Garth Williams is an Actor / Producer / Writer / Director and Creative Technologist with a background in the mediums of Theatre, Outdoor Arts and Filmmaking, with over 20 years professional experience. He is the founding director of Safety Catch Ltd.
Safety Catch Ltd is built around a body of work, from Immersive XR & Game Development – through Physical & Digital Theatre – to Music Videos & Short Films – via Interactive Installations & Outdoor Arts. We strive to make astonishing work that immerses the audience at the heart of the experience.
Safety Catch Ltd aims to create connection and community through shared human stories, which are how we understand ourselves and each other. The essential core of all Safety Catch projects, no matter what medium, is always the story and how it relates to the audience.
Having spent 15 years developing a performance practice as an actor, physical theatre performer, and clown – exploring the two masks of theatre, with over 10 years mentored by long term Grotowski Workcenter alumni member Ang Gey Pin in 20 intensive week long workshops, while attending 20 week long Clown and physical comedy masterclasses, and training for 18 months as a clown doctor.
Central to this practice as research, and the fruit of this work, has been the creation of a trilogy of theatre and outdoor arts shows based on the thematic imperative of psychosis and psychiatry, or madness in medicine:
– The Bird of Paradise – based on R.D.Laing’s abstract prose poem about his medical training, psychiatry and a hallucinatory vision atop the proverbial mountain top.
– Doctor! Doctor!! which was redeveloped as D.O.C. – a street theatre comedy about an epidemic remade as a comedy about AI in medicine.
– The Ward Round – an immersive live performance event based on the lived experience totalling a year over a decade spent as a psychiatric inpatient. Extensive R&D on this has lead to the use of 3D graphic software and game engine Unreal Engine and their MetaHuman avatars in live performance, and the development of The Ward Round project as a video game which is now the core focus of Safety Catch Ltd.
Garth has extensive experience in video production, specialising in showreels and event videography, alongside short films and music videos, working freelance in delivering projects as a combined solo director, producer, camera operator and editor, with well over 10,000 hours of video editing completed.
After training as an actor, Garth spent a year studying new media and television production and became a certified apple Final Cut Pro video editor. He has also used interactive A/V software Isadora as a core feature of his work for several years, completing an ACE supported Develop Your Creative Process (DYCP) in exploring Motion Capture, infrared tracking and projection mapping with the Isadora software in 2021, mentored directly by L Wilson Spiro – a core member of the Isadora software team, who has collaborated with Safety Catch Ltd on all projects since.
Garth Williams has produced co-directed, co-written, co-devised and performed in 5 digital / physical theatre shows, 4 outdoor arts shows and numerous video projects, while also appearing in other companies theatre projects and outdoor arts shows. He has extensive experience delivering as a workshop leader in everything from drama games to stop frame animation.
Safety Catch Ltd integrates creative digital technology in all of our work. Crucial to this is the separation of the theatrical and the technical aspects, often using thus space to create a sleight of hand, an interactive or magical moment, enhancing stories, performances, and the audience experience.