British Theatre Guide Podcast

In 2019, the inaugural Visionary Honours, founded by Thriller Live creator Adrian Grant, celebrated work that inspired social change in or debate about equality, diversity, inclusion, mental health, anti-social behaviour or environmental change. For its second year, there will be a Visionary Awards ceremony in March and ten bursaries of up to £5,000 each for young creative artists. This year’s panel includes the writer of hit West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Tom MacRae, who spoke to us about the awards and his involvement, as well as about how Jamie, soon to go on a world tour and be released as a film starring Richard E Grant, initially came about. The Visionary Honours 2020 recipients will be announced on 18 March, with the shortlist to be announced on 4 February.

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.

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)

Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester is continuing its run of revivals of musicals with the Jerry Herman show Mame, starring Tracie Bennett, Tim Flavin and Harriet Thorpe. During the Manchester run, BTG editor David Chadderton sat in the theatre with Harriet—well known to TV audiences for her comedy roles such as Carole The Brittas Empire and Fleur in Absolutely Fabulous, but with stage musical credits including Mamma Mia and Wicked—and spoke about her role as Mame’s bitchy actress friend Vera in the show, about working at Hope Mill and about her background in TV comedy and theatre. Mame runs at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester from 28 September until 9 November 2019. It can also be seen at Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton from 7 to 11 January and Salisbury Playhouse from 21 to 25 January 2020. (Production photo of Harriet Thorpe, credit: Pamela Raith)

The next production from Bolton’s Octagon Theatre is a version of Chekhov’s The Seagull rewritten by Beth Hyland as a gig musical about four aspiring young musicians in a rock band in 2019, performed in a small theatre space in Bolton Library. In this episode, BTG Editor David Chadderton speaks to half of the cast, Tomi Ogbaro and Lauryn Redding, together with director Lotte Wakeham about this première production, plus Lotte gives an update on the reopening of the Octagon Theatre next spring after undergoing a major refurbishment. You can also hear two of the songs from the show: “Remember” and “Muse”. Seagulls by Beth Hyland runs at Bolton Library Theatre from 24 October to 16 November 2019.

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.

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).

Nottingham Playhouse’s latest production is a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. It features Alex Kingston in the lead role of Dr Teresa Stockman. For this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to two of the actors in the play, Deka Walmsley and Donna Banya, about working with Alex Kingston, the effect gender-swapping has had on the play and how the theatre has been revitalised since Adam Penford took over as artistic director. (Photo of Deka Walmsley and Donna Banya, credit Steve Orme)

Birmingham REP has made three major appointments and they’ve all taken up their new positions at a theatre recognised as one of the most important in the country. They’re Artistic Director Sean Foley, Deputy Artistic Director Amit Sharma and Executive Director Rachael Thomas. For this episode, BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke to the three of them about their aim to enhance the REP’s reputation as a theatre that’s relevant to all of its local communities but with a national and international outlook. (Image of Sean Foley, Rachael Thomas and Amit Sharma by Kris Askey)

The latest production from Manchester-based new writing theatre company Box of Tricks is Under Three Moons by Daniel Kanaber, a play about a close male friendship across three decades, described to us by the director as a “platonic love story”. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Danny and director Adam Quayle during the early stages of rehearsals about the play, the development process and how this relationship fits into the current debate about masculinity. Under Three Moons will open at The Lowry in Salford from 24 to 28 September 2019 before touring to Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Unity Theatre in Liverpool, Crewe Lyceum Theatre, Hull Truck Theatre, Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds, The Arts Centre at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, York Theatre Royal, Live Theatre in Newcastle, Theatr Clwyd in Mold, finishing at Rosehill Theatre in Whitehaven on 2 November.

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.

In this episode from the final week of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for 2019, we hear from the current director of a production that has become, after 28 years, an Edinburgh Fringe and C venues institution, Shakespeare for Breakfast. Damian Sandys has directed the production since 2006, as well as its younger brother, Dickens for Dinner, and he explains what audiences can expect from both, as well as how the shows are devised each year. In a previous BTG podcast episode from the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, Paines Plough’s artistic director James Grieve told us about the company’s new pop-up theatre, Roundabout. This year, we spoke to director Steph O’Driscoll, who has directed three productions to be performed by the same company of actors in Roundabout this year: Daughterhood by Charley Miles, On the Other Hand, We’re Happy by Daf James and Dexter and Winter’s Detective Agency by Nathan Bryon. Steph explains about the process of creating productions for this unusual performance space for Edinburgh and for a

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 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 Jona

The Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season has been a regular feature at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal since 1989. An ensemble performs four plays over the space of four weeks, a short rehearsal period proving quite a challenge. In 2019, the season features plays by Frederic Knott, Francis Durbridge, Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner and N J Crisp. In this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to Thriller Season regulars Anna Mitcham and David Martin about their experiences and what audiences can expect from the different plays. The Classic Thriller Season 2019 runs at the Theatre Royal from 30 July until 24 August.

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.

Jackie Kay is the current Makar, the Scottish national poet, whose 2010 memoir, Red Dust Road, is to be adapted for the stage by Tanika Gupta for a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and HOME Manchester, which will open at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2019. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Jackie at HOME Manchester about the subject of her book, her quest to find her birth parents (she was adopted as a baby and brought up in Glasgow), one in Scotland and the other in Nigeria, and what she is hoping for from the adaptation. Red Dust Road is published by Picador. The production will open at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre from 14 to 18 August 2019 before touring to Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling, Eden Court Theatre in Inverness and finishing at HOME Manchester from 11 to 21 September.

Playwright Andrea Dunbar from Bradford in Yorkshire, most famous for Rita, Sue and Bob Too, died in 1990 at the age of 29. Her story was retold in Adelle Stripe’s award-winning debut novel Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, which is about to be brought to the stage by Bradford-based Freedom Studios. The book will be adapted by Yorkshire writer Lisa Holdsworth, who has written extensively for prime time TV, including episodes of Fat Friends, New Tricks, Midsummer Murders and Call the Midwife. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Lisa about her adaptation, about Dunbar and her struggles as a working class female writer and also about the current report by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, of which Lisa is Deputy Chair, into the diversity of writers for TV and film. Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile adapted by Lisa Holdsworth from the novel by Adelle Stripe opens at The Ambassador in Bradford on 30 May 2019 before touring until 30 June to venues in Farsley, Barnsley, Horbury, Bradford, Leeds Doncaster, Wakefie

Braham Murray OBE arrived in Manchester in the 1960s as the youngest artistic director in the country, of the travelling Century Theatre, remaining in the city to co-found the 69 Theatre Company which went on to become the Royal Exchange Theatre, still one of the UK’s leading regional theatres. Murray died in 2018 at the age of 75, but BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to him in 2011 when he had just announced that he would leave the theatre he co-founded 35 years earlier. He spoke about working with Century Theatre's travelling auditorium, forming the 69 Theatre Company at the University Theatre (now Contact) and the process of designing the unique Royal Exchange Theatre module, as well as the rebuilding of the theatre after the 1996 IRA bomb. This interview was originally recorded for TheatreVoice in 2011, but we are reissuing it as a tribute to a man who was very influential in helping to turn Manchester into a major theatrical centre. For more information about the Royal Exchange Theatre, see www.royalexc

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 Exchan