British Theatre Guide Podcast

Leading black British theatre company Talawa, which will celebrate its 35th birthday in 2021, is releasing a series of short online films titled Tales from the Frontline that examine the experiences of black frontline workers during the coronavirus pandemic through monologues compiled from the words of real people through interviews. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Talawa’s Artistic Director, Michael Buffong, who also directed the first of the films, after two of the proposed six films had been released: one from the perspective of a schoolteacher and the other from the words of an NHS recovery worker. They spoke about the reasons behind a project that Michael believes is essential to make sure that the contributions made by black workers to the essential services that keep the country functioning during the current crisis are documented so that they are not forgotten. They also spoke about plans for Talawa’s 35th birthday celebrations next year, and about the impressive list of productions that Michael

Peter Polycarpou, an actor with a long and distinguished history in musical theatre, was about to revive a production that he had written called Falling Stars at London’s Union Theatre when the second coronavirus lockdown was announced. Rather than cancelling entirely, the production, performed by Peter with Sally Ann Triplett and directed by Michael Strassen, was recorded to be made available online. Peter spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton a few days before the recording was due to be released about the production, as well as about the effects of the lockdown on him and on theatre as a whole and a bit about some of his past and possible future work.  Falling Stars is a 60-minute online live-stream to be broadcast at 7:30PM from Sunday 22 to Sunday 29 November 2020, plus 2:30PM matinée performances on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29. Tickets are £15 plus booking fees available from www.stream.theatre. (Photo of Peter Polycarpou and Sally Ann Triplett, credit Paul Nicholas Dyke)

Pursued by a Bear, a theatre company based at Trestle Arts Base in St Albans, Hertfordshire, was preparing a tour of a new project, Nothing on Earth written by Anna Reynolds, before the coronavirus lockdown. As the tour couldn’t go ahead as planned, it was used as the inspiration for a series of short web films called Nothing on Earth: Shorts. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Pursued by a Bear’s Artistic Director, Rosamunde Hutt, when half of the six films had been released about the project and the general aims of the company. Photo of Rosamunde Hutt, credit Tunde Euba.

As some theatre performances are starting to open in the UK after more than five months of lockdown due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, the people in charge of UK theatres have had to make some very difficult decisions in order to survive. To get the perspective of theatre management on the current situation, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Roddy Gauld, Chief Executive of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, just after the announcement that the theatre will reopen in December and Jon Gilchrist, Executive Director & Deputy Chief Executive of Home Manchester, where theatre performances are to recommence from October.

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

Theatre company Told by an Idiot will be one of the first theatre companies to resume performances to live audiences after the coronavirus lockdown when it takes part in the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival with a revival of its family show Get Happy at outdoor venues. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Told by an Idiot founder Paul Hunter, who is directing the piece, during rehearsals about this and past works by the company, as well as about his comedy influences, some of whom he has worked with, and the company’s way of working when devising its distinctive style of physical comedy show. Get Happy will be performed at Woolwich Common Basketball Court on 29 August, The Moorings Estate in Thamesmead on 30 August and Eltham on 12 September 2020.

Tara Arts is a London-based multicultural theatre company which has only had one artistic director, Jatinder Verma MBE, since it was formed in 1977 until he stepped down earlier this year. He will be replaced by Abdul Shayek, a director originally from East London who has spent the last nine years based in Cardiff, initially working with National Theatre Wales and for the last four years running Fio, a theatre company that he formed in 2016. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Abdul just after his appointment had been announced about his plans for Tara, running a multicultural theatre company in Cardiff, theatre as a tool for social change and a few of the many projects he currently has on the go or planned for the near future.

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

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 li

New Perspectives Theatre Company has teamed up with writer David Rudkin to produce a ten-part audio series called PlacePrints. Rudkin has written stories set in different locations around the British Isles and they’ve been recorded over the past four years. The cast includes Michael Pennington, Toby Jones, Juliet Stevenson and Stephen Rea. In this episode, Steve Orme speaks to Jack McNamara from New Perspectives about how the series came together and how the company’s work has changed since its tours were called off due to the coronavirus pandemic. Photo of Jack McNamara, credit Emanuele Costantini.

Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield is producing a star-studded multi-cast audio play, The Understudy, an adaptation by Henry Filloux-Bennett of a novel by David Nicholls about an actor who is failing in most aspects of his life. The cast includes Stephen Fry, Russell Tovey, Emily Atack, Sheila Atim, Layton Williams, Sarah Hadland, Mina Anwar, Jake Ferretti, Sasha Frost, Marie Lawrence, James McNicholas and Lizzie Muncey. Each actor has recorded his or her own dialogue at home in isolation and it has all been assembled by the sound design team of Alexandra Faye Braithwaite with Annie May Fletcher and Sophie Galpin. The proceeds from ticket sales will go to theatre charities the Theatre Development Trust, Acting for Others and the Equity Charitable Trust. In this episode, BTG Editor David Chadderton speaks separately to director Giles Croft, actor Mina Anwar, who plays deputy stage manager Donna, and writer Henry Filloux-Bennett, who is also Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Lawrence Batley Thea

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.

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.

For the second successive year, Derby Theatre is producing a major show featuring fully integrated British Sign Language and captioning. In 2019, the theatre presented Neil Duffield’s adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book; in 2020 Treasure Island will get similar treatment. For this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme chats to Derby Theatre’s artistic director Sarah Brigham about the show and what the theatre is doing regarding the coronavirus outbreak. He also interviews Beth Hinton-Lever who plays Long John Silver and T J Holmes, taking the role of Israel Hands. Treasure Island runs at Derby Theatre from 28 March until 11 April 2020. (Photo of Sarah Brigham, Beth Hinton-Lever and T J Holmes, credit Steve Orme)

Amy Leach is a theatre director and Associate Director at Leeds Playhouse, currently working on a new version of Oliver Twist. This new adaption is by Bryony Lavery, and it’s being staged by Leeds Playhouse in collaboration with the Ramps on the Moon consortium, a partnership between six National Portfolio Organisation theatres and Graeae Theatre. Ramps on the Moon aims to create change within the UK theatre industry in terms of the inclusion and integration of deaf and disabled audiences and theatre-makers. Benjamin Wilson is one of Ramps on the Moon’s Agents for Change. He’s a cast member in this latest production, and has had a key role in developing creative approaches to audio description for this and a number of other shows he’s worked on at Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres. Amy and Ben joined Mark Smith towards the end of their rehearsal period to discuss the Ramps on the Moon initiative, the opportunities opened up by creative approaches to access for D/deaf and visually impaired audiences and

Ben Brantley is the co-chief theatre critic for The New York Times. He has been a staff critic since 1996, filing reviews regularly from London as well as New York. In this episode, BTG’s London Editor Philip Fisher speaks with Ben about his career, as well as about plays in London and New York, past, present and future. (Photo credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

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,

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)

Pilot Theatre is to tour the UK with Crongton Knights by Alex Wheatle in an adaptation by Emteaz Hussain co-directed by Pilot’s Artistic Director, Esther Richardson, and Corey Campbell, Artistic Director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, with music by beatbox champion Conrad Murray. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Esther and Corey during rehearsals for the production at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry about the play’s story and themes, and also about the financial implications of producing new work, creating work for young audiences and getting them to come and see it when schools are struggling for funds, the challenges of touring and about getting actors to beatbox. Crongton Knights will run at the Belgrade Theatre from 8 to 22 February 2020 before touring to York Theatre Royal, Brighton Theatre Royal, The Lowry in Salford, Derby Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and ending at Theatre Peckham in May. (Image of Esther Richardson and Corey Campbell: Sharron Wallace Photography)

imitating the dog has been making theatre work fusing live performance with digital technology and projection for 21 years. Their past productions have included original devised work as well as adaptations from other forms, such as A Farewell to Arms and Heart of Darkness. Their new show, Night of The Living Dead™ – Remix, is being co-produced with Leeds Playhouse. It’s described as a ‘shot-for-shot stage recreation’ of George A Romero’s classic 1968 zombie movie Night of the Living Dead. Mark Smith spoke to co-director Andrew Quick and performer Morven Macbeth, taking time out from rehearsals to discuss the show and the company’s work in general. Morven is one of the actors in Night of The Living Dead™ - Remix and a regular core member of imitating the dog. She has been working with the company since 2005, and most recently appeared in Heart of Darkness. Perfection? We will never achieve it, because it’s impossible. But that’s part of the game. The energy comes from the attempt. Photograph credit: Ed Warri