British Theatre Guide Podcast

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.

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)

York-based Pilot Theatre has collaborated with York Theatre Royal on a new adaptation of a dystopian science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E M Forster. The adaptation is by Bolton-based playwright Neil Duffield, who speaks to us about adapting science fiction for the stage, the remarkable resonances that this 1909 story has with our world of social media and the world-wide web and making a living as a playwright for more than thirty years. The Machine Stops by Neil Duffield with music by John Foxx and Benge, directed by Juliet Forster, will be performed at York Theatre Royal from 13 May to 4 June 2016 followed by a short tour to The Point in Eastleigh on 8 and 9 June and New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth on 10 and 11 June before appearing at Platform Shift + festival in Budapest from 15 to 19 June. (Image of Neil Duffield by Anthony Robling)

Canadian-British playwright Evan Placey's play WiLd is a collaboration with Leeds-based tutti frutti that began as an attempt to look at some of the issues around ADHD, funded by the Wellcome Trust. In this episode, Evan spoke to us from Canada, where his play Scarberia was about to open at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto, about writing the play, his experiences working with young people with ADHD and about writing in general. WiLd opens at The Carriageworks in Leeds on 30 April 2016 and then tours to various venues in England until the beginning of July before finishing with a couple of dates at the Ennis Street Festival in Ireland. (Poster illustration by Jacky Fleming)

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.

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.

Michael Harrison is Managing Director of Qdos Entertainment and has produced a wide range of musicals with his production company Michael Harrison Productions. In this podcast episode, he speaks to Simon Sladen about Qdos's 2015 pantomime season, his love of Dames and his latest project, Mrs Henderson Presents, which recently transferred to the West End.

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)

BTG London editor Philip Fisher, during his annual reviewing trip to the US, talks with Theatermania columnist Michael Feingold about trends in New York theatre both on and off Broadway and discusses shows that should not be missed.

Donovan Christian Cary has been the resident Dame at the Princes Hall, Aldershot for over a decade. He speaks to BTG Panto Editor Simon Sladen about playing Dame and his pantomime career that has gone from auditioning in a car for the role of Genie to playing the Fairy Superior in 2015's Cinderella.

Alex Wright is a Yorkshire-based theatre-maker who as a founder member of Belt Up Theatre reached national audiences with a series of immersive, free-form adaptations of well-known works. Since then he has set up The Flanagan Collective, with which he continues to adapt, write and direct a range of pieces. For the past nine months he’s been part of a group—including artists, producers and a pub landlord—which has been responsible for The Fleeting Arms, a ramshackle, open pop-up arts venue run for and with York’s creative community. The Fleeting Arms is due to close its doors as a performance venue on the 31 December 2015 and in its final month the whole building has been dedicated to a new, immersive adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which Alex has directed. In this episode, Alex talks to BTG Yorkshire Editor Mark Smith about staging The Great Gatsby, how he approaches immersive performance and the experience of running a pop-up arts venue in the centre of York. (Gatsby photo credit Ben Porter)

The first Christmas production at HOME Manchester will be the English language stage première of Cornelia Funke’s best-selling children’s fantasy novel Inkheart. In this episode, we speak to Irish actor Will Irvine, who returns to Manchester to play Capricorn, the ultimate "baddy", and to director Walter Meierjohann, who directed an earlier adaptation of this story in Germany in 2006. Inkheart, adapted for the stage by Stephen Sharkey and Walter Meierjohann for HOME Manchester, runs from Friday 4 December 2015 to Saturday 9 January 2016. For more information and to book tickets, see homemcr.org or call the box office on 0161 200 1500.

In this episode, we look at two very different non-pantomime versions of the Snow White story that can be seen this Christmas. Natasha Holmes is artistic director of Yorkshire-based Tell Tale Hearts, a company that creates highly visual participatory theatre for children and families based on ideas from the children themselves. Just before rehearsals began, Natasha talked to us about a version of the popular fairy tale that features Yorkshire miners as well as aerial performance from outdoor theatre specialists Pif-Paf. The production is at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield from 11 to 27 December 2015. Newcastle-based balletLORENT is currently touring its new dance version of Snow White created by the same team as last year's Rapunzel. Choreographer Liv Lorent spoke to us about this collaboration with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and composer Murray Gold, better-known for his music for the TV series Doctor Who. Snow White from balletLORENT began its tour in October 2015 at Northern Stage in Newca

Leeds-based children’s theatre company tutti frutti has teamed up with York Theatre Royal and playwright Emma Reeves, Olivier-nominated for her adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather, on a new adaptation of the children’s folk tale Snow Child, inspired by Arthur Ransome’s adaptation of this traditional tale entitled The Little Daughter of the Snow. Emma spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton early in the rehearsal period about the play, tutti frutti's collaborative production methods and her career writing adaptations of children's classic literature for stage and TV. Snow Child by Emma Reeves, directed by Wendy Harris for tutti frutti, opens on 3 October 2015 at The Arc in Stockton on Tees and tours the UK and Ireland, with a brief visit to Hong Kong and Singapore, until March 2016, ending at York Theatre Royal. For more information, see tutti-frutti-org.uk. Snow Child illustration by Jessica Knight

York-based Pilot Theatre is currently in rehearsals for Outsiders, a new re-imagining of Albert Camus’ novel L’Etranger. The play is written by Emteaz Hussain and staged by the Australian director Fraser Corfield. It works around the spare narrative of the original to focus on two marginalised female characters, Marie and Sumaya, exploring the experience of migration and the impact of trauma in the lives of these two women. In this episode, director Fraser Corfield and performers Lou Broadbent and Sara Sadeghi talk to BTG’s Mark Smith about the process of creating this new piece as a cross-cultural collaboration and discuss the relevance of the play in the light of the current political climate around immigration and migration. The production opens at CAST in Doncaster from 24 to 26 September 2015 before touring through autumn to the University of York, Barnsley Civic, Derby Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse, Canada Water in London, Hull Truck, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and the Tobacco Factory in

BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme talks to actor Robert Powell, who has taken over the title role in Mike Bartlett's King Charles III from Tim Pigott-Smith for a UK tour which began in September 2015. Powell talks about taking on the most difficult role he has ever played as well as looking back on his 50-year acting career, including his iconic TV performance as Jesus of Nazareth in 1977, an uncharacteristic 6-year run in hospital soap Holby City, playing comedy with Jasper Carrott and the loneliness of touring. For more information about the tour of King Charles III, see the production's web site. (Robert Powell photo credit: Steve Orme.)

Michael Billington has been theatre critic of The Guardian since 1971 and of Country Life since 1986, but began reviewing for The Times in 1965. He is the author of biographies of Harold Pinter and Peggy Ashcroft, critical studies of Tom Stoppard and Alan Ayckbourn, a celebration of Ken Dodd and a collection of reviews, One Night Stands. At his home in West London, Michael talks to BTG's Philip Fisher about his new book, The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, and about his 50-year career as a theatre critic. Photo credit: Natasha Billington

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.

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 Bu

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.