016, and is currently a PhD research candidate on their Doctor of Fine Arts creative writing programme. Before this, he had studied creative writing over several years at the Open University with a focus on writing for the stage. During this period, he started to produce a body of short stories and poems written in his native Lallans tongue, developing a passion for Scots language dialect representation. He began to teach workshops in Scots, which he expanded to include Ulster Scots dialect for the Ulster-Scots Agency in Northern Ireland. He returned to the Open University in 2019/20 to complete the BA (Hons) arts and humanities with creative writing he had originally started, graduating with first-class honours. A classically trained baritone, Haddow's voice was coached by two private tutors over an eight-year period. Though he received no formal acting training, he attended night schools at both the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Citizens' Theatre, where he went on to appear as both musician and supporting artist in several studio and main stage productions.

His plays and monologues include The Bench (2009), Ronnie's Story (2010 version), 2h:9m:37s (2011) first produced for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival before touring Scotland in 2012, Make Your Move (2011) and A Not So Dirty Protest (2012) both performed and broadcast live online as part of the National Theatre of Scotland's Five Minute Theatre events. Haddow was mentored by the Playwrights' Studio, Scotland, in 2011/12, and announced as one of the Traverse Fifty in 2013, where 50 emerging writers were selected to work with the Traverse Theatre as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. His play Best Seat in Town (2013) received readings in January and August as part of the Festival, with Haddow labelled 'one to watch out for'.

• Ronnie's Story (2011) in A Touch on the Shoulder • The Incomer (2022) in New Writing Scotland 40 • The Auld Yin (2023) in Gutter 27 • Confession o a Mystery Shopper (2023) in Gutter 28

• On Times Austere (2012) in Windows for Burns Night (2013)