Sinopsis
News, features and interviews from the world of professional theatre throughout the UK.
Episodios
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Michie and Young in new Arnott Summer Portrait
28/07/2023 Duración: 32minTowards the end of its summer season, Pitlochry Festival Theatre will present the world première of a new play by Peter Arnott, Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, set in a Perthshire country house during the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014, directed by David Greig in a co-production with Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre. The main character Rennie is played by John Michie, best-known as DI Robbie Ross in TV’s Taggart, and his friend Moon is played by fellow Scottish actor Benny Young. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to John and Benny while the production was in rehearsal about the play and the continuing relevance of its subject matter, as well as about rehearsing and performing in Pitlochry. The play will be performed at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 25 August to 28 September 2023. It will then transfer to the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh from 4 to 14 October.
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Mei Mac: from 4-year-old to century-old prisoner of Western stereotypes
19/07/2023 Duración: 30minKimber Lee’s provocatively titled winner of the first International Award from the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019, untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, opened in June 2023 at the Royal Exchange Theatre as part of the Manchester International Festival and will transfer to the Young Vic in London later in the year. In the lead role of Kim is Mei Mac, who was nominated for a Best Actress Olivier Award earlier this year for playing 4-year-old Mei Kusakabe in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican in London. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Mei in the middle of the Manchester run and asked her about performing in this often physical and funny production and the serious questions it raises, as well as her experiences in Totoro with the RSC and director Phelim McDermott. untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play is at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester until 22 July 2023, then at the Young Vic in London from 18 September to 4 November 2023. (Photo of Mei Mac as Kim by Othe
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As You Like It matured at the RSC
14/07/2023 Duración: 22minAs You Like It is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. Omar Elerian, who is directing his first show for the Royal Shakespeare Company, was keen to explore it from a “fresh and new perspective”, so he has cast a company of actors who are mostly over 70. BTG’s Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to two of the actors, 73-year-old Malcolm Sinclair and Maureen Beattie who’s 69. He asked them what it’s like performing in a company of mature actors and whether there’s still age discrimination in the industry. As You Like It continues in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford until Saturday 5 August. (Photo of Malcolm Sinclair and Maureen Beattie by Steve Orme)
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Edfringe 2023: Graeae's Jenny Sealey returns to performing after three decades
08/07/2023 Duración: 38minJenny Sealey has been artistic director of Graeae since 1997, a theatre company, which, according to its web site, “boldly places Deaf and disabled artists centre-stage in a diversity of new and existing plays”. In that time, she has directed many productions, including co-directing the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics in London with Bradley Hemmings. However, for her next production, Self Raising, for the Edinburgh Fringe, she will be performing herself for the first time in three decades in a solo piece co-written with Mike Kenny based on her own early life in a family in which she was the only Deaf person. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Jenny about her return to acting (“terrifying”), the play, what Edinburgh Fringe and Edinburgh the city is currently like for a Deaf or disabled person, the excitement and problems of creating the opening ceremony (coming up against the doubts of Jeremy Hunt) and more. Self Raising will be at the Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh from 2 to 27 August 2023 at 12:30PM.
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Zero-waste theatre The Greenhouse tours Docklands
17/05/2023 Duración: 27minThe Greenhouse is billed as the UK’s first zero-waste performance space, holding up to 50 audience members in its in-the-round venue made from found and recycled materials. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Oli Savage, Artistic Director of The Greenhouse about the challenges and joys of making theatre of all kinds in a zero-waste way. The summer 2023 programme opened at Royal Docks in East London on 11 May and runs until 4 June. The theatre will then move to Canary Wharf from 19 June to 14 July, then Battersea Power Station from 7 August to 3 September.
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Gypsy opens Pitlochry rep season
04/05/2023 Duración: 30minPitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland has announced a repertory season for 2023 featuring a 19-strong ensemble of actors performing in 8 different productions, starting with the musical Gypsy. While the show was still in rehearsal, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the two lead actors: Blythe Jandoo who plays Louise, and Shona White, who plays Louise’s formidable mother, Rose. Gypsy runs at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 19 May to 30 September 2023, while Elizabeth Newman’s adaptation of The Secret Garden will run from 7 July to 19 August and The Maggie Wall by Martin McCormick from 9 to 28 June. Other productions in the season include Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Emma Rice’s adaptation of Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, new plays from Peter Arnott and Isla Cowan—Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape and To The Bone—and Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Lipstick, Ketchup and Blood by Lesley Hart.
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This is Kneehigh: online
26/04/2023 Duración: 54minCornwall’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.
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Frank Exchanges with David Wood OBE
15/04/2023 Duración: 01h22minDavid 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 Whirlygig 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, cre
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Factory launches Manchester International Festival 2023
15/03/2023 Duración: 32minFactory International announced the 2023 edition of the biannual Manchester International Festival at an event at New Century Hall in Manchester on 14 March. After the announcement, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Manchester International Festival’s Artistic Director and Chief Executive John McGrath, Adam Szabo from Manchester Collective about their co-production with Slung Low of Benjamin Britten’s community opera Noah’s Flood, Scottee about acting as dramaturg for a musical adaptation of Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta’s cult 1977 book The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions and MIF’s Creative Director, Low Kee Hong. Manchester International Festival 2023 runs from 29 June to 16 July at venues all around the city centre and beyond. (Images: John McGrath, credit Tarnish Vision; Low Kee Hong; Rakhi Singh and Adam Szabo, co-founders of Manchester Collective, photo by Robin Clewley.)
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David Greig resurrects The Egyptians
16/02/2023 Duración: 41minDavid 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.
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Ghost stories and gritty realism from Paradise Heights to Blaine Manor
09/02/2023 Duración: 35minJoe O’Byrne has been producing his own work for stage around the North West, often to great acclaim, for some years, but recently, he has been taking more work further afield than ever. This year, he will again tour his ghost story The Haunting of Blaine Manor and four of his Tales from Paradise Heights, a series of plays that share characters and a location with interlocking stories: The Bench, Diane’s Deli, Strawberry Jack and I’m Frank Morgan: Rewired. BTG Editor David Chadderton has been following Joe’s work for over a decade, and he spoke to him about his work and his newly increased energy and ambition for taking his work around the UK, and potentially onto TV. For more information on all of Joe’s work for stage, screen and canvas, see talesfromparadiseheights.com, and also check out his YouTube channel.
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Stage Door Jonny, a love letter to the stage
05/02/2023 Duración: 48minJonathan 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.
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Ex-Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan takes panto online
23/12/2022 Duración: 33minDuring 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)
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Return to the VAULTS: London festival is back in 2023
16/12/2022 Duración: 35minLondon’s VAULT Festival was founded in 2012 by Andy George and Mat Burtcher in the tunnels under Waterloo Station. The lockdown due to the COVID pandemic came during the 2020 festival and resulted in the cancellation of the 2021 and 2022 festivals, but the programme has now been announced for a big return in January 2023. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to VAULT’s Director and co-founder Andy George about the principles and criteria for the festival programme, it’s humble beginnings ten years ago, survival over three years of COVID and highlights of the 2023 event, plus he comes up with an interesting metaphor for creating theatre taken from Wallace and Gromit. VAULT Festival 2023 takes place in various venues around Waterloo from 24 January to 19 March featuring more than 500 theatre, comedy, cabaret and late-night shows.
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Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022 winners
15/11/2022 Duración: 28minSince 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.
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Not Too Tame opening for Shakespeare North's Midsummer
17/10/2022 Duración: 42minThe new Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot, Merseyside is an Elizabethan-style theatre which opened in July 2022. However, its first production of a play by Shakespeare came later with A Midsummer Night’s Dream produced by Warrington-based associate company Not Too Tame. The production will transfer to Newcastle for a run in the Epic Space at Northern Stage. David Chadderton spoke to Not Too Tame’s Artistic Director Jimmy Fairhurst, who co-directed the production with Matthew Dunster, and a company co-director, Andrew Butler, who appears in the production, about their take on the play, how it fits with the company’s philosophy of accessible theatre for the working classes (“a good night out”) and how this new theatre sits within the community in Prescot, as well as about their introduction to and love for Shakespeare. Not Too Tame’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs at Shakespeare North Playhouse from 22 September to 22 October and at Northern Stage from 29 October to 12 November 2022.
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MIF announces Factory opening for October 2023
06/10/2022 Duración: 52minOn 29 September 2022, Manchester International Festival officially announced its plans for the opening of its new permanent performance venue, to be called Factory International, in the St John’s area of Manchester city centre. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to John E McGrath, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of both Manchester International Festival and Factory International, about what the new building would provide for Manchester and the international arts scene, as well as about the opening production, Free Your Mind, a stage adaptation of the film The Matrix directed by Danny Boyle with a script by Sabrina Mahfouz, music by Mikey J Asante, choreography by Kenrick Sandy and design by Es Devlin. Following this, you can follow us on a tour of the building led by lead architect Ellen van Loon of OMA and Creative Director Low Key Hong. Free Your Mind will run from 18 October to 5 November 2023, and tickets are now on sale. (Photo of John E McGrath at the Factory International Launch, credit: James Spe
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Jekyll and Hyde divided between Derby and Hornchurch
20/09/2022 Duración: 22minDerby 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.
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Adrian Scarborough adapts Alan Bennett for Nottingham
13/09/2022 Duración: 22minNottingham 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.
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Gitika on Road back to Oldham
07/09/2022 Duración: 22minOldham Coliseum Theatre is opening its 2022 autumn season with a revival of Jim Cartwright’s acclaimed portrait of life in a Lancashire town in Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s, Road, which premièred at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1986. Returning to the Coliseum after directing the theatre’s first post-COVID production, Love n Stuff, in September 2021 is director Gitika Buttoo, who spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the relevance of the play to today’s world, the stories it tells, her casting decisions and a career that has taken her from Leeds Playhouse to Bolton Octagon to the National Theatre and now to Oldham Coliseum, amongst others, in just five years. Road by Jim Cartwright will run at Oldham Coliseum from 16 September to 1 October 2022.