British Theatre Guide Podcast

The Theatre Royal in Nottingham is preparing for its annual Classic Thrillers Season featuring four different plays over four weeks: Peter Gordon’s Sleighed to Death, A Touch of Danger by Francis Durbridge, a new adaptation of Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel by Louise Page and John Goodrum’s adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Nightmare Room. In this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme talks to Karen Henson from Tabs Productions about being back at the Theatre Royal after a year at Nottingham Playhouse due to refurbishments, and also to actors David Callister and Susan Earnshaw about being part of this unique rep company. The Colin McIntyre Classic Thrillers Season 2018 will be at Theatre Royal Nottingham from 31 July to 25 August.

Philip Fisher talks to John Hopkins and Tuppence Middleton about the differences between working on stage and screen and most particularly their upcoming engagement in Vicky Jones's award-winning The One at Soho Theatre.

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.

Filament Theatre's latest production is Rufus Longbottom and the Space Rabbit, which was created after the production team collaborated with more than 600 schoolchildren on ideas for characters for the new show. At the start of the show's UK tour in Derby, BTG's Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to Filament co-founder Osnat Schmool, who co-created the project and wrote the music and lyrics, and performer and sound artist Lula Mebrahtu, who plays the titular Space Rabbit using innovative music technology. Rufus Longbottom and the Space Rabbit opened at Derby Theatre on 21 May 2018, after which it tours to Stratford Circus Arts Centre, Stantonbury Theatre, Greenwich Theatre, Norden Farm, South Street Arts Centre and Pegasus Theatre in Oxford, where it ends on 9 June.

BTG's Philip Fisher talks to Amanda Mehtala from Theatre in Paris, a venture designed to open up the Parisian theatre scene to English speakers by providing English surtitles for French productions in major Paris theatres.

The Tiger Lillies is an Olivier Award-winning and Grammy-nominated musical trio with more than thirty years of success around the world as a live band, as recording artists and as part of several theatre productions, including the Olivier Award-winning Shockheaded Peter on the West End. Their latest collaboration is with visual director Mark Holthusen and writer Peder Bjurman on a story set along the Mexican border, Corrido de la Sangre, which will be performed as part of the ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Festival 2018 at HOME Manchester. In this episode, BTG editor David Chadderton speaks to two thirds of the Tiger Lillies, Martin Jacques and Adrian Stout, about the new show and also about the joys and the problems of being uncategorisable outsiders, what it means to be genuinely 'alternative', the way the look and the sound of the band were carefully conceived and have evolved and some other projects currently in development or on the horizon. Corrido de la Sangre featuring The Tiger Lillies will be per

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.

Legacy is a new play written by Paul Birch for the York Theatre Royal as an intergenerational collaboration: its cast is made up of Youth Theatre members as well as actors aged 65-plus from the local community. Exploring themes of corruption and the uses—and misuses—of individuals' online identities, the play uses a sci-fi thriller lens to examine some extremely timely questions. Mark Smith talks to director Kate Veysey and performers Hannah Brown and Shirley Williams about the development of the play, as well as the different attitudes to technology brought into stark contrast by the intergenerational nature of the cast. "It's not an anti-technology play, but it does start you thinking about how much can be changed of what you've said, and how it can be taken out of context." "It's a very topical issue but for us it's become very personal."

James Brining has been Artistic Director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse since 2012. Prior to that, he spent sixteen years in Scotland as Artistic Director of TAG Theatre and then Dundee Rep. He talks here to Mark Smith about his forthcoming production of Sunshine on Leith, a musical based on the songs of The Proclaimers, which he originated with writer Stephen Greenhorn at Dundee Rep in 2007. In a wide-ranging discussion, James talks about the challenges and pleasures of returning to a play in a new production, about community and "home", about different versions of ensemble, and about the different theatre "ecologies" of Scotland and England. Finally, he talks us through the thinking behind the massive redevelopment project which is set to close the West Yorkshire Playhouse's two main stages from June, and how he hopes the theatre will turn to face Leeds and "open its arms to the city". "All the great companies of the historical past—Molière, Brecht, Shakespeare—they're based on actors. [...] There's someth

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.

Pullitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation is being revived by director Bijan Sheibani for HOME Manchester in March 2018. Set in a creative drama class in a community centre in Vermont, the cast comprises Amelia Bullmore as Marty, Anthony Ofoegbu as James, Sian Clifford as Theresa, Con O’Neill as Schultz and Yasmin Paige as Lauren. Just over a week before the production opened, BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Sian Clifford and Anthony Ofoegbu during their lunch break from rehearsals about the play, meta-acting, accents, pauses and hula-hooping. Circle Mirror Transformation runs at HOME Manchester from 2 to 17 March 2018.

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.

Mark Smith talks to Esther Richardson, Bryony Lavery and Hannah Peel in a busy York Theatre Royal café about Pilot Theatre’s new adaptation of Brighton Rock. They discuss the appeal of Brighton Rock’s morally complex underworld, getting younger people into regional theatres, creating a musical and choreographic world for the play, and how the company set out to look at Graham Greene’s classic story through a lens which is both contemporary and of the time. Director Esther Richardson has been the Artistic Director of Pilot since February 2016. Her previous theatre work has included productions at theatres throughout the UK, including Soho Theatre, Cast in Doncaster, Tamasha Theatre, Royal and Derngate, Nottingham Playhouse, Bolton Octagon, and many more. Adapter Bryony Lavery is a renowned playwright whose work is regularly performed internationally. She is a prolific writer and adapter, whose plays include Stockholm, Beautiful Burnout and The Believers for Frantic Assembly, Queen Coal for Sheffield Crucible

In November 2015, a new fringe theatre opened up in Ancoats, Manchester with the ambition of presenting full-scale commercial productions of musicals. Created by musical theatre performers Joseph Houston and William Whelton, Hope Mill Theatre has since won multiple local and national awards, transferred productions to London and been named in The Stage 100, a list of the most influential people in the whole of UK theatre from The Stage newspaper. In the middle of January 2018, during auditions for Spring Awakening, one of three major musical productions so far announced by Hope Mill Theatre for this year, BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Joe about the creation, ideals and future plans of this remarkably successful new venue.

Philip Fisher interviews Ngozi Anyanwu about her new play for Atlantic Theater Company, The Homecoming Queen. Set in Nigeria, it follows the fortunes of a woman returning home for a visit after 15 years as a New Yorker. They discuss writing, acting and the New York theatre scene in the current political climate, with particular reference to the African-American community.

  PUSH from Manchester’s HOME arts centre is an annual festival each January that brings together Manchester-based performance artists and companies for just over two weeks of performances, readings, workshops, screenings, exhibitions and other events. At the launch on 12 January, BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to one of the programming team for PUSH, Jodie Ratcliffe, as well as some of the artists whose work will be featured in the festival: Ben Mellor of Pen-Chant Emilie Lahouel and Laura Edwards of Meraki Collective about Only Speak When Spoken To Remi Adefeyisan from Truth Be Told about True Stories Josh Coates on the Untitled AI Project Martin Gibbons of Monkeywood Theatre on The Manchester Project Sue Jenkins, producer and director of Narcissist in the Mirror, written and performed by Rosie Fleeshman PUSH 2018 runs at HOME Manchester from Friday 12 to Saturday 27 January. For more information, including the full programme of events, see the theatre’s web site.

Philip Fisher and Village Voice columnist/critic Michael Feingold discuss trends in New York Theatre, the latter concluding that “we have a lot of signs of hope in the theatre”.

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 2

At the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester on 13 November 2017, the winners were announced of the sixth biennial Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. The winners of three Judges’ Prizes of £8,000 each were announced as Tim Foley for his play Electric Rosary, Laurie Nunn for King Brown and Sharon Clark for Plow. The £16,000 top prize went to the play Heartworm by Tim X Atack, who had just worked at the Royal Exchange as sound designer for a production of Jubilee based on the Derek Jarman film. In this episode, you can hear the moment when Tim was announced as the winner followed by our interview with him about the play, his work in general and what winning the prize will mean to him. For more information about the Bruntwood Prize including advice for playwrights, see writeaplay.co.uk. Tim Atack’s company Sleepdogs can be found at sleepdogs.org.

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)