Meet the Off Mic judges and faciliators

Our brilliant team of judges went through almost 300 applications to find our 100+ workshop participants

  • Almass Badat (she/her)

    Almass Badat is a Director, Creative Consultant and DJ who tells compassionate, colourful stories. Her disciplines span across film-directing, DJing, collage-making, photography, hosting, mentoring, programming & more.

    Notable collaborators include: Kérastase, Fender, Amazon Music, British Council, Tay Iwar, Elrow, BBC Asian Network, The Science Gallery, ICA, Netflix, V&A, Boiler Room, BBC, Trippin World, WorldwideFM, NTS, BoxOut FM & DAZED. Almass is a judge for the British Podcast Awards and the BRITS Voting Academy and is member of the Soho House committee.

    Hear Almass on the bi-weekly What is this Behaviour? podcast, explore her film, audio & photography and check out Dialled In, where she leads the festival’s Marketing & Comms.

  • Rachel Byrne (she/her)

    Rachel Byrne is a freelance podcast producer. She specialises in narrative and factual storytelling and makes work for Audible, Spotify, BBC Sounds, BBC Earth, Vespucci, Aunt Nell and more.

    Rachel also has a background in music and entertainment radio, working in-house for BBC Audio and for indies on programmes for BBC Radio 6 Music as well as R1, 1Xtra, R2, R3 and BBC World Service. Rachel also works with organisations including Reform Radio, Multitrack, A New Direction and Content Is Queen to empower future generations of audio makers.

  • Kit Callin (they/them)

    Kit Callin is a senior audio producer at Reduced Listening. They make music radio for the BBC, and arts podcasts for organisations like Serpentine and Factory International. They are the founder of MOOAR Residency, and run a variety of workshops and audio open mic nights to support others getting into audio. Kit won Best Music Producer at the Audio Production Awards 2023.

  • Reuben Christian (he/him)

    Reuben is an edutainer: a category-defying combination of event host, public speaker, moderator, facilitator, coach, TV presenter, and comedian. Using his signature blend of humour plus humanity, he uplifts any space he’s in and naturally forms fast, deep connections with individuals and groups from all walks of life. In a nutshell, his work is all about inspiring new possibilities, and he does this by creating spaces for us to connect, collaborate and expand.

    Reuben extends his visionary thinking into transformative spaces of his own. He is the founder and facilitator of Dream Rehab: a live show and curriculum that harnesses the power of community to help people achieve their personal goals. He co-hosts the What Is This Behaviour podcast, on which he speaks to South Asian trailblazers who are rewriting cultural narratives. And he has been an alternative education mentor for Samsung Not A School, designed to inspire and enable the next generation of innovators

  • Zezi Ifore (she/her)

    Zezi Ifore is an artist, broadcaster and founder of ZIP, a culture-focussed creative consultancy whose clients and collaborators include Prada Mode, Art Dubai, Elevation 1049, London Design Festival, Tate, South London Gallery and the Venice Biennale.

  • Dan Jackson (he/him)

    Dan is a skilled Head of Production with two decades of experience working across production and broadcasting in TV, radio and podcasting. Dan's made content for Spotify, the BBC, ITV, and Crooked Media with credits including Pod Save The UK, The South Bank Show, Nailing It, and Sunday amongst many others.

    Dan is an expert in sustainable production, having turned Coronation Street into the world's first sustainable TV series and he’s won a number of awards for his work in this area. Dan combines his production-management, editorial and technical skill in his role and is currently very proud to work as Head of Production and an Exec at Reduced Listening.

  • Favour Jonathan (she/her)

    I am a multidisciplinary London-based artist born in Benin City Nigeria. I gained a BA( Hons) in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (CSM) in 2019 developing my artistic practice by researching African and British history. My Graduating sculpture, Ododo and Divinity was created to honour women who have changed how black women see themselves through time. The work was purchased by the University and is now part of Central Saint Martin’s Archival Collection.

    My works are culturally stimulated creations, which operate as representations of my understanding as I navigate history through the marks left behind in our surroundings now. I use storytelling within my sculptures as a way of educating and informing young people as I strongly believe that knowing your past helps guide your future (Sankofa).

    As part of my practice as an artist, I have worked with outreach teams in schools, universities, and community youth centres across London setting up programmes, hosting workshops and helping young people with mentoring and getting into university.

  • Tatum Swithenbank (they/them)

    Tatum is a queer disabled presenter, producer, and consultant. They have an extensive portfolio in audiomaking, public speaking, advocacy, and workshop facilitation. Notable collaborations include Audible, BBC Sounds, We Create Space, Bumble, Guardian Fashion, and Radio 4. Tatum is a Roundhouse creative alumni and spent two years on the Board of Trustees.

    Tatum is skilled at igniting powerful stories and conversations through radio and podcasting. They have a project called Honey and the Hex, exploring the origins, traditions, and intersections of folklore and where they lie today.

Our inspiring facilitators ran eight fantastic workshops

  • Emma Barnaby (she/her)

    Sound design workshop

    Emma is an award-winning freelance audio producer, sound designer, and musician based in London. She creates narrative audio series, with a central focus on personal testimony and rich sound design. Since beginning her career in audio in 2018, she's created work for Audible, the BBC, Politico, and many more. As a musician, she performs with a variety of acts including Astrid Sonne, Jerkcurb, Woom, and Levitation Orchestra.

  • Elaina Boateng (she/her)

    Production management workshop

    Elaina Boateng is the Production Manager for the BBC Studios Factual Podcast Unit. She manages their dynamic slate of premium podcasts including true crime investigation series, music documentaries and history series. The Unit's recent podcast titles include: History's Secret Heroes hosted by Helena Bonham Carter, multi-award winning Obscene: The Dublin Scandal hosted by Adrian Dunbar and Mother, Neighbor, Russian Spy hosted by Rosamund Pike for Audible.

    Elaina's experience at the BBC and BBC Studios spans over a 9 year period where she has worked in audio as well as TV across genres such as Science, Documentaries, Factual Entertainment and Digital Storytelling, delivering content to the BBC but also to the commercial sector. Her TV production credits include a Greta Thunberg Documentary - Bend The Curve, Top Gear, Sir David Attenborough’s Extinction-The Facts, The One Show and Award nominated 8 Days: To The Moon and Back, to name but a few.

    She loves that storytelling through audio demands the imagination. Hosting events and radio continue to be a passion, as well as inspiring the next media generation's leaders.

  • Alison Holder

    Audiobook production workhop

    Alison has produced Theatre, Short Film and Audio and has worked with Talawa Theatre Company, The Mono Box, Festival.org, Unlimited Theatre, English Touring Theatre, Bush Theatre, Audible and Penguin Random House.

    Theatre includes: Mugabe My Dad & Me (ETT/Brixton House/Theatre Royal York); Black Victorians (UK & International Tour - Festival.org); Run it Back, The Tide (Talawa Theatre Company); PLAYSTART (The Mono Box); Future Bodies RashDash/unlimited theatre/HOME and UK tour; Truth by Helen Chadwick and Steven Hoggett (Birmingham Rep, Southbank Centre and UK tour); Becoming by Ayo-Dele Edwards (Stratford Circus Arts Centre); Booby’s Bay by Henry Darke (Finborough Theatre and UK Tour); How It Ended by Hannah Khalil (Bush Theatre).

    Short Film: Reset the Stage (The Mono Box); Tales from the Frontline (Talawa Theatre Company).

    Audio: The Black Curriculum by various authors (DK); The Bay by LJ Ross, Ukrainian Short Stories by various authors, If You Read This by Kereen Getten, A Visible Man by Edward Enninful, None of the Above by Travis Alabanza, Grace-Ella by Sharon Marie Jones (Audible); Talawa Stories 2 (Talawa), Talawa Stories 1 (Talawa/feral Inc.), Single, (BBCR4); Thunderclap by Laura Cumming, Parenting for Humans by Emma Svanberg, Black Joy Edited by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff & Timi Sortire (Penguin Random House); Monologue Library (The Mono Box); Margaret White and the Alcoran of Mahomet by Hannah Khalil (British Arab Centre/Dr Johnson’s House) (LunAH).

  • Dan Jackson

    Production management workshop

    Dan is a skilled Head of Production with two decades of experience working across production and broadcasting in TV, radio and podcasting. Dan's made content for Spotify, the BBC, ITV, and Crooked Media with credits including Pod Save The UK, The South Bank Show, Nailing It, and Sunday amongst many others.

    Dan is an expert in sustainable production, having turned Coronation Street into the world's first sustainable TV series and he’s won a number of awards for his work in this area. Dan combines his production-management, editorial and technical skill in his role and is currently very proud to work as Head of Production and an Exec at Reduced Listening.

  • Femi Oriogun-Williams (they/them)

    Audio editing 101 workshop

    Femi Oriogun-Williams is a freelance musician, audio producer and writer living and working in London. They recently completed a residency at Cecil Sharp House, had a sound installation in collaboration with Jay Bernard at Studio Voltaire, and wrote and produced a piece of experimental radio art for Weimar Experimental Radio with funding from Goethe Institut. They are a recipient of Arts Council Funding for a radio based AI space opera and teach Audio Production at Goldsmiths University.

  • Caroline Sarah Raphael (she/her)

    Audiobook production workshop

    Caroline worked as a theatre director before joining BBC Radio where she stayed for many years. Her posts include first female Head of Radio Drama, and Commissioning Editor for Radio 4 for Drama, Comedy and Fiction. She went onto work as Editorial Director Penguin Random House Audio and now runs Dora Productions Ltd making award winning audio drama, fiction and documentaries.

    She also works as an executive producer for a variety of other independent production companies. Caroline is an Associate Lecturer at University of Arts London Central St Martins on their MA Dramatic Writing and is a supervising tutor on the MA Creative Writing at Cambridge University. She has run audio training for organisations such as BBC New Creatives, Screen South, Audible & LAMDA and Talawa Theatre Company.

  • Georgina Savage (she/her)

    Narrative documentary making workshop

    Georgina Savage is the Lead Podcast Producer at RAW, the film production company known for shows like The Tinder Swindler, Three Identical Strangers and Don't F*** with Cats. Georgina was brought into RAW to establish their podcast department, and to develop their slate. Since then, she has developed various programs which have been successfully commissioned, including Gay Girl Gone (CBC, 2023), The Second Victim (Audible, 2023), Cursed (Audible, 2024) and Making Of A Swindler (Netflix, 2022). Georgina is also currently the producer of Cursed.

    Before RAW, Georgina was an independent producer, and developed and produced 3 standalone narrative podcast series, Silent Waves (Casefile, 2018), The Trap (VWT, 2021) and The Invisible Hand (Casefile, 2021). Georgina's background studies were in documentary film production, and she worked in the film industry in Australia before making the move to audio.

  • Polly Thomas (she/her)

    Audio drama directing workshop

    Polly Thomas is an award winning freelance director/producer. Recent work includes a 10 part musical version of The Aeneid by Maria Davhana Headley, starring Will Young, Audible; co directing Exemplar by Ben and Max Ringham, with Dan Rebellato, Radio 4 and BBC Sounds; and co directing The Chatterleys with Jenny Sealey of Graeae, Radio 4. Through her company Thomas Carter Projects, she produced 24 Hours of Peace in 2019, Neil Bartlett’s epic celebration of peace live on stage and national radio. www.pollythomas.org.uk