British Theatre Guide podcast (British Theatre Guide)

In 2016, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield produced its first ever professional pantomime, Cinderella, written by one of the UK’s leading pantomime writers, Andrew Pollard, who has been brought back to write this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk.

Andrew is taking a year off from playing Dame at Greenwich Theatre to tour in Around the World in 80 Days as Phileas Fogg. However there are still 6 of his panto scripts in production this Christmas around the UK.

In this episode, Andrew speaks extensively about his views on what pantos should contain, the qualities required for good panto performers and how to deal with changing requirements, demands and attitudes to keep panto fresh and entertaining for new audiences.

Jack and the Beanstalk by Andrew Pollard will run at Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield from 8 December 2017 to 6 January 2018. Andrew’s other pantos this year include Cinderella at Greenwich Theatre from 17 November 2017, another Jack and the Beanstalk at Salisbury Playhouse from 2 December 2017 and Beauty and the Beast at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 30 November 2017, all finishing on 7 January 2018.

Andrew can be seen on tour in Around the World in 80 Days until January.

(Photo of Andrew Pollard as Long Joan Silver in Peter Pan at Greenwich Theatre credit Robert Day)

Conrad Nelson’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing for Northern Broadsides Theatre Company had a cast change on the first day of rehearsals when Reece Dinsdale had to drop out of the key role of Benedick due to a family illness and Robin Simpson took over the role.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Robin during the second week of rehearsals about the additional pressure that may have put on him and also about the production as a whole, playing Shakespeare, performing comedy and even a bit of panto.

The Northern Broadsides production of Much Ado About Nothing runs at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire from 8 February to 2 March 2019, before embarking on a national tour until the end of May to The Dukes Lancaster, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Salisbury Playhouse, Derby Theatre, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Viaduct Theatre in Halifax, The Lowry in Salford, York Theatre Royal and Harrogate Theatre.

David Chadderton talks to Zach Reino, Jessica McKenna and Nick Semar of American comedy group Baby Wants Candy, one of the longest-running companies to offer a brand new, fully-improvised musical at each show.

The Completely Improvised Full Band Musical runs at Assembly Roxy until 25 August 2014, plus the same group's All Star Improv Explosion Show runs at Underbelly Bristo Square until the same date.

For more information, see babywantscandy.com

Also, Philip Fisher talks with James Grieve, co-artistic director of new writing company Paines Plough, about the company’s history, its new touring pop-up theatre Roundabout and its four Edinburgh productions.

For more information, see www.painesplough.com

Writer, director and actor Ryan Calais Cameron is artistic director and co-founder of theatre company Nouveau Riche, and his play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy is about to open at London’s Royal Court Theatre.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Ryan a couple of weeks before the Royal Court opening and asked him about the play and its origins, about creating a theatre company without knowing how to go about doing so and about making theatre for the people from the community in which he grew up.

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy runs at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 31 March to 30 April 2022.

(Photo of Ryan Calais Cameron, credit: Ali Wright)

The winners of the £16,000 first prize and three judges prizes of £8,000 in the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting were announced at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester on 22 November 2013.

We present some highlights of the ceremony itself, followed by a chat with winning playwright Anna Jordan and three members of the judging panel: broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray, Bruntwood chairman Michael Oglesby and Royal Exchange artistic director Sarah Frankcom.

Jonathan Cake is an actor who has worked extensively on stage, film and television in the UK and the US, but his first love has always been theatre, and many of his friends in the business feel the same.

In order to investigate what it is about theatre that keeps drawing them back, he has started a podcast, Stage Door Jonny, where he talks to some of those friends including Sam Mendes, Damian Lewis, David Harewood, Jez Butterworth, Ethan Hawke, and, in the very first episode, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Jonathan about the podcast and the often quite personal revelations of his celebrity guests, as well as about his own career and why he keeps coming back to theatre.

You can find Stage Door Jonny on all the usual podcast platforms.

The 2024 summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London will open with a new production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley, an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and an Associate Director for Cheek by Jowl.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Owen at a break during rehearsals about his approach to the play, his love of Shakespeare and the perhaps unusual way he was originally introduced to the Bard’s work.

Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley runs at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre from 3 May to 8 June 2024.

Playwright Anya Reiss, whose first play was produced by London's Royal Court Theatre less than four years ago, talks about her adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, written for Southwark Playhouse and currently being revived by Manchester's Library Theatre Company.

Anya talks about her original works—Spur of the Moment and The Acid Test at the Royal Court, Forty-Five Minutes for National Theatre Connections and a monologue for the Bush Theatre's Sixty-Six Books—plus her adaptations, with new versions of Chekhov's Three Sisters for Southwark and Wedekind's Spring Awakening for Headlong both about to go into rehearsal.

The Seagull will be the last play directed by Chris Honer as artistic director of the Library Theatre Company. It will be performed in the Quays Theatre at The Lowry in Salford from 21 February to 8 March 2014.

For more information, see www.librarytheatre.com or www.thelowry.com.

(Photo of Anya Reiss by Emma Bullivant)

Playwright Tim Fountain and director Mike Bradwell talk about Queen of the Nile, a production they have worked on together for Hull Truck Theatre.

Fountain is best known for his controversial plays such as Sex Addict (Royal Court), Resident Alien (Bush Theatre), Dandy in the Underworld and Julie Burchill Is Away (Soho Theatre).

Bradwell founded Hull Truck in 1972, but hasn't directed for it for more than 30 years. He has also been artistic director of The Bush, one of London's leading new writing theatres.

Queen of the Nile will run from 18 April to 11 May 2013 at Hull Truck Theatre. For more information, see www.hulltruck.co.uk or call the box office on 01482 323638.

Actor Martin Barrass on playing the fool in his 28th panto at York Theatre Royal, the art and the craft of slapstick, having the part of Alfie written for him by Richard Bean in One Man, Two Guvnors and his home town of Hull becoming City of Culture.

Martin will appear in Aladdin and the Twankeys by Berwick Kaler at York Theatre Royal from 12 December 2013 to 1 February 2014. See www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk for details.

BTG's Mark Smith speaks to acclaimed director Sally Cookson about her forthcoming production of family classic The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The show is set to transform the West Yorkshire Playhouse's main theatre, the Quarry, into an in-the-round stage for the first time in the venue's history.

Speaking towards the end of the company's seven-week creative process, Cookson talks about the "dark days" you can have when devising, as well as the process's moments of joy and inspiration. She discusses what it was that triggered her excitement about adapting this well-loved children's book, as well as her shifting role in the rehearsal room as she works with a range of inventive individuals from different performance traditions.

"I go into rehearsals not knowing. It is terrifying, devising, nail-biting. But it's thrilling. You offer up a challenge: how are we going to do this? And you get fifteen brilliant ideas."

(Photo of Sally Cookson by Anthony Robling)

Nottingham Playhouse is presenting a new play, The Clothes They Stood Up In, which is described as a “bittersweet exploration of marriage, dreams and lives unlived”.

Adrian Scarborough appears in the production and adapted the script from a story by Alan Bennett.

Scarborough spoke to BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme about writing the script, getting the go-ahead from Bennett himself and how his career has developed over two-and-a-half decades.

The Clothes They Stood Up In runs at Nottingham Playhouse from 9 September until 1 October 2022.

In July 2013, Manchester's 24:7 Theatre Festival, dedicated to producing brand new one-hour plays in venues around the city, will celebrate the tenth of its annual events.

Actor David Slack, who co-founded the festival in 2004 and is still its producer, reflects on ten years of putting new writing on stage and talks about new developments for this year's event.

Following this, five of the writers from this year's festival talk about their plays at the media launch in June 2013 at Manchester's Comedy Store: Alice Brockway (Blunted), Thomas Bloor (Night on the Field of Waterloo), Richard O'Neill (Temper), Micheál Jacob (Daylight Robbery) and Catherine Manford (Billy the Monster and Me).

For more information, see www.247theatrefestival.co.uk.

Ben Roddy is an experienced pantomime performer and, in his 15th season, he takes on the role of Dame for the first time.

Simon Sladen speaks to him about his theatrical career and playing Nurse Nellie in this year's Sleeping Beauty at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury.

John Lloyd, the TV and radio producer behind many classic comedy programmes from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Not the Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image to Have I Got News For You, The News Quiz and QI, will be asking audiences to put his accumulated knowledge on all subjects to the test at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe in his show Do You Know Who I Am?.

BTG Editor David Chadderton asked him about the show, about his career and about the things that continue to fascinate him enough to make producing programmes like QI more like an addiction than a job.

John Lloyd: Do You Know Who I Am? will be at The Stand’s New Town Theatre on George Street, Edinburgh from 5 to 15 August 2022 at 3:40PM every day.

For more details and tickets, go to edfringe.com or www.thestand.co.uk.

The Classic Thriller Season has been running at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham since 1988, produced by Colin McIntyre until his death in 2012.

The season has been kept up by Tabs Productions, which has continued the format of presenting four plays over a four-week period.

Karen Henson and John Goodrum of Tabs talk to Midlands Editor Steve Orme about this year's season, about continuing a long-running tradition and about their contribution to keeping the rep system alive.

Manchester's Library Theatre Company has created a trilogy of site specific works about Manchester since leaving its home of more than half a century at Manchester Central Library in 2010.

The third of these, Manchester Sound: The Massacre, written by Polly Wiseman and directed by Paul Jepson, will take place at a secret location in Manchester city centre between 8 June and 6 July 2013.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Polly and Paul in Manchester a week before the show's opening.

For more information on the show, see www.librarytheatre.com.

Freedom Studios is an inter-cultural theatre company based in Bradford, West Yorkshire which is about to open a new play by Tajinder Singh Hayer set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy version of Bradford called North Country at The Wild Woods in the heart of the town where it is set.

Alex Chisholm, the play’s director and recently appointed co-Artistic Director of Freedom Studios, spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about the play and about the philosophy behind Freedom Studios.

North Country will be at The Wild Woods in Bradford from 26 October to 5 November 2016.

(Rehearsal image of Alex Chisholm by Maria Spadafora)

Edinburgh-based Puppet State Theatre Company has become famous for its stage adaptation of Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees, which has toured the world for ten years.

The company’s new production is J R R Tolkien’s short story Leaf By Niggle, performed as a solo piece by Richard Medrington, who spoke to us during the first Scottish tour of the show.

Leaf By Niggle will be performed at venues around Scotland until July 2016 before a full run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. The Man Who Planted Trees can be seen in York, Southport and Rossendale in June and July before another tour later in the year.

(Photo of Richard Medrington in Leaf By Niggle by Brian Hartley)

In common with most of the UK’s theatres and other arts venues, HOME Manchester announced it would close soon after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement on 16 March 2020 appealing to the public to stay away from public places to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

A week later, HOME announced a series of commissions, titled Homemakers, from artists asking them to devise new works in their homes for audiences who will also be at home.

The initiative was created by HOME’s Associate Director Jude Christian who spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton online, both in their own homes, a few days after the announcement. Jude explained about the project and the commissioning process and about some wider issues relating to the impact on theatre of the country’s current shutdown.

Homemakers aims to launch its first works online in early April 2020.

BTG's Philip Fisher talks with theatre critics Mark Fisher and Neil Cooper about their picks of this year's Fringe and International Festivals.

The productions discussed include 887 by Robert Lepage and The Encounter by Simon McBurney in EIF and, in the Edinburgh Fringe programme, the Jennifer Tremblay Trilogy at Assembly Roxy and Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour at the Traverse.

Mark Fisher is an Edinburgh-based freelance journalist and critic specialising in theatre and the arts who writes for The Guardian, Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman. He is the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: how to make your show a success and How to Write About Theatre: A Manual for Critics, Students and Bloggers.

Neil Cooper is an arts writer and critic based in Edinburgh who currently writes for The Herald, The Quietus, The List and Scottish Art News and has written for Bella Caledonia and Product. He has contributed chapters to The Suspect Culture Book and to Dear Green Sounds: Glasgow's Music Through Time and Buildings.

59E59 Theatres in New York City has presented a regular Brits Off Broadway season of British theatre productions since 2004.

This year, the season runs from 22 April to 29 June and features eight productions that were recently performed in the UK.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Val Day, 59E59’s Artistic Director, and Brian Beirne, Managing Director, about the origins of the season, their selection process, the financing of this theatrical ‘unicorn’ (as Brian calls it) and the productions in the 2025 programme:

• The Last Laugh, written and directed by Paul Hendy, from Evolution Productions and Jamie Wilson Productions from 22 April to 25 May.
• The Ungodly, written and directed by Joanna Carrick, from Red Rose Chain from 23 April to 11 May.
• The Mistake by Michael Mears, directed by Rosamunde Hutt, from Essential Theatre from 24 April to 11 May.
• Gertrude Lawrence: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening written and performed by Lucy Stevens and directed by Sarah-Louise Young from Astor Theatre from 13 to 25 May.
• Shellshocked, written and directed by Philip Stokes, from Richard Jordan Productions and 412, from 14 May to 8 June.
• A Special Relationship by Tim Marriott and Brian Dykstra, directed by Margarett Perry, from 29 May to 29 June.
• Pride and Prejudice adapted by Abigail Pickard Price, who also directs, with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches from Guildford Shakespeare Company from 30 May to 29 June.
• Kafka, written and performed by Jack Klaff and directed by Colin Watkeys from Twilight Theatre Co from 12 to 29 June.

Mark Smith talks to RashDash's Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland about The Darkest Corners, a bold new commission for Transform Festival about fear and feminism on the streets.

The award-winning theatremakers also discuss their recent productions We Want You To Watch and Two Man Show and how their work blends the political and the personal.

"If we're going to bring this down one brick at a time, we're going to need to do it all together."

The Darkest Corners runs at the Transform Festival in a site-specific location in Holbeck from 20 to 22 April.

Writer-director Paul Hendy brings back three comedians through performers Bob Golding, Damian Williams and Simon Cartwright.

Every year, the Edinburgh Fringe programme features solo performances about real people, which in the past have included Bob Golding as Eric Morecambe in Tim Whitnall’s Morecambe from 2009, Damian Williams as Tommy Cooper in Being Tommy Cooper by Tom Green from 2012 and Simon Cartwright as Bob Monkhouse in The Man Called Monkhouse by Alex Lowe from 2015.

Writer-director Paul Hendy brought these three performers together for a film short called The Last Laugh in 2017, which he has now extended for a stage production featuring the same cast.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke with the four of them about the play, what drove these great comics—and some of their demons—and why they have returned to playing them so many times.

The Last Laugh will be in Studio One at Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh at 1:20PM every day except Monday 12 August from 31 July to 25 August 2024.

For more information and tickets, go to Edfringe.com or Assembly Festival and search for “The Last Laugh”.

Derby Theatre is bringing back a show it produced in 2014, Neil Duffield’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

For this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme chats to Oliver O’Shea who was associate director on the theatre’s last two Christmas productions, former Flying Pickets singer Gareth Williams who plays Scrooge and Aimée Kwan, taking her first professional roles as Belle and Beth.

A Christmas Carol will run at Derby Theatre from 29 November until 4 January 2020.

(Photo of Oliver O’Shea, Aimée Kwan and Gareth Williams, credit Steve Orme)

Lotte Wakeham, who took over as Artistic Director of Bolton's Octagon Theatre in February 2019, spoke to us after three months in the job about launching her first season in the post, her background as a director and an Associate Artistic Director of Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre and her plans for the future at the Octagon, which remains closed for refurbishment until spring 2020.

The autumn 2019 season starts with Beryl on 19 September, continuing with Seagulls starting on 24 October and I Wanna Be Yours from 11 November, all at Bolton’s Library Theatre, and then the Christmas production of Treasure Island will run from 8 December in the Premier Suite of University of Bolton Stadium.

London editor Philip Fisher speaks to some of the stars of Broadway and off-Broadway on his annual trip to New York's theatreland.

Bryce Pinkham stars in the hit Broadway show The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. This is a musical based on the same story as the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. He talks about his road to stardom and also the pleasure of working in a Broadway success story.

Eric Tucker and Andrus Nichols are the artistic directors behind Bedlam’s four-performer double bill of Hamlet and Saint Joan playing off-Broadway at Culture Project. They discuss the company's ethos and the way in which it manages to revive classics on a shoestring, giving perspectives both as actors and part of the creative team.

Timberlake Wertenbaker was commissioned by the Octagon Theatre in Bolton to write Winter Hill, named after a local landmark most famous for its TV mast.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Timberlake when she had spent nearly a week in rehearsals for the play in Bolton, and then a couple of weeks later to three of the cast: Cathy Tyson, Souad Faress and Janet Henfry.

Winter Hill by Timberlake Wertenbaker will be at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton from 11 May to 3 June 2017.

(Photo of the Winter Hill cast in rehearsal by Ray Jefferson, Bolton Camera Club)

Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to actors Sean McKenzie and Jo Mousley about performing Jim Cartwright's popular two-hander Two at Derby Theatre.

The play, which premièred at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton in 1989, focuses on a single evening in a Northern pub, with the same two actors playing the feuding landlord and landlady as well as an array of customers who visit their establishment.

Two will run at Derby Theatre from 2 to 24 March 2018. For more information.

BTG panto editor Simon Sladen speaks to pantomime company Imagine Theatre’s Managing Director Steve Boden and Robert Marsden, director of the Victoria Theatre, Halifax’s pantomime and associate professor at Staffordshire University.

2018 will see Imagine Theatre present 14 pantomimes in venues across the United Kingdom having grown from 8 productions in 2009.

In this episode, Steve and Robert discuss Imagine Theatre’s style of pantomime, the company and genre’s recent evolution and the state of the industry today. Steve and Robert also reveal where in Pantoland they’d like to travel to if they had their very own magic wand.

In a wide-ranging discussion, BTG's Philip Fisher talks with theatre producer Richard Jordan about this year's Edinburgh Fringe and International Festival highlights, star ratings, reviews web sites, Edinburgh venues old and new and more, including Richard's own Fringe productions.

2024 marks twenty years since Just the Tonic venues first appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, although founder Darrell Martin had been putting on shows at the festival since 2002 and started the company by running Sunday night comedy clubs in 1994.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Darrell before the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe about 20 years on the Fringe, the current state of the Edinburgh festival season, getting into the business as a fan of comedy in the ‘80s, running comedy clubs around the country and about producing comedy as a decades-long act of procrastination to avoid writing material for his own stand-up act.

Just the Tonic will be hosting more than 190 shows across five venues during the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more information about its Edinburgh programme and to book tickets online, see edinburgh.justthetonic.com—or you can also book at Edfringe.com.

You can see what’s on at the other Just the Tonic venues around the UK and book tickets for them at www.justthetonic.com.

Liverpool playwright Lizzy Nunnery's new play Narvik directed by Hannah Tyrell-Pinder for Box of Tricks will open its national tour at the end of January 2017 following a successful run at Liverpool Playhouse in September 2015.

Lizzy spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton a couple of weeks before the tour opened about the process of creating the play from stories from her grandfather and other World War II sailors stationed in the Arctic and about her career writing for stage and radio over the last ten years.

Narvik opens at HOME Manchester from 31 January to 4 February 2017 before touring to Stahl Theatre in Oundle, Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Mumford Theatre at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, Mac in Birmingham, Clwyd Theatre Cymru in Mold, York Theatre Royal, The Unity at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, The Met in Bury, The Carriageworks in Leeds and Harrogate Theatre before ending at New Diorama Theatre in London from 21 to 25 March.

Laurie Sansom has been Artistic Director at the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal and Derngate in Northampton, but he has more recently taken over at Northern Broadsides in Halifax.

His first production there as director is a revival of Quality Street by J M Barrie, the title of which has a special connection with the company’s home town. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him a couple of weeks into rehearsals about the play and the ‘forgotten’ Barrie canon and about his plans for this well-known touring theatre company, and he also looked back briefly on his time at National Theatre of Scotland.

Quality Street opens at The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax from 14 to 22 February 2020 before touring to

• The Lowry, Salford, 25–29 February
• The Dukes, Lancaster, 3–7 March
• Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, 10–14 March
• Liverpool Playhouse, 17–21 March
• Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, 24–28 March
• Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 7–11 April
• Derby Theatre, 14–18 April
• Leeds Playhouse, 21–25 April
• New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 28 April–9 May
• Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 12–16 May
• Harrogate Theatre, 19–23 May
• Hull Truck Theatre, 2–6 June
• York Theatre Royal, 9–13 June

The next production to open at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London is a new adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, adapted for the stage by Suzanne Heathcote and directed by Christopher Haydon, Rose Theatre’s Artistic Director.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Christopher just before a rehearsal for the play about the adaptation, working with one of his literary heroes, the necessity for co-productions and the state of arts funding and arts education in the UK at the moment.

Never Let Me Go will run at the Rose Theatre from 20 September to 12 October 2024 before touring to Royal and Derngate in Northampton from 16 to 26 October, Malvern Theatres from 29 October to 2 November, Bristol Old Vic from 5 to 23 November and Chichester Festival Theatre from 26 to 30 November.

(Photo of Christopher Haydon in rehearsal for Never Let Me Go, credit DMLK)

BTG London editor Philip Fisher talks to writer Nell Dunn in her Fulham home.

Nell Dunn first became a published writer with Up the Junction, a collection of short stories, in 1963, then went on to become a successful novelist (Poor Cow, 1967) and playwright (Steaming, 1981). She co-wrote a screen adaptation of Poor Cow with Ken Loach, who directed the film in 1967, which has been digitally restored for a re-release both in cinemas and for home viewing.

Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak’s musical Godspell, based on the Gospel of St Matthew, is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

To commemorate this, Thomas Hopkins & Michael Quinn for Ginger Quiff Media in association with Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre are to stream an online concert version of the musical in August 2020 with a cast headed by West End stars Ruthie Henshall, Darren Day, Sam Tutty, Ria Jones and Jenna Russell.

Also starring is Jodie Steele, who was touring as Katherine Howard in the hit musical Six until the coronavirus pandemic caused the theatres to close.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Jodie a month before the concert about the show, recording her performance at home, finding out that Stephen Schwartz knew who she was, keeping her musical theatre school going online during the lockdown and her experiences as a West End understudy amongst other things, some of which she said she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to tell us.

The 50th anniversary online concert of Godspell will be available from 27 to 29 August 2020. The performance is a charity event in aid of Hope Mill Theatre, National AIDS Trust and Acting For Others, with tickets at £15 available from the Hope Mill Theatre web site.

Actor and writer Deborah McAndrew, who played Angie Freeman in Coronation Street in the 1990s, talks about her latest play, An August Bank Holiday Lark, commissioned by Barrie Rutter of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War.

Deborah talks about her research and writing process for this play, her 20-year association with Northern Broadsides as an actor and writer and, the week after Julie Hesmondhalgh made a high-profile exit from Coronation Street, about life and career after soap.

For more information, see www.northern-broadsides.co.uk

After a record-breaking year in 2019, with more than 600,000 attendees, Brighton Fringe had to cancel its 2020 festival at fairly short notice due to the first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic in England.

However, the Fringe is back for 2021, slightly later in the year than usual, with a hybrid live and online programme of events.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Brighton Fringe CEO Julian Caddy about the festival and what it will be offering attendees this year, as well as the difficulties they have faced over the last year or so.

Brighton Fringe runs from Friday 28 May to Sunday 27 June 2021 at various venues around the town and online. For more information about the festival and the events in this year’s programme and to obtain tickets, visit the festival's web site, call 01273 917 272 or download the Brighton Fringe app from the Google Play or Apple App Store.

A new revival by Derby Theatre and Octagon Theatre Bolton will mark the 60th anniversary of John Osborne’s ground-breaking work Look Back in Anger.

BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme speaks to director Sarah Brigham and actor Patrick Knowles, who will play the role of Jimmy Porter, about the new production.

Look Back In Anger will be at Derby Theatre from 7 to 23 March and then at Octagon Theatre in Bolton from 7 to 30 April 2016.

David Wood OBE, described by the late great Times theatre critic Irving Wardle as “the national children’s dramatist”, has written more than 70 plays, including adaptations of books by Judith Kerr, Michelle Magorian, Philippa Pearce and Roald Dahl, as well as original plays of his own.

From 1959 until 2005, David kept up regular correspondence with Frank Whitbourn, whom he credits as his mentor, which is currently being edited into a book called Frank Exchanges.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to David when he was still working on the manuscript with editor Chris Abbott about the book and how Frank’s observations helped his career, as well as about writing for children, producing children’s theatre with his company Whirligig Theatre, the status of children’s theatre in the industry, cultural clashes in theatre-in-education in the 1980s and much more.

Frank Exchanges is due to be published by The Book Guild on 28 June 2023.

[Image of David Wood and Frank Whitbourn at Whitbourn's home in Winchester, 2001, credit: Mary Wright]

2014 sees Leon Craig celebrate his 13th pantomime Dame and first Beauty and the Beast at Oxtord Playhouse. He speaks to Simon Sladen about breaking into the industry, his favourite pantomime titles and reveals some of his experiences from daming up and down the country.

Keith Jack and Olly Pike star as Prince Charming and his valet Dandini in the Capitol Theatre, Horsham's pantomime Cinderella. One of panto's best-established double acts, the two roles are rarely thought of in such a way. Simon Sladen speaks to Jack and Pike about their characters and careers encompassing Any Dream Will Do, CBBC and a combined total of nine pantomimes.

Actor Greg Hicks has played many leading roles at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company over the last forty years, as well as starring on the West End and appearing on screen in films including The Mercy and Snow White and the Huntsman.

He is about to perform a one-man show, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, based on a short story by Dostoyevsky, at the new Marylebone Theatre in London.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him a few days before it opened about the play and how much more of himself he will be presenting to an audience than in other roles he has played.

He also spoke about some of his past roles, including performing naked in Romans in Britain for a role that nearly ended him up in criminal court immediately followed by appearing in full costume and mask for Peter Hall’s famous Oresteia (he credits Hall as his mentor at the National in the 1970s).

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, adapted and directed by Laurence Boswell, is at Marylebone Theatre in London from 21 March to 20 April 2024.

(Rehearsal image of Greg Hicks in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, credit Richard James Taylor)

Since 2005, Manchester-based property company Bruntwood has worked with the Royal Exchange Theatre to present the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

The 2022 ceremony was held at the Royal Exchange on 14 November.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the three of the winners—International Award winner Rochelle Fong, North West Original New Voice winner Patrick Hughes and Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting winner Nathan Queeley-Dennis—immediately after the ceremony about their work and how they felt about their awards.

Home Manchester will hold its ninth annual Re:Play Festival, which celebrates the best productions from the Manchester fringe scene from the previous year, in January 2015 at its temporary theatre space in an office block at Number One First Street.

At the launch for Re:Play, we hear from Re:Play 2015 producer Rebecca Jenner and some of the contributors to the festival: co-writer of War Stories, Rob Johnston, writer and performer of An Evening of Filth and Despair, Jenny May Morgan, and writer of Two Spirits, Chris Hoyle.

Re:Play runs from Monday 12 to Saturday 24 January 2015 on the second floor of Number One First Street, Manchester M15 4FN.

For more information, including a schedule of which productions run on which days, see homemcr.org.

Producer Richard Jordan and BTG's Philip Fisher talk about trends in Edinburgh and discuss the best shows to see.

Philip Fisher also chairs a critics panel with Joyce McMillan of The Scotsman and freelancer Mark Fisher in which they discuss Alan Ayckbourn's The Divide, Frances Poet's Adam and Ontroerend Goed’s £¥€$ (LIES) and also pick some personal favourites from Edinburgh 2017.

(Photos of Erin Doherty in The Divide by Marc Marnie; £¥€$ photo credit Thomas Dhanens)

Physical theatre company Gecko, based in Ipswich, was founded in 2001 by Amit Lahav, who is still its Artistic Director.

The company’s latest production, Kin, toured the UK in 2023 and will be at the National Theatre in London in January 2024.

Amit spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the origins of the production in the story of his grandmother Leah’s journey from Yemen to Palestine as a child in 1932 to escape persecution, how this developed to look at migration stories more widely, the politics of migration then and now and Gecko’s—and Amit’s—creative process in making theatre.

Kin will run at the Lyttelton Theatre from 12 to 27 January 2024.

(Photo of Amit Lahav in Kin by Gecko (c) Malachy Luckie)

Kneehigh Theatre Company from Cornwall is currently working on a brand new adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera titled Dead Dog in a Suitcase, with a script by regular Kneehigh writer Carl Grose and music by Charles Hazlewood, directed by Kneehigh founder Mike Shepherd.

Charles Hazlewood spoke to us from Sweden where he was conducting a concert of music from video games with the Malmö SymfoniOrkester. He talks about his involvement in the project from taking it to Mike Shepherd as an idea around three years ago through his process of creating the score in rehearsals with the performers and scriptwriter-lyricist Carl Grose.

Mike Shepherd, speaking to us at the end of the first week of rehearsals at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where the show opens in June, speaks about the evolving story and politics of the show and the influences of modern events and modern popular culture, as well as the process of bringing it to the stage.

Mike also explains how Kneehigh has developed and constantly changed direction since he founded it in 1980, and talks about some current Kneehigh projects including Kneehigh Rambles and the company's mobile theatre space the Asylum.

Dead Dog in a Suitcase runs at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool from 21 June to 12 July 2014, and then will be performed in Kneehigh’s mobile theatre, the Asylum, at The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall from 30 August to 28 September.

Charles Hazlewood’s Orchestival summer festival, with which Kneehigh is also involved, is on 19 and 20 July in Somerset.

(Rehearsal images of Mike Shepherd and Charles Hazlewood by Steve Tanner.)

Derby Theatre is to present a new play, Welfare, by local playwright Abi Zakarian, that will take audiences to The Derbyshire Miners’ Holiday Camp in Skegness, where miners went initially to convalesce and later to holiday, as it was turned into a holiday camp for Derbyshire miners and their families.

Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke to director Sarah Brigham and three of the actors, Jo Mousley, Hanna Winter and John Holt-Roberts, about the play and about the history behind it, both local and from much further afield.

Welfare will run at Derby Theatre from 28 September to 12 October 2024.

(Photo Jo Mousley, Hanna Winter, Sarah Brigham and John Holt-Roberts, credit Steve Orme)

Guy Masterson, one of the most well-known and well-respected theatre producers on the Edinburgh Fringe, this year celebrates his thirtieth consecutive festival season. However, he has announced that this is also to be his last festival visit as a producer.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Guy just after the first performance of one of the shows in his programme for this year about producing nearly 150 shows over three decades, the trials and joys of producing, writing, directing and performing at the Fringe and his decision to stop producing shows there.

In Guy’s programme for this year’s Fringe, Making Marx and Victor’s Victoria both run at the Assembly Rooms from 1 to 26 August 2024 each day at 11:35AM and 8:30PM respectively.

Guy’s solo shows Under Milk Wood and Animal Farm are both at Pleasance at EICC at 6PM, the first on 14 August and the second on 18 August.

For more information about Guy and his work, past, present and future, see the Theatre Tours International web site.

This year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival featured a series of events subtitled “a theatrical exploration”, in which well-known Scottish novels were partly staged by a director, scriptwriter and actors produced in association with Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre.

One the three novels explored in this way was Booker-nominated His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, who spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about his involvement with the project on a busy final Saturday at the 2017 Book Festival.

Also, Philip Fisher spoke to Milly Thomas who, after this interview was recorded, won a Stage Edinburgh Award for her performance in Dust, a self-penned piece directed by Sara Joyce for this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

(Production image of Milly Thomas in Dust by The Other Richard)

As the Nottingham Playhouse Sweet Vengeance season is announced, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme talks to Artistic Director Giles Croft about the season, titled "Sweet Vengeance".

Also, actress Vicky McClure and director Matt Aston talk about their revival of Stephen Lowe's Touched and crime writer John Harvey discusses his experiences of creating his first work for the theatre, an adaptation of his 2014 novel Darkness, Darkness featuring his jazz-loving detective Charlie Resnick.

Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were brought to the stage in 2014 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by Jeremy Herrin.

The third in the series, The Mirror and the Light, has opened at the Gielgud Theatre, again directed by Herrin but this time adapted by Mantel herself with Ben Miles, who has played the central character of Thomas Cromwell across all three plays.

Also returning is Nathaniel Parker as King Henry VIII. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him on the morning of the press night performance about the production, as well as about playing real people (from King Henry to Gordon Brown and Albert Speer), lockdown, playing Bond (in a manner of speaking) and just a little bit of politics.

The Mirror and the Light began previews at London’s Gielgud Theatre on 23 September 2021, opened on 6 October and is booking until 23 January 2022.

For more information about the production, see the web sites of The Mirror and the Light or The RSC. To keep up-to-date with Nat’s work and blog posts, see his web site.

(Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII in The Mirror and the Light - Photo by Marc Brenner)

Peter Straker’s first big break was in the West End première of the musical Hair in 1968, following which he has had a long and impressive career in both musical and non-musical theatre and as a recording artist, notably collaborating with his close friend Freddie Mercury.

His show based on the songs of Jacques Brel was a hit a few years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe, but this year, he is trying something new with Adventures of Straker, featuring songs from various musicals accompanied by musician Gabriele Baldocci.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Peter about his Edinburgh show, as well as a bit about his journey from Jamaica to the West End stage, performing in the taboo-breaking musical Hair just as the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain was ending on the British stage and a few other highlights of his career, plus some of his packed future plans.

The Adventures of Straker will be at theSpace @ Niddry Street in Edinburgh from 15 to 20 August 2022 each day at 6:55PM. For more information, see www.adventuresofstraker.co.uk, or to book tickets, go to www.edfringe.com. You can find more information about Peter Straker and his work at his own web site, newsite.peterstraker.com.

Phelim McDermott co-founded acclaimed theatre company Improbable in 1996.

His directing credits including Shockheaded Peter with Julian Crouch and The Tiger Lillies, Philip Glass’s The Perfect American with ENO and Teatro Real in Madrid, The Addams Family on Broadway and, most recently, Jim Broadbent in A Christmas Carol on the West End.

Phelim spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about the origins of Improbable's show Animo that combines improvisation and puppetry, which was revived for the 2016 Latitude Festival led by co-artistic director Lee Simpson.

He also looked back on 20 years of Improbable and talked about the importance of improvisation to all of his work, even when script-based, and the influence of the ideas of Keith Johnstone and Jeremy Whelan on his techniques.

No Milk for the Foxes was a one-act play written and performed by Conrad Murray and Paul Cree for Beats & Elements at Camden People’s Theatre in 2015 that looked in on the lives of two young, working-class lads, Marx and Sparx, working as security guards on zero-hours contracts and which used beatboxing and live looping between dialogue scenes.

An archive recording of this production has now been made available on YouTube in order, according to Conrad, to introduce some diversity into the huge amount of online theatre that has suddenly become available by throwing some working class voices into the mix.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Conrad about the play, about beatboxing and hip hop theatre and about his views on the importance of seeing genuine working class characters on stage, even if they don’t fit the preconceptions and sensibilities of the middle classes—even if they read The Sun.

No Milk for the Foxes is now available on the Beats & Elements page on YouTube, where you can also find a link to make donations via Patreon. You can find out more about Conrad on his web site.

In our first podcast episode on the 2018 Edinburgh Festivals, we speak to two people who are now veteran Fringe producers and performers.

Rick Conte will return to the Fringe this year as Dog in the multi-award-winning Puppet State Theatre production The Man Who Planted Trees. However he is also performing and producing a new adaptation of The Time Machine by H G Wells that combines puppetry with human actors for The Scientific Romance Theatre Company,

The Time Machine will be at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 2 to 19 August at 2:30PM, and then The Man Who Planted Trees will take over the same slot from 20 to 27 August.

Guy Masterson has been a fixture of the Edinburgh Fringe for 25 years as an actor, director and producer. With his company Theatre Tours International, his annual programmes of productions have ranged from solo shows to international collaborations and shows with star-studded casts, many of which have lived on after Edinburgh with international tours and West End runs.

This year, Guy will bring four productions to Edinburgh: Hamlet—Horatio’s Tale and Henry V—Lion of England will be performed on various dates at Assembly Rooms; A Christmas Carol and The Marilyn Conspiracy will be on most days throughout the Fringe at Assembly George Square Studios.

Dukes Theatre artistic director Joe Sumsion talks about his production of a new adaptation of Robin Hood in Williamson Park, Lancaster this summer, a comeback for the Dukes's famous outdoor productions by popular demand after it was announced that the 25th anniversary production two years ago would be its last due to funding issues.

Joe talks about their unusual approach to the famous story in a production set in the future, about the challenges and joys of outdoor promenade theatre in the UK and about the up-side of their announcement that these productions were to cease.

Following this, production manager John Newman-Holden takes us on a walk around Williamson Park, talking us through the different locations used for the production and the practical challenges of realising the creative team's visions in the open air.

Robin Hood runs in Williamson Park, Lancaster from 5 July to 10 August 2013. For more information, see www.dukes-lancaster.org or call the box office on 01524 598500.

In his new play Edith in the Dark, playwright Philip Meeks has combined the unusual life and some of the lesser-known adult ghost stories of Edith Nesbit, celebrated author of children's classics such as The Railway Children, Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. It will be at Momentum Playhouse at St Stephens in Edinburgh from 7 to 30 August with previews on 5 and 6.

Les Enfants Terribles co-founder James Seager tells us all about the successful company's latest production, Marvellous Imaginary Menagerie, which will return to Edinburgh at Pleasance Beyond from 5 to 31 August.

Guy Masterson, probably the best-known and most successful Edinburgh Fringe producer, director and actor, will perform Dylan Thomas The Man, The Myth with Thomas's granddaughter Hannah Ellis from 6 to 22 August and a cut-down version of his one-man Under Milk Wood, sub-titled Semi-Skimmed, from 23 to 31 August, both at Assembly Roxy. He tells us about both productions and shatters a few myths about the great Welsh post.

For more information about all shows in this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival and to book tickets, see www.edfringe.com.

Cornwall’s popular and highly acclaimed theatre company Kneehigh shut down in 2021, the year after its 40th anniversary.

When the company closed, the Kneehigh Cookbook, an online educational resource, also closed, but it has become the basis for an ongoing archive of all of the company’s work, This is Kneehigh, hosted by Falmouth University and supported by digital arts platform The Space.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Kneehigh founder Mike Shepherd and lead archivist for the project Sarah Jane from Falmouth University about the archive, the process of archiving live performance, the closure of the company and Mike’s ongoing creative work at The Barns, the former home of Kneehigh in Cornwall which he continues to run as a creative arts facility.

Contact details can be found on the This is Kneehigh web site—Sarah welcomes any feedback on the site.

David Chadderton talks to Nir Paldi, co-artistic director of Theatre Ad Infinitum whose show Bucket List was previewed at Latitude Festival before opening in its final form at the Edinburgh Fringe.

(Photo credit: Alex Brenner)

Philip Fisher talks with Kate O'Flynn, who is starring in what is likely to be the pick of Edinburgh 2016, John Tiffany's production of The Glass Menagerie in the Edinburgh International Festival, about the play, her stage career and working with Mike Leigh.

(Photo Credit: Johan Persson)

Philip Fisher interviews Dave Malloy about bringing Ghost Quartet to Summerhall Roundabout and the impending Broadway opening of his musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

(Photo Credit: Ryan Jenson)

Derby Theatre's Christmas show for 2018 is Mike Kenny's adaptation of Hansel and Gretel from the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.

BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme talks about the show to Derby Theatre Artistic Director Sarah Brigham, who is directing the production, and actors Craig Anderson and Yana Penrose, who play the title roles of Hansel and Gretel.

Hansel and Gretel runs at Derby Theatre from Friday 30 November 2018 to Saturday 5 January 2019.

2018 marks the second time Evolution Productions has produced Cinderella at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury after the venue re-opened in 2011.

Simon Sladen speaks to the theatre's resident Dame Ben Roddy and Marlowe regulars Lloyd Hollett and Phil Gallagher as they star in their fourth panto together.

Simon, Ben, Lloyd and Phil discuss this year's show, their approach to playing the Ugly Sisters and Buttons, the trio's affinity with the Marlowe as well as some top tips for those starting out in the industry.

In April 2015, Manchester-based Box of Tricks Theatre Company will begin a tour of Plastic Figurines, a new play by Ella Carmen Greenhill, at the Liverpool Playhouse Studio.

In this episode, Ella and director Adam Quayle, during rehearsals in Manchester, speak about the writing of the play and its roots in Ella's real-life relationship with her brother, who is on the autistic spectrum. You can also hear about Ella's other work and about the philosophy of Manchester-based new writing company Box of Tricks.

Plastic Figurines will open at Liverpool Playhouse Studio on 8 April 2015. It will then tour to London, Hemel Hempstead, Bury, Hull, Halifax, Southport, Ellesmere Port, Wigan, Barnsley, Harrogate, Salford, Derby, Shrewsbury and Mold.

For more information, see boxoftrickstheatre.co.uk.

Theatre by the Lake in Keswick in the Lake District has had at its helm Executive Director Patric Gilchrist and Artistic Director Ian Forrest since before the current theatre building opened in 1999.

Conrad Lynch has taken over as both Artistic Director and Chief Executive after working alongside his predecessors for the last few months. Not long after announcing his first season in his new post, he spoke to us about his future plans for this Cumbrian theatre.

Owen O’Neill is an Irish writer, actor and stand-up comedian who has become known particularly on the Edinburgh Fringe for his one-man plays.

This year, he has written a two-hander called Shaving the Dead in which he does not perform but it is directed by Fringe regular Guy Masterson, with whom he has previously collaborated on a number of major projects. Between them, Owen and Guy have clocked up 49 visits to the Edinburgh Fringe.

In this episode, BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Owen just after the play had opened in Edinburgh, and he explained about the origins of the play, spoke a little about the differences between his stand-up and his one-man shows and said that, just occasionally, critics will write some things that he actually finds useful.

Shaving the Dead from Theatre Tours International will be at Assembly George Square Studio Two at the Edinburgh Fringe until 25 August 2019.

(Owen O'Neill photo by Steve Ullathorne)

As part of its A Revolution Betrayed? spring and summer season across its film, art and theatre programmes, commemorating the centenary of the Russian Revolution, HOME Manchester will present a new production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya directed by the centre’s Artistic Director for Theatre, Walter Meierjohann.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Walter in a dressing room at HOME just over a week before the production opened about his take on this classic play, Chekhov's comedy, multi-layered structure and political foresight and the relevance to audiences today of a play depicting people on the brink of major but unknown change.

HOME’s production of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov in a version by Andrew Upton will run at HOME Manchester from 3 to 25 November 2017.

The first in-house production in HOME Manchester’s autumn and winter season for 2018 is a new production of French writer Jean Genet’s 1947 play The Maids, in an English version by Martin Crimp.

The play will be directed in-the-round at HOME by Lily Sykes, an English-born director who has lived and worked in Germany for the last ten years and has recently become a German citizen.

In a break during rehearsals, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Lily about the play, existentialism, polarisation of society, the differences between directing for British and German theatres and a great deal more.

The Maids will run at HOME Manchester from 16 November to 1 December 2018. For more information, see homemcr.org.

(Photo of Lily Sykes by Magnus Reed)

Cornwall’s Kneehigh theatre company was due to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to postpone any celebrations.

After five months of lockdown, the company has released a strategy document, Strike Out!, focussing on its plans for creating art and performance in a post-pandemic world.

Just after its release, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Kneehigh founder and co-Artistic Director Mike Shepherd about what he has been up to during lockdown, the company’s deferred 40th anniversary plans and plans for the immediate future.

To read the Strike Out! strategy document and other information about the company and its past and future work, see Kneehigh's web site or follow @wearekneehigh on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

The TED Talk “Do schools kill creativity” by the late Sir Ken Robinson, referred to by Mike as an inspiration, can still be seen online.

Photo of Mike Shepherd as Mrs Ubu in Kneehigh’s Ubu, credit Steve Tanner

In this episode, BTG London Editor Philip Fisher speaks with Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre, the company behind The Play that Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, on the eve of Groan Ups, the first play in the company’s Vaudeville Theatre residency.

They discuss the company’s inception, its ongoing success and future projects on stage and screen, including Magic Goes Wrong, created with world famous magicians Penn and Teller, and The Goes Wrong Show, a new TV series that will be broadcast later this year (2019).

At the Empty Space Peter Brook Awards on 6 November 2012, the Peter Brook / Mobius Award was presented to The Lowry in Salford for its support of new work and new practitioners in its Studio.

The citation on the award stated that it was awarded for, "determined efforts to support early development of new companies offering continual showcasing to improve their growth and sharpen their abilities".

David Chadderton talks to Porl Cooper, programmer for the Studio, about his and The Lowry's reaction to winning the award.

As it prepares to leave its building in the hands of developers for refurbishment, Bolton’s Octagon Theatre takes its audiences on the road, literally, for its seasonal musical Summer Holiday, based on the Cliff Richard film.

The performance begins at the new Bolton Interchange bus station where the audience will meet before travelling by bus with the actors to the theatre, where the rest of the production takes place.

A little over a week before opening, BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to two of the actor musicians, Barbara Hockaday and Greg Last, and Ben Occhipinti, who is co-directing with Octagon Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman.

Summer Holiday will be performed at Bolton Travel Interchange and Octagon Theatre Bolton from Thursday 31 May to Saturday 23 June 2018.

Northern Broadsides theatre company's For Love or Money, directed by and featuring company founder Barrie Rutter, has been adapted from a French play, Turcaret by Alain-Rene Lesage, by regular Broadsides collaborator Blake Morrison.

Blake speaks to us about the play, about play translation and about 21 years of collaborations with Rutter and Broadsides.

For Love or Money opened at The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax on 15 September 2017. After that, it will tour to West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Rose Theatre Kingston, New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Liverpool Playhouse and finally York Theatre Royal, where it will close on 2 December.

Hear Me Out is a new theatre podcast produced and presented by Lucy Eaton, the both real and on-screen sister of Simon Evans, creator of BBC lockdown comedy Staged starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

Hear Me Out features interviews with leading theatre actors in which they discuss and then perform a speech from a play in which they have appeared which holds particularly strong memories for them. The first four episodes are now available, featuring Claire Skinner on Harold Pinter’s Moonlight, Adrian Lester on Cost of Living by Martyna Majok, Denise Gough on People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan and Mark Bonnar on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

In this episode, BTG Editor David Chadderton speaks to Lucy about these first few episodes, as well as about how Staged was basically an extension of games she played with her brother when they were kids, what lockdown has been like for her and other actors she knows, performing outside the house of one of the UK’s leading theatre critics and more.

Hear Me Out can be found now on all the usual podcast platforms. For more details, see the Hear Me Out web site or follow @PodHearMeOut on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Northern Broadsides resident director Conrad Nelson is directing the company's first production in its 23-year history of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale as well as appearing as jealous Sicilian King Leontes and composing the music.

In this episode, Conrad speaks about the production and about the challenges of touring a cast of thirteen to venues with very different types of performance space, from proscenium to traverse and in-the-round.

The production will open at co-producer Harrogate Theatre from 18 to 26 September 2015 before touring to Oldham Coliseum, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Everyman Theatre Cheltenham, the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme, The Dukes Theatre in Lancaster and Liverpool Playhouse before ending at the company’s home theatre of The Viaduct in Halifax from 24 to 28 November.

For more information, see www.northern-broadsides.co.uk.

Following Night of the Living Dead—Remix and Dracula: The Untold Story, imitating the dog is again collaborating with Leeds Playhouse, this time on a new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein co-created by Pete Brooks, Andrew Quick and Simon Wainwright.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Andrew Quick during rehearsals at Leeds Playhouse about the technical challenges of this two-hander for creators and performers, the state of touring shows around the UK and Europe at the moment and the company’s style and creative process.

Frankenstein, featuring design by Hayley Brindle, lighting by Andrew Crofts and original music by James Hamilton, will open at Leeds Playhouse from 15 February 2024, before touring to Oxford Playhouse, Watford Palace Theatre, The Lowry in Salford, Cast in Doncaster, Mercury Theatre in Colchester, Liverpool Playhouse, The Dukes Lancaster and Northern Stage in Newcastle.

(Photo of Andrew Quick, credit Ed Waring)

For our 200th episode of the British Theatre Guide podcast, we decided to turn the microphone onto some of our longest serving reviewers to find out about how they joined BTG and some of their highlights from their time as reviewers.

However this isn’t all about us, as we also asked them about the current state of theatre in their areas, how it has changed during their time reviewing and how they think it will change in the future. As our reviewers are scattered around the country, it gives an interesting picture of theatre around the UK.

There are contributions from BTG Editor and North West Editor David Chadderton, London Editor Philip Fisher, North East Editor and BTG founder Peter Lathan, National News Editor and South East London reviewer Sandra Giorgetti, Midlands Editor Steve Orme, Yorkshire Editor Mark Smith, Sheffield reviewer Velda Harris and Panto Editor and London reviewer Simon Sladen.

Mark Smith interviews Jenny Harris, creative producer for 509 Arts, about their production Calderland.

Forming the centrepiece of the Landlines & Watermarks project, this "people's opera" aims to investigate, question and celebrate Calderdale's relationship with water, in the wake of the 2015 Boxing Day floods which were devastating to large parts of Yorkshire.

The production has a cast of over 200 singers drawn from local communities, and a script by award-winning writer Mike Kenny. It's to be performed in the Piece Hall in Halifax, a recently-restored Grade I listed building.

Jenny talks during the final weeks of rehearsals about the challenges of mounting such a massive project in a comparatively short time span, the ambition of creating an inclusive and celebratory piece of art from adversity and the roots of 509 Arts, a company focusing on theatre productions with a climate change agenda.

"It's not a high art opera... but it's got that sense of drama and scale that an opera might have."

Derby Theatre and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch are collaborating for the second time on their major autumn show and in 2019 they’ve chosen to stage Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors.

For this episode, BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke to Derby Theatre’s artistic director Sarah Brigham about why she wanted to direct the farce, David O’Reilly who’s playing Francis Henshall, the part played initially by James Corden at the National Theatre in 2011, and Samantha Hull, who takes the role of Pauline Clinch.

One Man, Two Guvnors will be at Derby Theatre from 7 until 28 September and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 2 until 19 October 2019.

Mark Smith talks to Conrad Nelson and Deborah McAndrew about their brand new version of Dario Fo's classic They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay! (also known as Can't Pay? Won't Pay!).

The show is a co-production between York Theatre Royal and Halifax-based company Northern Broadsides, where Conrad Nelson is the Artistic Director. They discuss the company's past and future, the process of adapting and translating theatrical language "from Milan to Middlesborough", and the careful precision required when staging farce - or any play.

"This is so much about being a theatre animal. This play was made by a theatre animal, and we're theatre animals, we're playhouse creatures."

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! will run at York Theatre Royal from 5 to 13 October 2018 before embarking on a national tour from 16 October to 2 December 2018.

(Photo of Conrad Nelson and Deborah McAndrew in rehearsal, credit: Nobby Clark)

David Greig is a leading Scottish playwright and Artistic Director of Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.

In 2016, he adapted The Suppliant Women, the only fully extant play in a trilogy by Aeschylus, and is now adapting the other two plays in the trilogy, even though only fragments of the originals still exist, the first of which, The Egyptians, opens at Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury, Kent at the end of February 2023.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to David about the fascinating process or reconstructing these ancient works, staging them in a way that gives a modern audiences a similar experience to those who watched them 2,500 years ago rather than as museum pieces and his views on Scottish theatre.

The Egyptians will have an initial run at Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury from 22 to 25 February 2023.

Macbeth (an undoing) by Zinnie Harris, after Shakespeare, runs at Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, also until 25 February.

Associate Puppetry Director Tommy Luther talks about the first ever UK tour of the National Theatre hit production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, and about his involvement in the production since the early workshops in 2007.

Recorded at The Lowry in Salford, where the production will spend Christmas and New Year 2013-4 on its longest run of the tour.

For more information about the production, see the War Horse On Stage web site.

It was written by Sally Rogers, best known on TV as DC Jo Masters in The Bill and with theatre credits at the National Theatre, Royal Court and Out of Joint, based on her own experiences of working in a hotel near Stockport when she was just 16.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Sally during previews about the play and its setting, about teaching a young cast about life in the ‘80s and about various aspects of Sally’s career, including being directed by John Malkovich (and making him cry) and being a member of Max Stafford Clark’s Out of Joint theatre company in the 1990s, which, she says, made her a much better actor.

Of course The Bill is mentioned, and her colleague from that long-running TV series Chris Simmons (DC Mickey Webb) who is performing in her play, plus there is an element of two people reminiscing about growing up near Manchester in the 1980s.

The Still Room opened for previews at Park Theatre in London on 1 June and runs until 25 June 2022. You can find Sally on Twitter at @SallyARogers.

Nottingham Playhouse is part of a consortium of regional theatres across the UK that are putting disabled artists and audiences at the centre of their programming in a six-year project called Ramps on the Moon.

Wheelchair user Amy Trigg is to play Laura Wingfield in Nottingham Playhouse’s production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

In this episode, BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme speaks to Amy along with Susannah Harker, who will play her mother Amanda in the production.

The Glass Menagerie, directed by Giles Croft, runs at Nottingham Playhouse from 11 to 26 March 2016.

During the pandemic, Peter Duncan kept the panto magic alive with his online pantomimes Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella. This year, he has created his third streamed pantomime: Pantoland. 

BTG’s Panto Editor Simon Sladen spoke to Peter about his foray into film-making and turning a very live genre into one that can work equally well on screen. Simon and Peter also discuss Peter's first experience of pantomime, growing up in a theatrical household and writing, directing and starring in pantomimes across the country—and Blue Peter gets a mention, of course.

For more information, see Panto Online.

(photo credit Gordon Render)

On 20 February 2018, regional theatre director, artistic director and chief executive John Blackmore died at the age of 77.

He was chief executive at Bolton's Octagon Theatre for 12 years, but he also put together a plan to save Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse theatres, was Artistic Director of Manchester’s Library Theatre in the 1960s, founded the company that became Northern Stage in Newcastle, was one of the founders of Out of Joint, was director or artistic director of Midlands Arts Centre (now mac) in Birmingham, The Dukes in Lancaster, Warwick Arts Centre and the English Shakespeare Company and chief executive of Leicester Haymarket.

In tribute, this episode is an interview by BTG editor David Chadderton with John from 2011 looking back on his impressive and varied career in theatre, followed by some reflections in 2018 from Mark Babych, now Artistic Director at Hull Truck but previously Artistic Director at the Octagon for ten years, on his time working with John.

BTG's London Editor Philip Fisher reports from the New York theatre scene.

Firstly, Philip talks to Jeremy Herrin about his work as Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre, his production of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, which he is directing with an American cast for Roundabout, and his wider career.

Philip also talks to Red Bull Theater’s Artistic Director Jesse Berger about the company's latest production, The Changeling, and the company’s genesis and mission to present Jacobean theatre and Shakespeare to New Yorkers, reviving plays rarely, if ever, seen in the city.

(Photo of Jeremy Herrin: Dan Wooller)

As the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was about to start, we spoke to two people whose work will be featured in this year’s festival.

Jesse Jones is co-director of the latest devised theatre piece from Bristol-based The Wardrobe Ensemble, produced in collaboration with Complicite and Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton, called The Last of the Pelican Daughters. He spoke to us about the themes of the show, their devising process and about working with a company that was one of their greatest inspirations when they started working in theatre.

The Last of the Pelican Daughters is at Pleasance Beyond until 25 August 2019.

Daniel Bye’s previous solo shows at the Fringe and elsewhere have always been quite interactive, but for his latest piece, he will be coming to the homes of his audiences to perform his show Arthur, which is named after his a co-star, the four-and-a-half-month-old son of Daniel and director Sarah Punshon.

(Images, The Last of the Pelican Daughters cast; Daniel Bye and Arthur, photo by Jonathan Ackley)

BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to director Theresa Keogh and artistic director Jack McNamara of Nottingham-based New Perspectives Theatre Company about their new rural touring production of M R James's classic ghost story Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You adapted by David Rudkin and also about recently working with best-selling crime writer John Harvey on Darkness, Darkness with Nottingham Playhouse.

Lancashire-based Horse + Bamboo, a company that has specialised in mask and puppet theatre since it was founded in 1978, brings its version of classic fairy tale Red Riding Hood to the Scottish Storytelling Centre for the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe.

Performers Jonny Quick and Nix Wood talk to BTG editor David Chadderton about the production and their involvement with the company.

The production runs at 1PM until 17 August 2014. For more information about this and the company, see www.horseandbamboo.org.

Also in this episode, Philip Fisher talks to legendary cricket broadcasters Henry Blofeld and Peter Baxter about their show Memories of Test Match Special, back by popular demand after a run at last year's Fringe.

They discuss the show, which recalls anecdotes about the sporting radio institution of Test Match Special, as well as their perspectives on the Fringe and on live performance.

Their show runs at the Pleasance Dome at 16:20 until 24 August 2014, and can also be seen at the Lyric Theatre in London on 22 September and selected dates around the country. For more information, see www.henryblofeld.co.uk/tour_dates.html.

York-based Pilot Theatre’s latest project is an adaptation by British playwright Roy Williams of the Greek classic play Antigone by Sophocles.

In this episode, Pilot artistic director Marcus Romer, who is directing this production, talks about how the project came about, how they have approached this ancient Greek play, working with Roy Williams and about the work and philosophy of Pilot Theatre Company.

Antigone from Pilot Theatre opens at Derby Theatre on 19 September 2014, then goes to Northern Stage in Newcastle, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, York Theatre Royal, Watford Palace Theatre, Gulbenkian in Canterbury, Theatre Royal Winchester, Exeter Northcott Theatre, finishing at Theatre Royal Stratford East on 14 March 2015.

For more information, see www.pilot-theatre.com.

Performance poet Luke Wright is is currently touring with a solo verse play directed by nabokov’s Joe Murphy called What I Learned From Johnny Bevan.

Luke plays Nick, an arts journalist, who is transported by current events back to memories of his days in university in the mid-‘90s when his friend, after whom the play is named, changed his life.

In this episode, Luke speaks to BTG editor David Chadderton about the show, politics, New Labour, festivals, acting awards and poetry.

Luke tours the UK until December 2016 with What I Learned From Johnny Bevan. For details of where he will appear, see the gigs page on his web site.

(Photo credit: Guiseppe Cerone)

Co-founder Simon Willis, head of content for Wise Buddah, talks about the proposed new Internet radio station dedicated to musical theatre called Stage Door and about the crowd-funding campaign, currently running on Indiegogo, to raise the funds to launch it.

The presenters on Stage Door will all be current stars of musical theatre, and two of them spoke to us about their involvement.

Canadian actor Alex Gaumond is probably still best-known for playing Galileo in We Will Rock You but is currently in Top Hat in the West End while rehearsing to take over as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda later this year.

Louise Dearman is most famous for playing both Glinda and Elphaba in Wicked, a show that she will soon leave as she prepares for a concert tour later this year.

More information:

• Stage Door
• Indiegogo campaign page
• Alex Gaumond
• Louise Dearman

Director Jake Murray, who was co-artistic director for Manchester's Royal Exchange Studio space with current Exchange Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom until he left Manchester in 2008, is back in the city with his new Durham-based Elysium Theatre Company.

His latest production is of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pullitzer Prize-winning play Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train, which has only been produced twice in the UK before.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Jake at HOME Manchester a month before the production opened about the play, the aims of the new company, regional theatre in general and in Manchester in particular and about the issue of new plays that opened in London rarely getting new productions in the regions any more—a problem that Elysium is trying to confront with its programming.

Jake Murray’s production of Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train for Elysium Theatre Company premières at The Assembly Rooms Theatre in Durham on 14 May 2018 before running at HOME Manchester from 16 to 19 May.

Slung Low, a theatre company founded in 2000 and currently based in the oldest social club in Britain in Holbeck, Leeds, programmes work in its own performance spaces but also creates large-scale works in non-theatre spaces, often involving large community casts.

During the coronavirus lockdown, Slung Low is releasing a short film, The Good Book, written by James Phillips with a cast of three professional actors alongside more than a hundred people from Leeds in the first piece of work to be produced by the new Leeds People’s Theatre, filmed in January in Holbeck and Leeds.

Slung Low’s Artistic Director Alan Lane spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the film, and also about the philosophy of the twenty-year-old company and what they are currently doing during the coronavirus lockdown.

Slung Low and Leeds People’s Theatre’s The Good Book will be available to watch online from 1 May 2020. For more information, see www.slunglow.org.

The 2019 Manchester International Festival will take place at various venues around the city in July. An edited version of the main presentation at the MIF launch on 7 March can be heard in a previous British Theatre Guide podcast episode, but we also spoke directly to some of the artists involved.

We asked MIF Artistic Director John McGrath for his highlights of the theatre programme and how Manchester has changed since he was head of the city's Contact Theatre.

We also spoke to Leo Warner of 59 Productions about his collaboration with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, writer Lolita Chakrabarti and Rambert Dance on an adaptation of Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities.

Finally, we asked director Phelim McDermott about Tao of Glass, his collaboration with composer Philip Glass on a new stage performance featuring ten brand new pieces of music composed by Glass.

Invisible Cities will be performed at Mayfield beside Piccadilly Station in Manchester from 4 to 14 July. Tao of Glass will be at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 11 to 20 July.

The Manchester International Festival 2019 will take place at various venues from 4 to 21 July.

Photos:

• John McGrath, MIF Artistic Director and Chief Executive introduces the MIF19 programme. Image credit Tarnish Vision.
• Leo Warner, Lolita Chakrabarti, Benoit Swan Pouffer—Invisible Cities. Image credit Joel Chester Fildes.
• Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott. Image credit Rod Morata.

In 2017, Javaad Alipoor’s The Believers Are But Brothers opened at Transform Festival in Leeds before transferring to Summerhall for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Scotsman Fringe First, and later was adapted for television and shown on BBC4.

This was the first play in a trilogy, the second part of which, Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, premièred at the Traverse Theatre during the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and is about to open at HOME Manchester.

A week before it opened, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Javaad at HOME about his work, his creative process and about the form of political theatre in today’s technological age.

Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran opens at HOME Manchester on Wednesday 23 October and runs until Saturday 2 November 2019.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Perthshire, Scotland announced its summer rep season for 2020 in December.

In 2018, Elizabeth Newman joined the theatre as Artistic Director from the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Elizabeth in January about the new season and about how she had developed the theatre’s programme over the last eighteen months, as well as how she had coped with settling in an unfamiliar region after ten years in Bolton.

The summer season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre runs from 22 May to 3 October 2020.

(Photo: Elizabeth Newman and David Greig)

On 25 March 2022, Manchester arts venue Contact announced that writer, performer and producer Keisha Thompson would take over from Matt Fenton in June to become its first female, first Mancunian and youngest Artistic Director.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Keisha a week before the announcement. She explained about her 17-year history at the venue, the philosophy behind this unique theatre for young people, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, all the different production skills she has picked up from working at Contact and how much she loves a good spreadsheet.

(Photo of Keisha Thompson by Audrey Albert)

Derby Theatre and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch are to stage a co-production of a new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde. Neil Bartlett has brought the story up to date and introduced some female characters.

BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke to two of the actors, Nicholas Shaw and Polly Lister, about the show while Derby Theatre’s Sarah Brigham who’s directing and Mathew Russell from Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch talk about the benefits of their collaboration.

Jekyll and Hyde will run at Derby Theatre from 30 September until 22 October and at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 26 October until 12 November 2022.