Mary’s early career was at the BBC, where she appeared on radio and worked as scriptwriter and director on children’s TV programmes including Newsround, Blue Peter and Jackanory. On leaving the BBC, her theatre training took her to Spain, Russia and Thailand as well as the UK. She has directed plays in London, regional theatre and at the Edinburgh Festival. As an actor, she has recently appeared in several classic plays (Shakespeare and Wilde), a modern children’s musical, and several short new plays. She has also run film- making and drama workshops for young people in the UK and Poland. One project for the Media Trust involved creating a short film by school students, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency.