British Theatre Guide podcast: Recent Episodes

British Theatre Guide

Interviews and more from the world of professional theatre right across the UK.

Elizabeth Newman, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres, has adapted F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, which is now 100 years old, for the stage for the theatre she recently left, Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

It will be co-produced by Derby Theatre, where it will also open that venue’s 50th anniversary season, and will by directed by Derby’s Artistic Director, Sarah Brigham.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Sarah and Elizabeth about the production, the story’s continuing appeal and how their adaptation works, as well as about Derby’s anniversary, Elizabeth’s move from Scotland to South Yorkshire… and snooker.

Elizabeth Newman’s adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, directed by Sarah Brigham, will run as part of the summer repertory season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland from 27 June to 25 September 2025 before transferring to Derby Theatre from 3 to 25 October.

59E59 Theatres in New York City has presented a regular Brits Off Broadway season of British theatre productions since 2004.

This year, the season runs from 22 April to 29 June and features eight productions that were recently performed in the UK.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Val Day, 59E59’s Artistic Director, and Brian Beirne, Managing Director, about the origins of the season, their selection process, the financing of this theatrical ‘unicorn’ (as Brian calls it) and the productions in the 2025 programme:

The Last Laugh, written and directed by Paul Hendy, from Evolution Productions and Jamie Wilson Productions from 22 April to 25 May.
The Ungodly, written and directed by Joanna Carrick, from Red Rose Chain from 23 April to 11 May.
The Mistake by Michael Mears, directed by Rosamunde Hutt, from Essential Theatre from 24 April to 11 May.
Gertrude Lawrence: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening written and performed by Lucy Stevens and directed by Sarah-Louise Young from Astor Theatre from 13 to 25 May.
Shellshocked, written and directed by Philip Stokes, from Richard Jordan Productions and 412, from 14 May to 8 June.
A Special Relationship by Tim Marriott and Brian Dykstra, directed by Margarett Perry, from 29 May to 29 June.
Pride and Prejudice adapted by Abigail Pickard Price, who also directs, with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches from Guildford Shakespeare Company from 30 May to 29 June.
Kafka, written and performed by Jack Klaff and directed by Colin Watkeys from Twilight Theatre Co from 12 to 29 June.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is regarded as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. A new production is touring the UK.

BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to David Hayman, who plays Willy Loman, and director Andy Arnold about the previous production they worked on as well as their current project. Death of a Salesman runs until 3 May. Further information is available at the Trafalgar Entertainment web site.

The next production from Wise Children theatre company will be a new stage adaptation of the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock Cold War thriller North by Northwest, adapted and directed by Emma Rice.

The roles of Roger Thornhill and Eve Kendall, played in the film by Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, will be taken by Ewan Wardrop and Patrycja Kujawska.

A week before previews at York Theatre Royal, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Patrycja about the production and about the working process of a company and a director with whom she has had a long association.

North by Northwest runs at York Theatre Royal from 18 March to 5 April 2025 before touring to HOME Manchester, Liverpool Playhouse, Bath Theatre Royal, Everyman Theatre Cheltenham and Alexandra Palace Theatre in London.

(Rehearsal photo of Patrycja Kujawska as Eve Kendall and Ewan Wardrop as Roger Thornhill, credit Steve Tanner)

The programme for the tenth biennial Manchester International Festival for 2025 was announced on 11 March at Aviva Studios.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to John McGrath, Factory International’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director, and Creative Director Low Kee Hong, as well as Jonathan Watkins, director and choreographer of A Single Man, and the writer, Ntombizodwa Nyoni, and director, Monique Touko, of Liberation.

The 2025 Manchester International Festival runs from Thursday 3 to Sunday 20 July.

A Single Man, produced with The Royal Ballet and created by Jonathan Watkins from Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel with new music by Jasmin Kent Rodgman and John Grant, will be at Aviva Studios from 2 to 6 July.

Liberation, written by Ntombizodwa Nyoni and directed by Monique Touko, will be at the Royal Exchange Theatre from 27 June to 26 July.

For more information about all of the events in the festival, see the Factory International web site.

(Photos of Monique Touko, Ntombizodwa Nyoni and Jonathan Watkins courtesy of the artists; photo of John McGrath, credit Tarnish Vision.)

Playwright Jane Upton has taken her experiences of motherhood and included them in a new play, (the) Woman.

Nottinghamshire company New Perspectives is touring the play which will also have a five-week run in London.

Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to Jane Upton and New Perspectives artistic director Angharad Jones about the play and how it was conceived.

(the) Woman is on tour until 15 March and will be at London’s Park Theatre from 24 September until 25 October 2025. (Photo: Jane Upton and Angharad Jones, credit Steve Orme)

Mary Wollstonecraft, famous for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was born in London in 1759 but spent some of her early life in Beverley near Hull in Yorkshire.

Playwright Maureen Lennon and actor Laura Elsworthy will together bring her back to the region in Maureen’s play Mary and The Hyenas, in which Laura will play Mary.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Maureen and Laura while the play was in rehearsal in Hull about Mary’s life and legacy, the continuing relevance of her message, bringing her story to life on stage and the flourishing arts scene in Yorkshire.

Laura Elsworthy stars in the title role of Mary and The Hyenas by Maureen Lennon for Hull Truck Theatre and Pilot Theatre, directed by Esther Richardson with music by Billy Nomates, which runs at Hull Truck Theatre from 7 February to 1 March 2025 before transferring to Wilton’s Music Hall in London from 18 to 29 March.

Mama G is an award-winning year-round storyteller whose work is driven by the magic of pantomime. She has appeared in professional pantomimes across the UK for almost twenty years and this year stars in Aladdin at the Beck Theatre, Hayes. She has also written, directed and produced pantomimes for numerous holiday parks and theatres, including Stanley Arts Centre, South Norwood.

Since 2018, Mama G has been sharing stories with children and their families about being who you want and loving who you are. The work has taken her to libraries, theatres, schools and festivals throughout the United Kingdom and in 2023 she appeared Off-Broadway with her show The Magic Bookmark.

In October 2024, Mama G released of her first traditionally published picture book, Oh Yes I Am!, which celebrates the power of pantomime and is set to receive its first stage adaptation in the West End this December.

Mama G speaks to BTG Panto Editor Simon Sladen about her career to date, the evolution of her Daming and her many ventures including appearing on Britain’s Got Talent.

Leading pantomime company Evolution Productions will this year celebrate its 20th anniversary with ten productions at theatres right across England.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the conpany’s founders, Paul Hendy and Emily Wood, about their upcoming panto season and about what goes into making their pantos, as well as about Paul’s play The Last Laugh, which will follow a very successful run at the last Edinburgh Fringe with a West End run early next year.

Evolution Productions’ twentieth anniversary panto season in 2024 will run at theatres in Canterbury, Sheffield, Northampton, York, St Albans, Crawley, Dunstable, Shrewsbury, Lichfield and Basildon.

Paul’s play The Last Laugh will run at London’s Noël Coward Theatre from 25 February to 22 March 2025.

Fierce Festival is a “youthful and joy-filled festival of international theatre, performance and experiences” which takes place in and around Birmingham every two years. Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to Fierce’s artistic director Clayton Lee and Adam Kinner whose one-to-one show Manual will be presented daily in the Library of Birmingham. Fierce Festival will run from Tuesday 15 until Saturday 19 October. (Photo: Clayton Lee and Adam Kinner, credit Steve Orme)

In 2009, TV writers Trevor Suthers and John Chambers put together a night of short, brand new plays written by established TV writers which took its name from its original venue, the Joshua Brooks pub on Princess Street in Manchester.

Fifteen years on, and now at fringe venue 53two, JB Shorts is an established biannual event on the Manchester theatre calendar with its two-week runs of six 15-minute plays.

With the 25th JB Shorts about to open, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Trevor together with actor James Quinn, who wrote for the very first JB and has written, directed and performed in many since, about what JB is all about and what this next run will offer, as well as how the whole thing began.

JB Shorts 25 runs at 53two, Arch 19, Watson Street, Manchester from Wednesday 9 to Saturday 19 October 2024.

Derby Theatre is to present a new play, Welfare, by local playwright Abi Zakarian, that will take audiences to The Derbyshire Miners’ Holiday Camp in Skegness, where miners went initially to convalesce and later to holiday, as it was turned into a holiday camp for Derbyshire miners and their families.

Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke to director Sarah Brigham and three of the actors, Jo Mousley, Hanna Winter and John Holt-Roberts, about the play and about the history behind it, both local and from much further afield.

Welfare will run at Derby Theatre from 28 September to 12 October 2024.

(Photo Jo Mousley, Hanna Winter, Sarah Brigham and John Holt-Roberts, credit Steve Orme)

The next production to open at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London is a new adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, adapted for the stage by Suzanne Heathcote and directed by Christopher Haydon, Rose Theatre’s Artistic Director.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Christopher just before a rehearsal for the play about the adaptation, working with one of his literary heroes, the necessity for co-productions and the state of arts funding and arts education in the UK at the moment.

Never Let Me Go will run at the Rose Theatre from 20 September to 12 October 2024 before touring to Royal and Derngate in Northampton from 16 to 26 October, Malvern Theatres from 29 October to 2 November, Bristol Old Vic from 5 to 23 November and Chichester Festival Theatre from 26 to 30 November.

(Photo of Christopher Haydon in rehearsal for Never Let Me Go, credit DMLK)

Guy Masterson, one of the most well-known and well-respected theatre producers on the Edinburgh Fringe, this year celebrates his thirtieth consecutive festival season. However, he has announced that this is also to be his last festival visit as a producer.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Guy just after the first performance of one of the shows in his programme for this year about producing nearly 150 shows over three decades, the trials and joys of producing, writing, directing and performing at the Fringe and his decision to stop producing shows there.

In Guy’s programme for this year’s Fringe, Making Marx and Victor’s Victoria both run at the Assembly Rooms from 1 to 26 August 2024 each day at 11:35AM and 8:30PM respectively.

Guy’s solo shows Under Milk Wood and Animal Farm are both at Pleasance at EICC at 6PM, the first on 14 August and the second on 18 August.

For more information about Guy and his work, past, present and future, see the Theatre Tours International web site.

2024 marks twenty years since Just the Tonic venues first appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, although founder Darrell Martin had been putting on shows at the festival since 2002 and started the company by running Sunday night comedy clubs in 1994.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Darrell before the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe about 20 years on the Fringe, the current state of the Edinburgh festival season, getting into the business as a fan of comedy in the ‘80s, running comedy clubs around the country and about producing comedy as a decades-long act of procrastination to avoid writing material for his own stand-up act.

Just the Tonic will be hosting more than 190 shows across five venues during the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more information about its Edinburgh programme and to book tickets online, see edinburgh.justthetonic.com—or you can also book at Edfringe.com.

You can see what’s on at the other Just the Tonic venues around the UK and book tickets for them at www.justthetonic.com.

Writer-director Paul Hendy brings back three comedians through performers Bob Golding, Damian Williams and Simon Cartwright.

Every year, the Edinburgh Fringe programme features solo performances about real people, which in the past have included Bob Golding as Eric Morecambe in Tim Whitnall’s Morecambe from 2009, Damian Williams as Tommy Cooper in Being Tommy Cooper by Tom Green from 2012 and Simon Cartwright as Bob Monkhouse in The Man Called Monkhouse by Alex Lowe from 2015.

Writer-director Paul Hendy brought these three performers together for a film short called The Last Laugh in 2017, which he has now extended for a stage production featuring the same cast.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke with the four of them about the play, what drove these great comics—and some of their demons—and why they have returned to playing them so many times.

The Last Laugh will be in Studio One at Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh at 1:20PM every day except Monday 12 August from 31 July to 25 August 2024.

For more information and tickets, go to Edfringe.com or Assembly Festival and search for “The Last Laugh”.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland and The New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich are co-producing a new production of the stage musical Footloose, based on the ‘80s film of the same name that starred Kevin Bacon.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to New Wolsey Artistic Director Douglas Rintoul, who will direct the production, and Pitlochry’s Artistic Director, Elizabeth Newman, about the production, other musicals that both their theatres are producting this year (Little Shop of Horrors, Beautiful: The Carol King Musical, The Sound of Music).

They also spoke about the advantages of co-productions—and when they may not be appropriate—as well as programming and casting a rep season and panto.

Little Shop of Horrors closes at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton on 18 May and then moves to Hull Truck Theatre from 22 May to 8 June 2024.

Footloose will run at various times and dates in Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s season between 31 May and 26 September before transferring to The New Wolsey Theatre from 3 to 26 October.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical will run at Pitlochry between 7 June and 28 September, and The Sound of Music will be there between 15 November and 22 December.

Sleeping Beauty, the New Wolsey panto written by Vikki Stone, will run from 22 November 2024 to 18 January 2025.

Guildford Shakespeare Company began with an outdoor production of Much Ado About Nothing in Guildford Castle Grounds in 2006.

Eighteen years on, the company is celebrating its coming of age with a production of Romeo and Juliet which mostly takes place along Guildford High Street.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the company’s founders, Matt Pinches and Sarah Gobran, about the production and about the challenges, practical and financial, of mounting their style of theatre in spaces that were not designed for performance—including holding on to scenery in high winds and preventing foxes from chewing through microphone cables.

Romeo and Juliet from Guildford Shakespeare Company will take place in Guildford Castle Grounds and the town centre from Friday 21 June to Saturday 13 July 2024.

For more information and tickets, see www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk.

(Photo of GSC Co-Founders Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches in October 2022. Credit: Matt Pereira.)

The 2024 summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London will open with a new production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley, an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and an Associate Director for Cheek by Jowl.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Owen at a break during rehearsals about his approach to the play, his love of Shakespeare and the perhaps unusual way he was originally introduced to the Bard’s work.

Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley runs at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre from 3 May to 8 June 2024.

Actor, writer, choreographer and film-maker Lanre Malaolu’s play Samskara had a sell-out run at London’s Yard Theatre in 2022 and was subsequently published by Nick Hern Books.

Now, I See is the second play of what has become a trilogy which, like the first part, examines family relationships through a modern black, British lens.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Lanre about the play, his writing process, how his work comes from his own experiences and observations and his introduction to creating theatre through Anna Scher drama classes and a transformational experience through Jonzi D’s Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells.

Now, I See runs at Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London from 10 May to 1 June 2024.

Actor Greg Hicks has played many leading roles at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company over the last forty years, as well as starring on the West End and appearing on screen in films including The Mercy and Snow White and the Huntsman.

He is about to perform a one-man show, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, based on a short story by Dostoyevsky, at the new Marylebone Theatre in London.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him a few days before it opened about the play and how much more of himself he will be presenting to an audience than in other roles he has played.

He also spoke about some of his past roles, including performing naked in Romans in Britain for a role that nearly ended him up in criminal court immediately followed by appearing in full costume and mask for Peter Hall’s famous Oresteia (he credits Hall as his mentor at the National in the 1970s).

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, adapted and directed by Laurence Boswell, is at Marylebone Theatre in London from 21 March to 20 April 2024.

(Rehearsal image of Greg Hicks in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, credit Richard James Taylor)

Danish theatre company fix+foxy premièred Dark Noon at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe which “explores one of the great American myths—the Wild West” through seven South African actors.

The production will be restaged at Manchester’s Aviva Studios this spring. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to co-directors Tue Biering and Nhlanhla Mahlangu about what and whose story the play is telling and about the process of creating it.

Dark Noon will be performed in the South Warehouse of Aviva Studios in Manchester from 6 to 10 March 2024.

Following Night of the Living Dead—Remix and Dracula: The Untold Story, imitating the dog is again collaborating with Leeds Playhouse, this time on a new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein co-created by Pete Brooks, Andrew Quick and Simon Wainwright.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Andrew Quick during rehearsals at Leeds Playhouse about the technical challenges of this two-hander for creators and performers, the state of touring shows around the UK and Europe at the moment and the company’s style and creative process.

Frankenstein, featuring design by Hayley Brindle, lighting by Andrew Crofts and original music by James Hamilton, will open at Leeds Playhouse from 15 February 2024, before touring to Oxford Playhouse, Watford Palace Theatre, The Lowry in Salford, Cast in Doncaster, Mercury Theatre in Colchester, Liverpool Playhouse, The Dukes Lancaster and Northern Stage in Newcastle.

(Photo of Andrew Quick, credit Ed Waring)

For Christmas 2023, there were two new stage adaptations of stories by Roald Dahl in the UK: The Witches at the National Theatre in London and The Enormous Crocodile at Leeds Playhouse, the first to be co-produced by the Roald Dahl Story Company.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the company’s Artistic Director of Theatre, Jenny Worton, about what the Roald Dahl Story Company actually is, how it develops new shows based on Dahl’s books and some of the plans for the future.

The National Theatre production of The Witches runs until 27 January 2024.

Pilot Theatre, a York-based touring company that creates theatre for young people is to tour England in February and March 2024 with an adaptation of David Almond’s book A Song for Ella Grey, written by Zoe Cooper and directed by Pilot’s Artistic Director, Esther Richardson.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Esther while the production was still in rehearsal about the play, its North East setting, having a TikTok star in the title role, the process of adapting a challenging novel for the stage and the current state of theatre for young people in the UK.

A Song for Ella Grey will open at Northern Stage in Newcastle 1–15 February 2024, before moving to York Theatre Royal 20–24 February, Theatre Peckham 27 February to 2 March, Hull Truck Theatre 5–9 March, Liverpool Playhouse 13–16 March and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford 19–23 March.

Physical theatre company Gecko, based in Ipswich, was founded in 2001 by Amit Lahav, who is still its Artistic Director.

The company’s latest production, Kin, toured the UK in 2023 and will be at the National Theatre in London in January 2024.

Amit spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the origins of the production in the story of his grandmother Leah’s journey from Yemen to Palestine as a child in 1932 to escape persecution, how this developed to look at migration stories more widely, the politics of migration then and now and Gecko’s—and Amit’s—creative process in making theatre.

Kin will run at the Lyttelton Theatre from 12 to 27 January 2024.

(Photo of Amit Lahav in Kin by Gecko (c) Malachy Luckie)

Mark Thomas is a stand-up comic whose work for stage and TV has frequently crossed over into theatre and into political activism, in some cases resulting in changes in the law.

He is currently performing a show he hasn’t written himself for the first time, England & Son by award-winning playwright Ed Edwards.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Mark while the play was touring about the play, the importance of storytelling, football, class, what makes a ‘creative act’, Oliver Cromwell, Brecht, Shakespeare and a lot more.

England & Son, directed by Cressida Brown, is at the Arcola Theatre in London until 25 November 2023 then moves to the Playhouse in Sheffield from 28 to 29 November and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh from 5 to 9 December.

For more information about Mark, performance dates and tickets, see his web site.

(Performance shot of Mark Thomas in England & Son, credit Alex Brenner)

The Prince of Egypt, the DreamWorks animated film from 1998, was brought to the West End stage in 2020 at the Dominion Theatre but had to take a break due to the COVID lockdown. It completed its run the following year when it was filmed for a cinema release.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the show’s composer and lyricist, multi-Grammy and Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz, about the show’s West End run and how it originally came about, as well as some of his views on songwriting.

The Prince of Egypt will be released in selected cinemas across the UK and internationally on 19 and 22 October 2023 by Trafalgar Releasing. Tickets are on sale at ThePrinceOfEgyptMusicalFilm.com.

For information about Stephen and his work, see the Stephen Schwartz official web site.

(Photo of Stephen Schwartz, credit: Nathan Johnson.)

Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre and Tamasha will present Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens set during the Indian partition in Bengal, directed by Pooja Ghai, Artistic Director of Tamasha

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Pooja during rehearsals about the production, the history and concept behind Tamasha and a recently announced programme to “diversify dramaturgy” funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Great Expectations will run at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 8 September to 7 October 2023.

Photo of Pooja Ghai in rehearsals for Great Expectations by Abey Lam

Dublin Theatre Festival in Ireland has been running since 1957, and Willie White has been its Artistic Director and Chief Executive since 2011.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Willie about the 2023 festival and the history and general focus of the festival.

Dublin Theatre Festival runs from 28 September to 15 October 2023.

After the Silence, image credit Juliana França Nurith Wagner-Strauss
Truth’s A Dog Must To Kennel, image credit Amy Gibson
Warrior - Karen Egan, photo Shane McCarthy
Zona Franca, © Renato Mangolin

Glasgow-based writer Nat McCleary’s play Thrown for National Theatre Scotland is set in the world of backhold wrestling and is concluding its tour of Scotland with a run at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

It is directed by Johnny McKnight, who spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton at the mid-point of the festival about the play, Scottish traditions, this year’s festivals and the influence panto has had on everything he does in theatre.

Thrown continues at the Traverse until Sunday 27 August 2023, as does the musical No Love Songs, with a book co-written by Johnny with Laura Wilde.

Towards 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.

Kimber Lee’s provocatively titled winner of the first International Award from the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019, untitled fck mss sgon 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 fck mss sgon 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 Other Richard - Richard Davenport)

As 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)

Jenny 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.

The 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.

Pitlochry 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.

Cornwall’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.

David 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, credit: Mary White]

Factory 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.)

David 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.

Joe 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.

Jonathan 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.

During 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)

London’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.

Since 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.

The 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.

On 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 Speakman / PA Wire)

Derby 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.

Nottingham 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.

Oldham 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.

Peter Straker’s first big break was in the West End première of the musical Hair in 1968, following which he has had a long and impressive career in both musical and non-musical theatre and as a recording artist, notably collaborating with his close friend Freddie Mercury.

His show based on the songs of Jacques Brel was a hit a few years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe, but this year, he is trying something new with Adventures of Straker, featuring songs from various musicals accompanied by musician Gabriele Baldocci.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Peter about his Edinburgh show, as well as a bit about his journey from Jamaica to the West End stage, performing in the taboo-breaking musical Hair just as the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain was ending on the British stage and a few other highlights of his career, plus some of his packed future plans.

The Adventures of Straker will be at theSpace @ Niddry Street in Edinburgh from 15 to 20 August 2022 each day at 6:55PM. For more information, see www.adventuresofstraker.co.uk, or to book tickets, go to www.edfringe.com. You can find more information about Peter Straker and his work at his own web site, newsite.peterstraker.com.

Mischief Theatre, which rose to fame ten years ago with its smash hit comedy The Play That Goes Wrong, is returning to Edinburgh in 2022 with three shows: Charlie Russell Aims to Please, Mischief Movie Night and Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle.

Charlie Russell, who writes and performs the show that names her in the title, has been a co-creator and cast member in most of the company’s shows so far. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Charlie about their three Fringe shows as well as about the company’s creative process and phenomenal success.

Charlie Russell Aims to Please runs at Pleasance Below, Pleasance Courtyard at 3:15PM from 3 to 27 August. Mischief Movie Night is at Pentland Theatre, Pleasance at EICC at 6:30PM from 3 to 28 August. Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle is at Pleasance Beyond, Pleasance Courtyard from 3 to 28 August.

The new piece by Henry Shields, Good Luck, Studio, will be at Mercury Theatre in Colchester, Salisbury Playhouse and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford between September and November 2022.

For more details and tickets for the three Edinburgh shows, go to www.edfringe.com, www.pleasance.co.uk or mischiefedfringe.com, or for more information about the company and its work in general, see www.mischiefcomedy.com.

Rehearsal photo of Charlie Russell by Danny Kaan.

John Lloyd, the TV and radio producer behind many classic comedy programmes from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Not the Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image to Have I Got News For You, The News Quiz and QI, will be asking audiences to put his accumulated knowledge on all subjects to the test at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe in his show Do You Know Who I Am?.

BTG Editor David Chadderton asked him about the show, about his career and about the things that continue to fascinate him enough to make producing programmes like QI more like an addiction than a job.

John Lloyd: Do You Know Who I Am? will be at The Stand’s New Town Theatre on George Street, Edinburgh from 5 to 15 August 2022 at 3:40PM every day.

For more details and tickets, go to edfringe.com or www.thestand.co.uk.

London’s Greenwich + Docklands International Festival began as a free, outdoor festival in 1996, managed to continue throughout the COVID pandemic and has now announced its 27th programme of events which will run from 26 August to 11 September 2022.

GDIF Artistic Director Bradley Hemmings MBE, who also co-directed the opening ceremony for the 2012 London Paralympic Games, spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about this year’s festival and about its past developments.

One of the biggest hits of the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a one-man show about comedian Eric Morecambe written by Tim Whitnall and performed by Bob Golding.

When comedy impressionist Jon Culshaw (Dead Ringers, Spitting Image) had the idea to pay tribute to comedian Les Dawson, he teamed up with Tim and Bob to create Les Dawson: Flying High, which will make its debut at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe before being extended for a national tour.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the three of them together during the rehearsal period about their approach to telling the story, some of the elements they had to include and the affection that they and many others still have for a few comedians of Les Dawson’s generation.

Les Dawson: Flying High, written by Tim Whitnall, directed by Bob Golding and starring Jon Culshaw, will run at the Gordon Aikman Theatre, Assembly George Square in Edinburgh from 3 to 28 August 2022 followed by a tour of the UK.

(Photo of Jon Culshaw as Les Dawson by Steve Ullathorne)

David Sefton joined Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury as Artistic Director in 2021, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, after running the Adelaide Festival in Australia.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to David about the 2022-23 season featuring companies such as Pussy Riot, 1927 and Improbable, and also about a career that took him from Liverpool to London’s South Bank, where he created the Meltdown Festival working with guest curators including Scott Walker, John Peel, Elvis Costello and Laurie Anderson, to UCLA Performing Arts in Los Angeles and then to Adelaide before returning to Kent—including a few stops on the way that he says aren’t even on his CV any more.

For more information about Gulbenkian Arts Centre and its programme or to buy tickets, see www.thegulbenkian.co.uk or find it on Twitter or Instagram at @thegulbenkian.

The Still Room is a new play at Park Theatre in London set in the ‘still room’ of a hotel, where the waiters wait, in the North West of England in 1981.

It was written by Sally Rogers, best known on TV as DC Jo Masters in The Bill and with theatre credits at the National Theatre, Royal Court and Out of Joint, based on her own experiences of working in a hotel near Stockport when she was just 16.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Sally during previews about the play and its setting, about teaching a young cast about life in the ‘80s and about various aspects of Sally’s career, including being directed by John Malkovich (and making him cry) and being a member of Max Stafford Clark’s Out of Joint theatre company in the 1990s, which, she says, made her a much better actor.

Of course The Bill is mentioned, and her colleague from that long-running TV series Chris Simmons (DC Mickey Webb) who is performing in her play, plus there is an element of two people reminiscing about growing up near Manchester in the 1980s.

The Still Room opened for previews at Park Theatre in London on 1 June and runs until 25 June 2022. You can find Sally on Twitter at @SallyARogers.

On 25 March 2022, Manchester arts venue Contact announced that writer, performer and producer Keisha Thompson would take over from Matt Fenton in June to become its first female, first Mancunian and youngest Artistic Director.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Keisha a week before the announcement. She explained about her 17-year history at the venue, the philosophy behind this unique theatre for young people, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, all the different production skills she has picked up from working at Contact and how much she loves a good spreadsheet.

(Photo of Keisha Thompson by Audrey Albert)

British theatre company Les Enfants Terribles celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2022 with a new production adapted from Sophie Anderson’s novel The House with Chicken Legs by company founder Oliver Lansley directed by Oli with Creative Director James Seager.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Oli and James during rehearsals, a week before opening night, about the production and their style and influences and looked back over their work during the last 20 years.

The House with Chicken Legs runs at HOME Manchester from 29 March to 23 April 2022.

The music for the show featured in this episode is by Alexander Wolfe.

(Photo of James Seager and Oliver Lansley by Rah Petherbridge Photography)

Writer, director and actor Ryan Calais Cameron is artistic director and co-founder of theatre company Nouveau Riche, and his play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy is about to open at London’s Royal Court Theatre.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Ryan a couple of weeks before the Royal Court opening and asked him about the play and its origins, about creating a theatre company without knowing how to go about doing so and about making theatre for the people from the community in which he grew up.

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy runs at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 31 March to 30 April 2022.

(Photo of Ryan Calais Cameron, credit: Ali Wright)

Pilot Theatre is based in York in the UK, but for its latest project has collaborated with an Australian playwright on an adaptation of an Australian novel. The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon has received award nominations for both the Carnegie and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for a story about a young refugee born in an Australian permanent detention centre. The adaptation has been written by S Shakthidharan and will be directed by Pilot’s Artistic Director, Esther Richardson.

Esther and Shakthi spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the process of adapting the novel from opposite sides of the world, how refugees are treated in Australia and the UK and creating work both for and in collaboration with young audiences.

The Bone Sparrow from Pilot Theatre will open at York Theatre Royal on 25 February 2022 then tour to Theatre Royal Bury St Edmonds, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and Mercury Theatre Colchester before ending at Theatre Peckham in April.

With Panto Season 2021 now well under way, BTG Panto Editor Simon Sladen caught up with award-winning writer, composer, actor and musician Vikki Stone.

This year, Vikki has penned Aladdin for the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, having previously appeared at the venue as Abanazar and Fleshcreep. They discuss Vikki's pantomime career, challenges facing the genre today and top tips for budding pantomime writers.

More information on Vikki's many projects can be found at her web site.

Aladdin runs at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until 2 January 2022.

Award-winning writer, composer, actor and musician Vikki Stone is known for her original comedy songs, quick wit and hilarious charm.

As a comedian, Vikki has appeared on many television and radio shows, including The John Bishop Show, The Now Show, This Morning, That Sunday Night Show, ITV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now, amongst many others.

Her one-woman show at Soho Theatre Instrumental received huge praise. For her stage work, she has won the Soho Theatre Stand-Up Award, the Hospital Club’s HCLUB100 Award for Theatre and performance and the Best Musical Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival.

Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were brought to the stage in 2014 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by Jeremy Herrin.

The third in the series, The Mirror and the Light, has opened at the Gielgud Theatre, again directed by Herrin but this time adapted by Mantel herself with Ben Miles, who has played the central character of Thomas Cromwell across all three plays.

Also returning is Nathaniel Parker as King Henry VIII. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him on the morning of the press night performance about the production, as well as about playing real people (from King Henry to Gordon Brown and Albert Speer), lockdown, playing Bond (in a manner of speaking) and just a little bit of politics.

The Mirror and the Light began previews at London’s Gielgud Theatre on 23 September 2021, opened on 6 October and is booking until 23 January 2022.

For more information about the production, see the web sites of The Mirror and the Light or The RSC. To keep up-to-date with Nat’s work and blog posts, see his web site.

(Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII in The Mirror and the Light - Photo by Marc Brenner)

Mark Ravenhill has been well known as a British playwright since the 1990s, when he was a leading figure in the group of writers labelled ‘In Yer Face’. Director Hannah Price was founder and Co-Artistic Director of Theatre Uncut and a Resident Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse.

From 1 October 2021, Mark and Hannah will take over as joint Artistic Directors of the King’s Head Theatre, London’s oldest pub theatre.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to them both about their ideas for helping people working in the industry as we come out of a global pandemic, their support for new writers and young LGBTQ+ people and how digital theatre will play an important part in their future plans.

After the cancellation of the 2020 Edinburgh Festivals due to the coronavirus pandemic, apart from a small number of online shows, the 2021 festivals are going ahead, with some shows happening in front of live audiences and some online.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Fringe performer, writer, director and producer Guy Masterson, in Edinburgh to perform a cut-down version of his one-man Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas for his 27th year on the Fringe, about how different Edinburgh seems this year, as well as the damage caused to theatre by lockdown, even touching on the effects of Brexit on touring artists.

Guy Masterson’s shows tour regularly around the UK and internationally. The Shark is Broken will run at the Ambassador’s Theatre in London from 9 October 2021 to 15 January 2022. For more information, see Theatre Tours International.

After a record-breaking year in 2019, with more than 600,000 attendees, Brighton Fringe had to cancel its 2020 festival at fairly short notice due to the first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic in England.

However, the Fringe is back for 2021, slightly later in the year than usual, with a hybrid live and online programme of events.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Brighton Fringe CEO Julian Caddy about the festival and what it will be offering attendees this year, as well as the difficulties they have faced over the last year or so.

Brighton Fringe runs from Friday 28 May to Sunday 27 June 2021 at various venues around the town and online. For more information about the festival and the events in this year’s programme and to obtain tickets, visit the festival's web site, call 01273 917 272 or download the Brighton Fringe app from the Google Play or Apple App Store.

WeMakeEvents was launched in April 2020, soon after the first coronavirus lockdown, by PLASA, the Professional Lighting and Sound Association, to highlight the plight of its membership, the majority of whom are freelance workers and therefore not eligible for government furlough payments.

The campaign has grown to include other industry bodies and has become a global movement, with major performance venues lighting their buildings in red to highlight the red alert status of the industry. It offers financial assistance, wellbeing support and advice as well as campaigning with governments and the public to raise awareness.

The campaign has attracted a great many celebrity endorsements, including from stand-up comedian, comedy writer and sports presenter Kevin Day, who took part in a promotional video for #WeMakeEvents with fellow comics Griff Rhys Jones, Lucy Porter and Stephen K Amos.

Kevin has been prominent on the UK comedy scene since the late ‘80s when he performed regularly at The Comedy Store. He has written for Dave Allen and Jo Brand and continues to write for the long-running BBC comedy show Have I Got News For You. He spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about how essential production staff are to theatre, festivals, live comedy and many other events, how important the live performance industry is to the UK economy and to the wellbeing of the country and how lockdown has personally affected him and his family—his son is also a stand-up comedian and his wife works in theatre production and event management.

For more information on the campaign, to make a donation, to buy merchandise or to find assistance if you are affected by the crisis, see the #WeMakeEvents web site.

Through industry charity Backup, you can also make donations via a texting service: text “ONETWO” plus the donation amount in numbers to 70085 (for instance, text ONETWO12 to donate £12).

Hear Me Out is a new theatre podcast produced and presented by Lucy Eaton, the both real and on-screen sister of Simon Evans, creator of BBC lockdown comedy Staged starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

Hear Me Out features interviews with leading theatre actors in which they discuss and then perform a speech from a play in which they have appeared which holds particularly strong memories for them. The first four episodes are now available, featuring Claire Skinner on Harold Pinter’s Moonlight, Adrian Lester on Cost of Living by Martyna Majok, Denise Gough on People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan and Mark Bonnar on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

In this episode, BTG Editor David Chadderton speaks to Lucy about these first few episodes, as well as about how Staged was basically an extension of games she played with her brother when they were kids, what lockdown has been like for her and other actors she knows, performing outside the house of one of the UK’s leading theatre critics and more.

Hear Me Out can be found now on all the usual podcast platforms. For more details, see the Hear Me Out web site or follow @PodHearMeOut on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

At the beginning of each year, The Theatres Trust produces a document known as the Theatres At Risk Register, which lists the theatre buildings in the UK which are at the most risk of being lost forever.

Just after the 2021 Register was released, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Theatres Trust Director Jon Morgan about this year’s list, the work of the Trust in general and the extra help it has been giving to theatres during the pandemic.

The latest Theatres At Risk Register can be downloaded from The Theatres Trust web site, which also contains plenty of information about theatres around the UK and advice and useful contacts for theatres and campaign groups who are trying to save a theatre building.

In January 2020, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Elizabeth Newman, Artistic Director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland, about her plans for the coming year. Less than two months later, the country shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The season was cancelled and the future of this theatre, amongst many others around the country, looked bleak, but it continued to commission and produce new work, mostly online.

A year on, and Pitlochry has announced its 70th anniversary season including its first winter ensemble, this time geared to the conditions in which they will have to work for the forseeable future. Pitlochry has also collaborated with Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre and Naked Productions on a new digital audio theatre platform, Sound Stage. Elizabeth speaks, in this episode, about both of these, and also about how the events of last year unfolded.

The Sound Stage events so far announced will be available for just a few days at the end of each month from March to October 2021. The first, Angela by Mark Ravenhill directed by Polly Thomas, will run from 26 to 28 March and star Pam Ferris, Matti Houghton, Toby Jones, Jackson Laing and Joseph Millson.

For more information about any of the events mentioned in this episode, see the Pitlochry Festival Theatre web site.

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 has directed at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre over nearly two decades.

Tales from the Frontline can be watched for free on Talawa’s web site and YouTube channel, although donations are being requested for the charity Black Minds Matter UK.

(Photo of Michael Buffong, credit: The Masons)

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 will be available from 27 to 29 August 2020. The performance is a charity event in aid of Hope Mill Theatre, National AIDS Trust and Acting For Others, with tickets at £15 available from the Hope Mill Theatre web site.

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 link to make donations via Patreon. You can find out more about Conrad on his web site.

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 Theatre.

Part 1 will be released on Wednesday 20 May and Part 2 on Wednesday 27 May 2020. For more information and to purchase tickets, see the Understudy Play web site.

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 performers, and the reasons behind Amy’s choice of Dickens’s work for her latest project.

Oliver Twist plays Leeds Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre from 28 February to 21 March 2020, ahead of a UK tour to Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Sheffield Theatres, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich and Theatre Royal Stratford East, which are all part of the Ramps on the Moon consortium alongside Graeae, the UK’s leading disabled-led theatre company.

(Oliver Twist rehearsal images of director Amy Leach and of Brooklyn Melvin and Benjamin Wilson, credit Anthony Robling.)

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, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 28 April–9 May
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 12–16 May
Harrogate Theatre, 19–23 May
Hull Truck Theatre, 2–6 June
York Theatre Royal, 9–13 June

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 Warring

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 subsequent tour.

(Image of Stef O'Driscoll, credit: Rebecca Need-Menear)

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 Jonathan Ackley)

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, Wakefield, Harrogate, Oldham and South Kirby.

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.royalexchange.co.uk.

(Photo of Braham Murray, credit: Mia Rose)

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 Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 11 to 20 July.

The Manchester International Festival 2019 will take place at various venues from 4 to 21 July.

Photos:

John McGrath, MIF Artistic Director and Chief Executive introduces the MIF19 programme. Image credit Tarnish Vision.
Leo Warner, Lolita Chakrabarti, Benoit Swan Pouffer—Invisible Cities. Image credit Joel Chester Fildes.
Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott. Image credit Rod Morata.

Derby Theatre is preparing for a new adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, in an adaptation by Neil Duffield, which will be the theatre’s first ever production to full integrate BSL signing into the production.

BTG’s Midlands Editor Steve Orme speaks to director Sarah Brigham about the production, followed by Ivan Stott, who wrote the songs and will play Baloo, and Caroline Parker MBE, who will play Tabaqui and be signing for other characters in the play.

The Jungle Book runs from Friday 5 to Saturday 20 April 2019.

Photo: Caroline Parker (Tabaqui), Ivan Stott (Baloo and composer) and Sarah Brigham (director).

Highlights of the launch event for the Manchester International Festival 2019, held in Manchester on 7 March 2019.

Introduced by MIF artistic director John McGrath, this episode also features announcements from festival participants including Phelim McDermott of Improbable Theatre, Kwame Kwei-Armah of Young Vic Theatre, actors Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson, Leo Warner of 59 Productions, writer Lolita Chakrabarti, choreographer Claire Cunningham, Mary Anne Hobbs of BBC 6 Music and grime artist Skepta.

Other artists appearing at the festival include Philip Glass, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson and David Lynch.

Image from MIF launch:
Michael Symmons Roberts, Emily Howard, John McGrath, Maxine Peake, Grainne Flynn, Wesley Thistlewaite, Adam Ali, Kirsty Housley, Claire Cunningham, Leo Warner, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Isaiah Hull, Young identity poet, Reggie Gray, Animals of Manchester child-curators, Sibylle Peters, Karl Hyde, Lois Keidan, Adam Thirlwell, Danny Collins, Adania Shibli, Juliet Stevenson, Lolita Chakrabarti, Benoit Swan Pouffer, Christine Cort, Mark Ball

From Shore to Shore is a play written by British playwright Mary Cooper in collaboration with M W Sun based on real migration stories from Chinese communities throughout the UK that will tour nationally to Chinese restaurants and Chinese community centres rather than theatres.

For this episode, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to the play’s director, David Tse, and veteran British Chinese actor Ozzie Yue, who leads the cast, about the play, the process of collecting stories, their own family connections with Chinese migrant stories and also how opportunities have changed for British Chinese actors over the last few decades.

From Shore to Shore, directed by David K S Tse for On the Wire and starring Ozzie Yue, will open at the Yang Sing Restaurant in Manchester from 9 to 16 March and will then tour until 6 April, with performances in Liverpool, Lancaster, Morecambe, Newcastle upon Tyne and Birmingham.

The latest production from Manchester-based new writing theatre company Box of Tricks is SparkPlug, written and performed by David Judge based on his own experiences being brought up as a mixed race child by a white stepfather in 1980s Manchester.

The production is directed by Box of Tricks Joint Artistic Director and co-founder Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder and begins its 9-week tour at HOME in Manchester, where BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to David and Hannah in a dressing room during a break from technical rehearsals.

SparkPlug runs at HOME in Manchester from 13 to 23 February 2019 before touring to Unity Theatre in Liverpool, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, Cheltenham Everyman Studio, Harrogate Theatre Studio, Live Theatre in Newcastle, York Theatre Royal, Hull Truck Theatre, Theatr Clwyd in Mold, Crewe Lyceum Studio, Spring Arts Centre in Havant, The Lighthouse in Poole, Marlowe Studio in Canterbury, Old Town Hall in Hemel Hempstead, The North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford, Square Chapel in Halifax, The Met in Bury and Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, before finishing at Birmingham Rep from 10 to 13 April.

Conrad Nelson’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing for Northern Broadsides Theatre Company had a cast change on the first day of rehearsals when Reece Dinsdale had to drop out of the key role of Benedick due to a family illness and Robin Simpson took over the role.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Robin during the second week of rehearsals about the additional pressure that may have put on him and also about the production as a whole, playing Shakespeare, performing comedy and even a bit of panto.

The Northern Broadsides production of Much Ado About Nothing runs at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire from 8 February to 2 March 2019, before embarking on a national tour until the end of May to The Dukes Lancaster, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Salisbury Playhouse, Derby Theatre, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Viaduct Theatre in Halifax, The Lowry in Salford, York Theatre Royal and Harrogate Theatre.

A new consortium has been formed to produce new theatre for young audiences, including Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Mercury Theatre Colchester and York Theatre Royal.

The first production to come out of this collaboration will be a new adaptation of former Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman's hard-hitting YA novel Noughts and Crosses, which raised issues or racism and forbidden love in an alternative version of our own world.

For this episode, director Esther Richardson of Pilot Theatre spoke to BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme on the process of adapting this popular novel to the stage, and then actors Billy Harris and Heather Agyepong, who play the two leading roles, discussed their parts in the play.

The Honest Actors’ Podcast was founded by Belfast-born actor Jonathan Harden in 2015 and is currently launching its third and final series, featuring long, frank discussions with experienced actors about the joys and torments of their chosen career.

As he was in the midst of launching new episodes in the days leading up to Christmas 2018, BTG Editor David Chadderton turned the tables on Jonathan, asking him about his life and career as an actor, as well as what he has learned from the last three years of interviews with other actors.

The Honest Actors’ Podcast is available for free on Apple Podcasts, Acast, Stitcher, Spotify and other podcast directories and aggregators.

(Photo: Jonathan Harden in Children of the Sun at the National Theatre, directed by Howard Davies. Image: Richard Hubert Smyth)

Lichfield Garrick is presenting an alternative show as well as its panto this Christmas as New Old Friends will be staging the latest in its "Crimes of..." series: Crimes of the Christmas Pudding.

BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to director Nel Crouch and Jill Myers who plays Belgian detective Artemis Arinae.

Crimes of the Christmas Pudding runs at Lichfield Garrick from Wednesday 5 December 2018 until Saturday 5 January 2019.

2018 marks the second time Evolution Productions has produced Cinderella at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury after the venue re-opened in 2011.

Simon Sladen speaks to the theatre's resident Dame Ben Roddy and Marlowe regulars Lloyd Hollett and Phil Gallagher as they star in their fourth panto together.

Simon, Ben, Lloyd and Phil discuss this year's show, their approach to playing the Ugly Sisters and Buttons, the trio's affinity with the Marlowe as well as some top tips for those starting out in the industry.

Derby Theatre's Christmas show for 2018 is Mike Kenny's adaptation of Hansel and Gretel from the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.

BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme talks about the show to Derby Theatre Artistic Director Sarah Brigham, who is directing the production, and actors Craig Anderson and Yana Penrose, who play the title roles of Hansel and Gretel.

Hansel and Gretel runs at Derby Theatre from Friday 30 November 2018 to Saturday 5 January 2019.

BTG panto editor Simon Sladen speaks to pantomime company Imagine Theatre’s Managing Director Steve Boden and Robert Marsden, director of the Victoria Theatre, Halifax’s pantomime and associate professor at Staffordshire University.

2018 will see Imagine Theatre present 14 pantomimes in venues across the United Kingdom having grown from 8 productions in 2009.

In this episode, Steve and Robert discuss Imagine Theatre’s style of pantomime, the company and genre’s recent evolution and the state of the industry today. Steve and Robert also reveal where in Pantoland they’d like to travel to if they had their very own magic wand.

The first in-house production in HOME Manchester’s autumn and winter season for 2018 is a new production of French writer Jean Genet’s 1947 play The Maids, in an English version by Martin Crimp.

The play will be directed in-the-round at HOME by Lily Sykes, an English-born director who has lived and worked in Germany for the last ten years and has recently become a German citizen.

In a break during rehearsals, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Lily about the play, existentialism, polarisation of society, the differences between directing for British and German theatres and a great deal more.

The Maids will run at HOME Manchester from 16 November to 1 December 2018. For more information, see homemcr.org.

(Photo of Lily Sykes by Magnus Reed)

Red Ladder, which bills itself as “Britain’s leading radical theatre company”, this year celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, tracing its roots back to the left-wing agitprop theatre of the 1960s.

To celebrate, instead of its usual fare of new political writing, it has turned to Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children, which artistic director Rod Dixon has staged as a promenade production in a warehouse in Leeds featuring Pauline McLynn (Mrs Doyle in classic sitcom Father Ted) in the title role.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Rod when the production had been running for nearly a week about the production, the company's other work and philosophy and fifty years of creating political theatre.

Mother Courage and her Children by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by Lee Hall, opened at the Albion Electric Warehouse in Leeds on 28 September 2018 and runs until 20 October.

(Production photo of Pauline McLynn as Mother Courage by Anthony Robling)

Mark Smith talks to Conrad Nelson and Deborah McAndrew about their brand new version of Dario Fo's classic They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay! (also known as Can't Pay? Won't Pay!).

The show is a co-production between York Theatre Royal and Halifax-based company Northern Broadsides, where Conrad Nelson is the Artistic Director. They discuss the company's past and future, the process of adapting and translating theatrical language "from Milan to Middlesborough", and the careful precision required when staging farce - or any play.

"This is so much about being a theatre animal. This play was made by a theatre animal, and we're theatre animals, we're playhouse creatures."

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! will run at York Theatre Royal from 5 to 13 October 2018 before embarking on a national tour from 16 October to 2 December 2018.

(Photo of Conrad Nelson and Deborah McAndrew in rehearsal, credit: Nobby Clark)

The latest production from acclaimed theatre company RashDash, Future Bodies, has been produced in collaboration with Unlimited Theatre and HOME Manchester as a trailblazer event for the 2018 Manchester Science Festival.

What does it mean to have and to be a body? As we increasingly fuse our biological brains with technology, at what point do we stop being human? Does it even matter?

During rehearsals at HOME, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to RashDash co-founder Helen Goalen, who is co-directing the production, about the show, how it was created and the ideas behind it.

Future Bodies will be at HOME Manchester from 28 September to 13 October 2018 before touring to Northern Stage in Newcastle from 16 to 18 October and the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield on 19 October.

(Image: Helen Goalen (R) in rehearsals)

Ian Rankin's Edinburgh detective Inspector Rebus, the star of many of his novels and short stories, is about to make his first ever stage appearance in a brand new story from Rankin with playwright Rona Munro.

BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme spoke about the production to Ian by phone from his home in Edinburgh, then in person to actors Charles Lawson (Jim McDonald in Coronation Street) and John Stahl (Rickard Karstark in Game of Thrones), who play, respectively, John Rebus and his nemesis, the Edinburgh gang boss 'Big Ger' Cafferty.

The world première of Rebus: Long Shadows by Ian Rankin and Rona Munro opened at Birmingham Rep on 20 September 2018, where it runs until 6 October before touring to Edinburgh, Malvern, Nottingham, Manchester, Northampton, Aberdeen and Guildford until November.

(Photo of Charles Lawson and John Stahl by Steve Orme)

Where We Began is a new piece of theatre devised by a multicultural cast and instigated by Stand and Be Counted Theatre. This company works extensively with asylum seekers, migrants and others seeking sanctuary.

Here, BTG reviewer Mark Smith speaks to writer/performer Rosie MacPherson, one of the Artistic Directors of Stand and Be Counted, and Tafadzwa Muchenje, one of the devisers and performers of the show. They discuss the company's development as well as Taf's own route to working with SBC. After ten years living and studying in the UK, his residency status was suddenly thrown into uncertainty. Watching SBC's previous work, Tanja, provided inspiration and impetus for him as he challenged the Home Office ruling on his "right to remain", and led to this new collaboration.

Where We Began is devised by Shireen Farkhoy, Zoe Katsilerou, Fernanda Mandagará, Gaël Le Cornec, Rosie MacPherson and Tafadzwa Muchenje, and directed by Hannah Butterfield. It tours across the country until the end of October.

"We want to give the audience space, in the chaos, to connect with the stories."

For its first production of the autumn 2018 season, HOME in Manchester has again teamed up with Lyric Hammersmith for a pairing of two of Shakespeare’s plays, Othello and Macbeth, assembled into one production by director Jude Christian to highlight, in particular, the stories of the female characters in both plays.

A week before the production’s Manchester opening, Jude spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton at HOME about how the production came about and redressing the gender politics in Shakespeare, as well as some thoughts on panto, which she will also be directing later this year at Lyric Hammersmith.

othellomacbeth runs at HOME Manchester from 14 to 29 September 2018 before transferring to Lyric Hammersmith from 5 October to 3 November.

(photo by Helen Murray)

The Fun Palace was an idea conceived originally by influential theatre maker Joan Littlewood with architect Cedric Price in the early 1960s.

Their building-based idea was never built, but writer and actor Stella Duffy OBE came up with the idea to resurrect it in a different way for Littlewood’s centenary in 2014. This has become a fast-growing annual event co-directed by Stella with Sarah-Jane Rawlings and is about to celebrate its fifth anniversary.

In this episode, David Chadderton talks to Stella about her realisation of the Fun Palace idea for the twenty-first century on a countrywide scale, and she also makes some provocative suggestions about theatre, culture, outreach projects and diversity.

The fifth Fun Palaces event will be on 6 and 7 October 2018. For information on fun palaces near to you or details of how to create a fun palace of your own, see the Fun Palaces web site.

In our first podcast episode on the 2018 Edinburgh Festivals, we speak to two people who are now veteran Fringe producers and performers.

Rick Conte will return to the Fringe this year as Dog in the multi-award-winning Puppet State Theatre production The Man Who Planted Trees. However he is also performing and producing a new adaptation of The Time Machine by H G Wells that combines puppetry with human actors for The Scientific Romance Theatre Company,

The Time Machine will be at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 2 to 19 August at 2:30PM, and then The Man Who Planted Trees will take over the same slot from 20 to 27 August.

Guy Masterson has been a fixture of the Edinburgh Fringe for 25 years as an actor, director and producer. With his company Theatre Tours International, his annual programmes of productions have ranged from solo shows to international collaborations and shows with star-studded casts, many of which have lived on after Edinburgh with international tours and West End runs.

This year, Guy will bring four productions to Edinburgh: Hamlet—Horatio’s Tale and Henry V—Lion of England will be performed on various dates at Assembly Rooms; A Christmas Carol and The Marilyn Conspiracy will be on most days throughout the Fringe at Assembly George Square Studios.

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 performed at HOME Manchester from 20 April to 5 May 2018 as part of the ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Festival. They will perform Poe’s Haunted Palace at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall from 28 to 30 August 2018.

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 something about the durational nature of those relationships—creative and personal—that takes the work into a different sort of place. [...] There's a brutal honesty there that I think can deepen the work."

(Photo of James Brining in rehearsals for Sunshine on Leith by Anthony Robling)

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 and Treasure Island at the National Theatre. She has also written numerous adaptations which have premièred at York Theatre Royal, including most recently the adaptation of Brideshead Revisited for the York Theatre Royal and English Touring Theatre’s 2016 production.

Hannah Peel is a multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter, composer and arranger, who has recorded as a solo artist as well as with band The Magnetic North and various other high-profile collaborators. She has created scores and co-composed for dance theatre performances at Sadler's Wells and for television.

Brighton Rock runs at York Theatre Royal until 3 March 2018 and then tours to Brighton, Colchester, Hull, Cheltenham, Winchester, Watford, Birmingham, Newcastle, Mold, Derby and finally The Lowry Salford Quays.

(Photo of Esther Richardson, Bryony Lavery and Hannah Peel by John Saunders.)

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 2017 and Beauty and the Beast at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 30 November 2017, all finishing on 7 January 2018.

Andrew can be seen on tour in Around the World in 80 Days until January.

(Photo of Andrew Pollard as Long Joan Silver in Peter Pan at Greenwich Theatre credit Robert Day)

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)

Mark Smith talks to producer John Tomlinson about SBC Theatre, the company he co-created and which has recently become the UK’s first "Theatre Company of Sanctuary".

This status recognises the company's work with, about and for those seeking sanctuary in the UK. John is also Associate Producer at York Theatre Royal, working on in-house shows such as the massive community production Everything Is Possible as well as helping with the programming of other events at the theatre.

John discusses the evolution of SBC into a politically engaged company seeking to raise awareness of the often shocking hardships and issues faced by asylum seekers and refugees. Starting with 2016's Tanja, tackling the stories of women held at Yarl's Wood detention centre, John and his collaborators have aimed to reach beyond conventional theatre spaces in raising awareness and starting conversations with a diverse range of people.

"It felt like when we had Emily as part of this piece that we had really unlocked what Yarl's Wood is and what it stands for as part of our society. [...] Ultimately this is a story that we had to tell, and she had to be part of it."

As part of its A Revolution Betrayed? spring and summer season across its film, art and theatre programmes, commemorating the centenary of the Russian Revolution, HOME Manchester will present a new production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya directed by the centre’s Artistic Director for Theatre, Walter Meierjohann.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Walter in a dressing room at HOME just over a week before the production opened about his take on this classic play, Chekhov's comedy, multi-layered structure and political foresight and the relevance to audiences today of a play depicting people on the brink of major but unknown change.

HOME’s production of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov in a version by Andrew Upton will run at HOME Manchester from 3 to 25 November 2017.

Mark Smith talks to emerging director Julia Levai and York Theatre Royal Associate Director Juliet Forster about the theatre's TakeOver Festival.

The festival pairs Theatre Royal staff with emerging artists aged between 12 and 26 in a mentoring relationship which enables the younger artists to curate and run a week-long festival. As the Artistic Director of this year's festival, Julia Levai has curated a selection of works around the theme of "Walls", as well as devising a show of her own.

The pair discuss the state of UK theatre for a director at the beginning of their career, and Julia provides comparisons between British theatre and the scene in her native Budapest.

They also consider what the York Theatre Royal does for emerging artists, as well as what TakeOver has done for the York Theatre Royal in effecting tangible organisational change.

TakeOver is about "opening the door and giving opportunity and giving a platform for different voices... and really letting people make their own work and do their own thing as a result of it."

It runs from 22 to 28 October 2017 at the York Theatre Royal

Adam Penford has taken over as artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse.

The 37-year-old had been working as a freelance director and replaces Giles Croft who had been at the helm of the Playhouse for the past 18 years.

Penford tells BTG's Midlands editor Steve Orme that he was thrilled to have been given the job.

(Photo of Adam Penford is by Creative by Wren)

Director Max Stafford-Clarke has revived for his theatre company Out of Joint Andrea Dunbar’s play Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which he directed originally while Artistic Director of the Royal Court in London in 1982, working closely with the 19-year-old playwright.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to lead actors Taj Atwal (Rita), Gemma Dobson (Sue) and James Atherton (Bob) during the production's initial run at the Octagon Theatre Bolton about the play and the issues it raises, the politics of the council estate in the 1980s, Max Stafford-Clark's rehearsal methods, the unsexiness of a sex scene and a call for a Royal Court of the north.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is produced by Out of Joint, Royal Court Theatre and Octagon Theatre Bolton and co-directed by Max Stafford-Clark & Kate Wasserberg.

It opened at Octagon Theatre Bolton on 6 September 2017 before moving on to Harrogate Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Playhouse, Warwick Arts Centre, Oxford Playhouse, Royal Theatre Northampton, Cast Doncaster, York Theatre Royal, Derby Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and Theatr Clwyd in Mold, where it will end its run on 10 February 2018.

(Production photo of Gemma Dobson, James Atherton and Taj Atwal by Richard Davenport)

Derby Theatre is to produce Neil Bartlett's adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations directed by artistic director Sarah Brigham.

BTG's Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke during rehearsals to Sarah about the production and about her choice of cast, before chatting to Geoffrey Breton who plays Pip and Kate Spencer who plays Estella about their roles.

The production runs at Derby Theatre from 29 September to 21 October 2017.

Mark Smith interviews Jenny Harris, creative producer for 509 Arts, about their production Calderland.

Forming the centrepiece of the Landlines & Watermarks project, this "people's opera" aims to investigate, question and celebrate Calderdale's relationship with water, in the wake of the 2015 Boxing Day floods which were devastating to large parts of Yorkshire.

The production has a cast of over 200 singers drawn from local communities, and a script by award-winning writer Mike Kenny. It's to be performed in the Piece Hall in Halifax, a recently-restored Grade I listed building.

Jenny talks during the final weeks of rehearsals about the challenges of mounting such a massive project in a comparatively short time span, the ambition of creating an inclusive and celebratory piece of art from adversity and the roots of 509 Arts, a company focusing on theatre productions with a climate change agenda.

"It's not a high art opera... but it's got that sense of drama and scale that an opera might have."

Mark Smith talks to Gilly Roche, the West Yorkshire Playhouse's New Work Producer, as she launches this year's Furnace Festival celebrating a range of new work in the north.

Roche has been part of a recent reorganisation of the support for new artists at the theatre, which offers a year-long forum in which theatre makers can forge links and try out work-in-progress works in an unpressured environment.

She talks about the works, both new and well-established, at this year's festival, her career leading to this current post, and the Scratch culture which she and her colleagues are hoping to nurture at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

For more information, see the West Yorkshire Playhouse web site or search social media for the hashtag #furnacefestival.

"I use the word audacious... and that is rude, and impudent, and not accepting the traditional norms. These artists are being impudent, and that feels more important now than ever."

Northern Broadsides theatre company's For Love or Money, directed by and featuring company founder Barrie Rutter, has been adapted from a French play, Turcaret by Alain-Rene Lesage, by regular Broadsides collaborator Blake Morrison.

Blake speaks to us about the play, about play translation and about 21 years of collaborations with Rutter and Broadsides.

For Love or Money opened at The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax on 15 September 2017. After that, it will tour to West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Rose Theatre Kingston, New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Liverpool Playhouse and finally York Theatre Royal, where it will close on 2 December.

Playwright Kevin Fegan talks to BTG editor David Chadderton about his 30-year career as a playwright and, more specifically, about his new plays opening soon:

The Ruck opens on the main stage at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield on 15 September 2017, before touring to Theatre Royal Wakefield, Cast in Doncaster and The Civic, Barnsley.
The Shed Crew runs at Albion Electric warehouse (tickets from West Yorkshire Playhouse) in Leeds from 21 September to 1 October.
Bess the Commoner Queen is at Guildhall Theatre in Derby from 28 September to 1 October.
Down The Line is at Barrow Hill Roundhouse from 21 to 23 September.

Producer Richard Jordan and BTG's Philip Fisher talk about trends in Edinburgh and discuss the best shows to see.

Philip Fisher also chairs a critics panel with Joyce McMillan of The Scotsman and freelancer Mark Fisher in which they discuss Alan Ayckbourn's The Divide, Frances Poet's Adam and Ontroerend Goed’s £¥€$ (LIES) and also pick some personal favourites from Edinburgh 2017.

(Photos of Erin Doherty in The Divide by Marc Marnie; £¥€$ photo credit Thomas Dhanens)

This year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival featured a series of events subtitled “a theatrical exploration”, in which well-known Scottish novels were partly staged by a director, scriptwriter and actors produced in association with Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre.

One the three novels explored in this way was Booker-nominated His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, who spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about his involvement with the project on a busy final Saturday at the 2017 Book Festival.

Also, Philip Fisher spoke to Milly Thomas who, after this interview was recorded, won a Stage Edinburgh Award for her performance in Dust, a self-penned piece directed by Sara Joyce for this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

(Production image of Milly Thomas in Dust by The Other Richard)

Philip Fisher reports from the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Lara Foot is the Director and CEO of the Baxter Theatre Centre at the University of Cape Town. She talks to Philip about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, her own career and the theatre scene in South Africa over the last thirty years.

Award-winning stage and screen star Monica Dolan tells Philip about her first play as a writer, The Beasts*, and its Edinburgh Fringe debut. They also discuss her passion for acting and the key moments of her career.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Luke Barnes is the latest "gig theatre" production from Hull-based theatre company Middle Child.

After a run at the Welly Club in Hull in June, the production will be performed at this year's Latitude Festival.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Middle Child artistic director Paul Smith about the show, as well as musing on political theatre, adapting for festivals, attracting new audiences to theatre and becoming a new National Portfolio Organisation for Arts Council funding.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything will be at Latitude Festival in Southwold, Suffolk on Sunday 16 July before appearing at Reading Fringe on 20 July and then in Paines Plough’s Roundabout Theatre at Summerhall for the Edinburgh Fringe from 4 to 27 August 2017.

At this year’s Latitude Festival, Clod Ensemble will present a special ‘festival edit’ of its new show On the High Road, which will be directed by Suzy Willson with music composed by Paul Clark, founders of the company in 1995.

Suzy and Paul spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton a week before Latitude was due to open about the show, the company's work and methods and plans for future work.

Latitude Festival runs at Henham Park in Southwold, Suffolk from Thursday 14 to Sunday 16 July 2017.

Mark Smith talks to Juliet Forster, Associate Director of York Theatre Royal, and Katie Posner, Associate Director of Pilot Theatre, about their latest large-scale community production, Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes.

This new play is written by Bridget Foreman and based on the true stories of militant suffragettes in York, centring on the real-life figure of Annie Seymour Pearson. The role is to be played by award-winning actress Barbara Marten, who also unearthed the stories and presented the project to the theatre.

Forster and Posner talk about their work together on a number of large-scale productions, the research behind this latest collaboration, and the links they've been finding between the century-old story of the Suffrage movement and present-day political contexts.

A co-production between York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre, Everything is Possible runs from 20 June to 1 July at York Theatre Royal.

"There's a real feeling of dissatisfaction with political systems, and one response to that is to go 'what's the point in voting then?'... but another is to exercise our voice and to make some noise."

Mark Smith talks to artist and performance maker Ellie Harrison about her interactive installation work The Unfair. This is part of her ambitious long-running project The Grief Series, which aims to offer playful and open artistic environments for the contemplation of taboo subjects such as loss and grief in many forms.

The Unfair examines the anger which might be associated with a range of such experiences, and gives visitors an opportunity to vent their frustrations through fun and games which play humorously upon vintage fairground imagery. There's popcorn, Angry Jenga, and a karaoke booth complete with punchbag so you can box your way through your choice of anger-releasing song.

The Unfair runs at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds, from 9-14 May. Entrance is free.

It then runs at the Brighton Festival from 18-21 May. Entrance is pay what you feel.

Timberlake Wertenbaker was commissioned by the Octagon Theatre in Bolton to write Winter Hill, named after a local landmark most famous for its TV mast.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Timberlake when she had spent nearly a week in rehearsals for the play in Bolton, and then a couple of weeks later to three of the cast: Cathy Tyson, Souad Faress and Janet Henfry.

Winter Hill by Timberlake Wertenbaker will be at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton from 11 May to 3 June 2017.

(Photo of the Winter Hill cast in rehearsal by Ray Jefferson, Bolton Camera Club)

In 1992, Barrie Rutter directed and played the title role in Shakespeare’s Richard III for what became the inaugural production of Northern Broadsides. Twenty-five years later, he is directing Mat Fraser as Richard for Hull’s 2017 City of Culture.

In this episode, David Chadderton speaks to Barrie about a quarter of a century of Broadsides, his own forthright views on how to direct and perform Shakespeare and on returning to the city where he grew up for this anniversary production.

Richard III will run at Hull Truck Theatre from 4 to 27 May 2017. It will then have a short run at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax from 30 May to 3 June.

(Photo of Barrie Rutter at Dean Clough, Halifax by Kay Burnett)

Mark Smith talks to RashDash's Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland about The Darkest Corners, a bold new commission for Transform Festival about fear and feminism on the streets.

The award-winning theatremakers also discuss their recent productions We Want You To Watch and Two Man Show and how their work blends the political and the personal.

"If we're going to bring this down one brick at a time, we're going to need to do it all together."

The Darkest Corners runs at the Transform Festival in a site-specific location in Holbeck from 20 to 22 April.

BTG's Mark Smith talks to Amy Letman about Leeds's international Transform Festival, her career as a producer, and how to get into festival programming.

Transform Festival 2017 runs from 19-22 April in venues across Leeds, with a full programme available on the Transform web site.

Highlights of the launch event for the Manchester International Festival 2017, held in Manchester on 9 March 2017.

Introduced by new MIF artistic director John McGrath, this episode also features announcements from festival participants including actress Jane Horrocks, playwright Simon Stephens, Underworld’s Karl Hyde, Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham, artists Yael Bartana and Phil Collins and New Order’s Bernard Sumner, amongst others.

MIF 2017 will take place from 29 June to 16 July 2017 at locations all over Manchester.

Image from MIF launch:
L - R, Karl Hyde, Scott Graham, Simon Stephens, Yael Bartana, John McGrath, Phil Collins, Stephen Mallinder, Nick Vivian, Jane Horrocks, Bernard Sumner, Raymond Yiu, Sue Buckmaster, Joe Duddell, Tom Chapman, Graham Massey
Credit Joel Chester Fildes

Midlands editor Steve Orme talks to Lekan Lawal, who is making his main stage directorial debut at Derby Theatre with Harold Pinter's Betrayal, and cast members Ben Addis (Robert), Kemi-Bo Jacobs (Emma) and Philip Correia (Jerry).

Liverpool playwright Lizzy Nunnery's new play Narvik directed by Hannah Tyrell-Pinder for Box of Tricks will open its national tour at the end of January 2017 following a successful run at Liverpool Playhouse in September 2015.

Lizzy spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton a couple of weeks before the tour opened about the process of creating the play from stories from her grandfather and other World War II sailors stationed in the Arctic and about her career writing for stage and radio over the last ten years.

Narvik opens at HOME Manchester from 31 January to 4 February 2017 before touring to Stahl Theatre in Oundle, Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Mumford Theatre at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, Mac in Birmingham, Clwyd Theatre Cymru in Mold, York Theatre Royal, The Unity at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, The Met in Bury, The Carriageworks in Leeds and Harrogate Theatre before ending at New Diorama Theatre in London from 21 to 25 March.

Michael Feingold of the Village Voice talks to BTG London editor Philip Fisher about current trends on the New York theatre scene, suggests shows that should not be missed and develops thoughts about the impact of Donald Trump on Broadway and beyond.

Theatre by the Lake in Keswick in the Lake District has had at its helm Executive Director Patric Gilchrist and Artistic Director Ian Forrest since before the current theatre building opened in 1999.

Conrad Lynch has taken over as both Artistic Director and Chief Executive after working alongside his predecessors for the last few months. Not long after announcing his first season in his new post, he spoke to us about his future plans for this Cumbrian theatre.

BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to director Theresa Keogh and artistic director Jack McNamara of Nottingham-based New Perspectives Theatre Company about their new rural touring production of M R James's classic ghost story Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You adapted by David Rudkin and also about recently working with best-selling crime writer John Harvey on Darkness, Darkness with Nottingham Playhouse.

In December 2016, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield will stage its first professional pantomime, Cinderella, written by Andrew Pollard and directed by Joyce Branagh.

Joyce was preparing to start rehearsals for Cinderella when we spoke to her, but she had also just directed a fifteen-minute version of Wuthering Heights for JB Shorts, a regular evening of short new plays which has just moved to new Manchester venue 53two.

Cinderella will be at Lawrence Batley Theatre from 9 to 31 December 2016.

(Photo of Joyce Branagh in Boomtown Gals by Lucas Smith)

Freedom Studios is an inter-cultural theatre company based in Bradford, West Yorkshire which is about to open a new play by Tajinder Singh Hayer set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy version of Bradford called North Country at The Wild Woods in the heart of the town where it is set.

Alex Chisholm, the play’s director and recently appointed co-Artistic Director of Freedom Studios, spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about the play and about the philosophy behind Freedom Studios.

North Country will be at The Wild Woods in Bradford from 26 October to 5 November 2016.

(Rehearsal image of Alex Chisholm by Maria Spadafora)

Performance poet Luke Wright is is currently touring with a solo verse play directed by nabokov’s Joe Murphy called What I Learned From Johnny Bevan.

Luke plays Nick, an arts journalist, who is transported by current events back to memories of his days in university in the mid-‘90s when his friend, after whom the play is named, changed his life.

In this episode, Luke speaks to BTG editor David Chadderton about the show, politics, New Labour, festivals, acting awards and poetry.

Luke tours the UK until December 2016 with What I Learned From Johnny Bevan. For details of where he will appear, see the gigs page on his web site.

(Photo credit: Guiseppe Cerone)

Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd—the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a co-production between Derby Theatre and Mercury Theatre Colchester directed by Daniel Buckroyd.

In this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme speaks to the two lead actors in the production: Hugh Maynard who plays Sweeney and Sophie-Louise Dann who is Mrs Lovett.

Sweeney Todd is at Derby Theatre from Friday 30 September until Saturday 22 October. It then transfers to the Mercury Theatre Colchester from Wednesday 26 October until Saturday 12 November.

(Rehearsal image of Hugh Maynard and Sophie-Louise Dann by Robert Day)

Halifax-based Northern Broadsides has paired up with York Theatre Royal for a revival of J B Priestley's When We Are Married, directed by Northern Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter.

Playing the role of Clara Soppitt, actress Kate Anthony, best-known for playing Pam Hobsworth in Coronation Street, spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton during rehearsals about the production and her part in it as well as some of the differences between acting in theatre and TV and the importance of getting on with your fellow actors while touring.

When We Are Married is at York Theatre Royal until 24 September 2016 before touring to Hull Truck Theatre, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Rose Theatre Kingston, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre, New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Liverpool Playhouse and Northern Broadsides’ own Viaduct Theatre in Halifax, where it closes on 4 December.

(Rehearsal photo of Kate Anthony by Nobby Clark)

Theatre in Scotland: A Field of Dreams is a compilation of 35 years of reviews from The Scotsman's lead theatre critic Joyce McMillan, edited by former Traverse Theatre artistic director Philip Howard.

From the heart of the Edinburgh Festivals of 2016, Joyce shared with BTG editor David Chadderton her extensive knowledge and insightful analysis of Scottish theatre and its development in conjunction with political and social changes in Scotland and across the UK since the 1970s.

Philip Fisher and Richard Jordan discuss Richard’s exciting new multimedia theatrical collaboration with Apple Corporation in Chicago and also Edinburgh trends and the very best that Edinburgh has to offer.

Philip Fisher joins the three leading Scottish theatre critics, Joyce McMillan, Mark Fisher and Neil Cooper, to talk in detail about Anything That Gives off Light in the Edinburgh International Festival, Diary of a Madman at the Traverse and World Without Us at Summerhall, as well as identifying a plethora of other shows that are well worth catching.

David Chadderton talks to Nir Paldi, co-artistic director of Theatre Ad Infinitum whose show Bucket List was previewed at Latitude Festival before opening in its final form at the Edinburgh Fringe.

(Photo credit: Alex Brenner)

Philip Fisher talks with Kate O'Flynn, who is starring in what is likely to be the pick of Edinburgh 2016, John Tiffany's production of The Glass Menagerie in the Edinburgh International Festival, about the play, her stage career and working with Mike Leigh.

(Photo Credit: Johan Persson)

Philip Fisher interviews Dave Malloy about bringing Ghost Quartet to Summerhall Roundabout and the impending Broadway opening of his musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

(Photo Credit: Ryan Jenson)

Phelim McDermott co-founded acclaimed theatre company Improbable in 1996.

His directing credits including Shockheaded Peter with Julian Crouch and The Tiger Lillies, Philip Glass’s The Perfect American with ENO and Teatro Real in Madrid, The Addams Family on Broadway and, most recently, Jim Broadbent in A Christmas Carol on the West End.

Phelim spoke to BTG editor David Chadderton about the origins of Improbable's show Animo that combines improvisation and puppetry, which was revived for the 2016 Latitude Festival led by co-artistic director Lee Simpson.

He also looked back on 20 years of Improbable and talked about the importance of improvisation to all of his work, even when script-based, and the influence of the ideas of Keith Johnstone and Jeremy Whelan on his techniques.

The Classic Thriller Season has been running at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham since 1988, produced by Colin McIntyre until his death in 2012.

The season has been kept up by Tabs Productions, which has continued the format of presenting four plays over a four-week period.

Karen Henson and John Goodrum of Tabs talk to Midlands Editor Steve Orme about this year's season, about continuing a long-running tradition and about their contribution to keeping the rep system alive.

Producer Bonnie Mitchell and performer Kylie Walsh talk about Mobile, a production from The Paper Birds that takes place in a small caravan for an audience of up to eight people at a time.

Bonnie and Kylie talk about the themes of class and social mobility, the devising process and the special challenges of touring a show for a tiny audience in a caravan.

The production, a co-commission from Live Theatre and The Marlowe Theatre, has just finished its first tour. It will be visiting The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury from 8 to 12 October and Theatre Royal Plymouth from 1 to 5 November 2016 before touring again in 2017.

For more information, see www.thepaperbirds.com.

(Photo of Kylie Walsh credit: Richard Davenport)

BTG London editor Philip Fisher talks to writer Nell Dunn in her Fulham home.

Nell Dunn first became a published writer with Up the Junction, a collection of short stories, in 1963, then went on to become a successful novelist (Poor Cow, 1967) and playwright (Steaming, 1981). She co-wrote a screen adaptation of Poor Cow with Ken Loach, who directed the film in 1967, which has been digitally restored for a re-release both in cinemas and for home viewing.

Roxanne Pallett, probably still best-known for her long-running character of Jo in ITV’s Emmerdale, is currently appearing as Tyler in Neil LaBute’s Some Girls at London’s Park Theatre and in 2017 will star as Holly in a new production of The Wedding Singer, a musical based on the popular 1998 film of the same name, for a national tour.

Roxanne talks to BTG editor David Chadderton about both productions in a busy year for her, and also speaks quite frankly about how tough it can be for an actor to handle the leaner times when the work isn't coming in.

Some Girls by Neil LaBute runs at Park Theatre in London from 14 July to 6 August 2016.

The Wedding Singer will open at Curve in Leicester on 9 February 2017 and will tour the UK until September 2017.

(Photo: Roxanne Pallett at the 2015 Manchester Theatre Awards at Royal Northern College of Music, credit Simon Pendrigh.)

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 Newcastle. From December 2015 to April 2016, it will visit The Lowry in Salford, Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, Warwick Arts Centre, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Sadler’s Wells in London and Oxford Playhouse.

(Image credits: Gavin Joynt & Bill Cooper)

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 Bristol.

(Rehearsal shots of actors Sara Sadaghi and Lou Broadbent and director Fraser Corfield in rehearsals for Outsiders credit Sam Johnson.)

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 Buildings.

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.

In the thick of the 2015 Edinburgh festivals, Fergus Linehan talks to BTG's Philip Fisher about his first year as director of the Edinburgh International Festival.

For more information on the Festival, see www.eif.co.uk.

(Photo credit: Eoin Carey)

This podcast episode features two veterans of the Edinburgh Fringe: actor and writer Pip Utton and comedian and animator Howard Read.

Pip Utton's one-man shows have been a popular feature on the Fringe for more than two decades. This year, he is reviving one of his most popular shows, Adolf, but he will also launch a brand new show in which he plays Margaret Thatcher.

Adolf will be at The Assembly Rooms on George Street for just one performance on 22 August. Playing Maggie will run at the same venue from 7 to 30 August. For more information about Pip, see www.pip-utton.co.uk.

Howard Read has had a number of hit Fringe and touring shows as part of a double-act with his animated sidekick Little Howard, as well as two series on CBBC and a Royal Variety Performance. This year, he is launching a brand new character, a tiny elephant called Annabelle, in a show for a younger audience.

Howard Read and Steve Pretty are performing Annabelle's Skirting Board Adventure at Just the Tonic at The Community Project at 11:30AM from 6 to 30 August. Howard Read: Man (Work in Progress) is at Banshee Labyrinth as part of PBH's Free Fringe from 8 to 22 August. For more information about the shows and future tours, see www.howardread.com or www.littlehoward.co.uk.

For information about all Fringe shows and to book tickets, go to www.edfringe.com.

In his new play Edith in the Dark, playwright Philip Meeks has combined the unusual life and some of the lesser-known adult ghost stories of Edith Nesbit, celebrated author of children's classics such as The Railway Children, Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. It will be at Momentum Playhouse at St Stephens in Edinburgh from 7 to 30 August with previews on 5 and 6.

Les Enfants Terribles co-founder James Seager tells us all about the successful company's latest production, Marvellous Imaginary Menagerie, which will return to Edinburgh at Pleasance Beyond from 5 to 31 August.

Guy Masterson, probably the best-known and most successful Edinburgh Fringe producer, director and actor, will perform Dylan Thomas The Man, The Myth with Thomas's granddaughter Hannah Ellis from 6 to 22 August and a cut-down version of his one-man Under Milk Wood, sub-titled Semi-Skimmed, from 23 to 31 August, both at Assembly Roxy. He tells us about both productions and shatters a few myths about the great Welsh post.

For more information about all shows in this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival and to book tickets, see www.edfringe.com.

Manchester's 24:7 Theatre Festival was founded in 2004 as a showcase for new plays, as well as for up-and-coming acting and directing talent. It has since become a key event on the Manchester arts calendar.

A week before this year's 24:7, we spoke to co-founder David Slack together with the festival's general manager Annika Edge in Manchester about an eventful year for the organisation since the 2014 event.

The 2015 24:7 Theatre Festival Big Festival Weekend will take place at the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama and the surrounding areas from 24 to 26 July 2015.

For more information about all of the events and how to book for them, see www.247theatrefestival.co.uk.

The Studio at The Lowry in Salford supports and presents new work and new companies and artists in various ways.

At a showcase on 21 April 2015, 11 artists and companies gave presentations about themselves and their work to potential supporters, sponsors and venue partners, and British Theatre Guide was able to speak to a few of them.

The Letter Room is a devising theatre company from Newcastle. Its third show, Five Feet In Front, will première at The Lowry in June 2015.

Kill The Beast's second show, He Had Hairy Hands, is currently on tour and due to return to The Lowry in May 2015, and the company is currently working on its third show with the working title of The Crystal Continuum.

Lowry Associate Artist Monkeywood Theatre is a Manchester new writing company that has been creating new work since 2003. Its next show, By Far The Greatest Team, will be premièred at The Lowry in September.

Laura Lindow is a writer-performer who has been commissioned by The Lowry together with two rural touring schemes to create her next show to tour in 2015-16, titled Then Leap!.

For more information on The Lowry, including its Studio programme and artist support schemes, see thelowry.com.

In April 2015, Manchester-based Box of Tricks Theatre Company will begin a tour of Plastic Figurines, a new play by Ella Carmen Greenhill, at the Liverpool Playhouse Studio.

In this episode, Ella and director Adam Quayle, during rehearsals in Manchester, speak about the writing of the play and its roots in Ella's real-life relationship with her brother, who is on the autistic spectrum. You can also hear about Ella's other work and about the philosophy of Manchester-based new writing company Box of Tricks.

Plastic Figurines will open at Liverpool Playhouse Studio on 8 April 2015. It will then tour to London, Hemel Hempstead, Bury, Hull, Halifax, Southport, Ellesmere Port, Wigan, Barnsley, Harrogate, Salford, Derby, Shrewsbury and Mold.

For more information, see boxoftrickstheatre.co.uk.

In November 2014, David Thacker announced that he would step down as artistic director of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton at the end of his current tenure in July 2015 after six years at the venue.

Four months later, the theatre announced that its associate director and head of new writing, Elizabeth Newman, will take over from him.

We spoke to Elizabeth at the Octagon about her new appointment, her ideas for the future of the venue, her campaigning on theatre issues—including speaking in Parliament—and her training and background as a director.

Elizabeth Newman takes over as artistic director of the Octagon from July 2015. Her production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives runs in the main house from 26 March to 18 April 2015.

For more information about the Octagon, see octagonbolton.co.uk.

Sir Jonathan Miller has returned to Halifax-based Northern Broadsides Theatre Company to director company founder Barrie Rutter in the title role of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

BTG editor David Chadderton speaks to Barrie Rutter about his new OBE, playing Lear, working with Jonathan Miller and touring large-cast productions and to Catherine Kinsella about playing Cordelia, winning a Manchester Theatre Award and making a career as an actor in the north of England.

The production will open at the company’s base at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax on 27 February 2015 before touring to Hull Truck Theatre, Theatre Royal Bath, Everyman Theatre Cheltenham, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough, Liverpool Playhouse, The Lowry in Salford, York International Shakespeare Festival, Rose Theatre Kingston and finally New Vic Theatre in Stoke, where it will end on 13 June 2015.

For more information about the company, see www.northern-broadsides.co.uk.

Douglas McGrath, who wrote the book, speaks to BTG London editor Philip Fisher about Beautiful – the Carole King Musical.

They talk about the genesis of the project, the pleasure of interviewing the four leading characters and developing their lives into a musical and the work itself and its stars both on Broadway and in London.

Beautiful - The Carole King Musical began previews at London's Aldwych Theatre on 10 February 2015. Press night will be on 24 February, and the show is currently booking until 13 June 2015.

For more information, see the Beautiful in London web site.

Image of Katie Brayben as Carole King, credit Uli Weber.

Comedian and actor Jonny Donohoe talks about the Edinburgh Fringe and New York success of Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan, as well as his experiences of working interactively with audiences and playing opposite Sarah Jessica Parker.

After a successful run on the Edinburgh Fringe in Paines Plough's portable Roundabout Theatre at Summerhall, the production transferred to Barrow Street Theatre in New York from 5 December 2014 until 29 March 2015.

Following its run in New York, Every Brilliant Thing will embark on an extensive UK Tour.

2014 sees Leon Craig celebrate his 13th pantomime Dame and first Beauty and the Beast at Oxtord Playhouse. He speaks to Simon Sladen about breaking into the industry, his favourite pantomime titles and reveals some of his experiences from daming up and down the country.

Keith Jack and Olly Pike star as Prince Charming and his valet Dandini in the Capitol Theatre, Horsham's pantomime Cinderella. One of panto's best-established double acts, the two roles are rarely thought of in such a way. Simon Sladen speaks to Jack and Pike about their characters and careers encompassing Any Dream Will Do, CBBC and a combined total of nine pantomimes.

Home Manchester will hold its ninth annual Re:Play Festival, which celebrates the best productions from the Manchester fringe scene from the previous year, in January 2015 at its temporary theatre space in an office block at Number One First Street.

At the launch for Re:Play, we hear from Re:Play 2015 producer Rebecca Jenner and some of the contributors to the festival: co-writer of War Stories, Rob Johnston, writer and performer of An Evening of Filth and Despair, Jenny May Morgan, and writer of Two Spirits, Chris Hoyle.

Re:Play runs from Monday 12 to Saturday 24 January 2015 on the second floor of Number One First Street, Manchester M15 4FN.

For more information, including a schedule of which productions run on which days, see homemcr.org.

Simon Aylin has ticked off almost every role both front and backstage in panto. Now best known as a writer and director, he speaks to Simon Sladen about the season ahead and his first time as a pantomime producer.

Simon's pantomimes this year include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Beck Theatre, Hayes featuring Linda Robson, Dick Whittington at the Wyvern Theatre, Swindon with Nigel Havers, Aladdin at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings starring Louie Spence, as well as Peter Pan at the Chelmsford Civic Theatre and Sleeping Beauty at the Stahl Theatre, Oundle.

To keep up to date with Simon's panto season, follow him on Twitter at @noyourethebest.

Philip Fisher talks to American actor/director David Cromer about the striking new production of an American classic Our Town at the Almeida Theatre in London in which he stars. They also talk about his career and aspirations.

Our Town runs at the Almeida Theatre in London from 10 October to 29 November 2014.

For more information, see www.almeida.co.uk.

Image credit: Marc Brenner.

Oily Cart Theatre Company was founded in 1981 to specialise in creating theatre for the under-5s, considered a challenging audience by most theatre groups. A few years later, it started to create theatre for children and young people with multiple and profound learning difficulties or on the autism spectrum, which is now a major strand of its work.

Oily Cart co-founder Tim Webb talks about the company's philosophy and methods and also specifically about the company’s Christmas show, There Was An Old Woman.

There Was An Old Woman runs at the Royal Festival Hall in London from 13 December 2014 to 4 January 2015 before touring to Warwick Art Centre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Gulbenkian Theatre Canterbury and Chichester Festival Theatre.

For more information about the company, see oilycart.org.uk.

Theatre director Michael Rudman talks to BTG London Editor Philip Fisher about a long career in theatre, running the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Hampstead Theatre in London and the Lyttelton at the National Theatre on the South Bank.

He also discusses his productions of Death of a Salesman in the West End and on Broadway and his long association with Felicity Kendal.

Michael Rudman's memoirs are published by Capercaillie Books as I Joke Too Much: The Theatre Directors Tale, and were reviewed by Philip Fisher in August 2014.

I Joke Too Much: The Theatre Director's Tale

Birmingham’s BE Festival of European arts will be touring the best of 2014’s event for the fourth year, taking three performances from Hungary, Austria and Belgium to venues throughout the UK and Madrid.

In this episode, BTG's David Chadderton speaks to Mike Tweddle, who is one of the festival’s directors with Miguel Oyarzun and Isla Aguilar.

The 2014 tour visits runs from 8 October to 8 November, visiting the Pit at the Barbican in London, The Door at Birmingham Rep, Bath Spa Live, Circomedia in Bristol, Home Manchester’s temporary base at Number One First Street, Slung Low’s Hub in Leeds, Gulbenkian Theatre Canterbury, The Atkinson in Southport, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Caedmon Hall in Gateshead and Traverse Theatre Edinburgh.

For more information, see befestival.org.

Imitating the Dog, a company known for its integration of video and other technology into its theatre work, has managed to secure the rights for the first ever UK stage adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms for a short tour of the UK and Italy.

The novel has been adapted for the stage and is directed jointly by Imitating the Dog founder members Pete Brooks and Andrew Quick.

In this episode, David Chadderton speaks to Pete Brooks a week before the show’s opening about the production, acquiring the rights from the Hemingway estate, the company's style and production process and some of the challenges of touring work to Europe.

The production opens at The Dukes in Lancaster on 10 October 2014, before visiting Cast in Doncaster, New Wolsey in Ipswich, The Lowry in Salford, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and The Old Market in Brighton, followed by a tour of Italy.

For more information about the production and the company, see www.imitatingthedog.co.uk.

York-based Pilot Theatre’s latest project is an adaptation by British playwright Roy Williams of the Greek classic play Antigone by Sophocles.

In this episode, Pilot artistic director Marcus Romer, who is directing this production, talks about how the project came about, how they have approached this ancient Greek play, working with Roy Williams and about the work and philosophy of Pilot Theatre Company.

Antigone from Pilot Theatre opens at Derby Theatre on 19 September 2014, then goes to Northern Stage in Newcastle, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, York Theatre Royal, Watford Palace Theatre, Gulbenkian in Canterbury, Theatre Royal Winchester, Exeter Northcott Theatre, finishing at Theatre Royal Stratford East on 14 March 2015.

For more information, see www.pilot-theatre.com.

The hottest tickets for 2014’s autumn theatre season in Manchester are productions of Shakespeare from two of the region's leading theatre companies.

The Royal Exchange Theatre production of Hamlet is directed by artistic director Sarah Frankcom starring popular stage and TV actress Maxine Peake in the title role. When we spoke to Sarah and Maxine with two and a half weeks to go before opening, this had already become one of the theatre’s most popular productions.

Hamlet runs at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 11 September to 25 October 2014. For more information, see royalexchange.co.uk.

Manchester’s new arts centre, Home, is presenting a series of site-specific productions in the run-up to the opening of its new purpose-built venue next spring.

After Angel Meadow, the second of these is new artistic director Walter Meierjohann’s directorial debut for the company, a production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet performed in Manchester’s historic Victoria Baths, which sold out before opening night.

In this episode, you can hear director Walter Meierjohann, dramaturg Petra Jane Tauscher and actors Alex Felton and Sara Vickers who play Romeo and Juliet.

Home Manchester's production of Romeo and Juliet runs at Victoria Baths from 10 September to 4 October 2014. For more information, see homemcr.org.

Townsend Productions is touring a new play about a group of protesters in the 1972 builders’ strike who have become known as the Shrewsbury 24, one of whom is now well-known to TV viewers as actor Ricky Tomlinson.

The 24 strikers were arrested and charged with conspiracy, and the campaign to have their convictions quashed is still ongoing 42 years later. In this episode, we speak to writer and co-performer Neil Gore.

United We Stand by Neil Gore from Townsend Productions, directed by Louise Townsend and performed by Neil Gore and William Fox, will tour from 19 September to 29 November 2014. For more information, see www.townsendproductions.org.uk.

Producer Richard Jordan and BTG's Philip Fisher discuss trends in Edinburgh and recommend shows that should not be missed, including The James Plays in the International Festival.

Founder and Co-Artistic Director Hannah Price tells Philip Fisher about the phenomenon of Theatre Uncut, which sets out to address political issues through drama, its genesis and future.

Actor, director and one of the most established and respected theatre producers on the Edinburgh Fringe Guy Masterson, now in his 21st year at the world's largest arts festival, talks to David Chadderton about this year's Fringe programme, how he began as a Fringe performer and producer, surviving as a producer outside the public funding system and his hatred of the star system, amongst other things.

David Chadderton talks to Zach Reino, Jessica McKenna and Nick Semar of American comedy group Baby Wants Candy, one of the longest-running companies to offer a brand new, fully-improvised musical at each show.

The Completely Improvised Full Band Musical runs at Assembly Roxy until 25 August 2014, plus the same group's All Star Improv Explosion Show runs at Underbelly Bristo Square until the same date.

For more information, see babywantscandy.com

Also, Philip Fisher talks with James Grieve, co-artistic director of new writing company Paines Plough, about the company’s history, its new touring pop-up theatre Roundabout and its four Edinburgh productions.

For more information, see www.painesplough.com

Lancashire-based Horse + Bamboo, a company that has specialised in mask and puppet theatre since it was founded in 1978, brings its version of classic fairy tale Red Riding Hood to the Scottish Storytelling Centre for the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe.

Performers Jonny Quick and Nix Wood talk to BTG editor David Chadderton about the production and their involvement with the company.

The production runs at 1PM until 17 August 2014. For more information about this and the company, see www.horseandbamboo.org.

Also in this episode, Philip Fisher talks to legendary cricket broadcasters Henry Blofeld and Peter Baxter about their show Memories of Test Match Special, back by popular demand after a run at last year's Fringe.

They discuss the show, which recalls anecdotes about the sporting radio institution of Test Match Special, as well as their perspectives on the Fringe and on live performance.

Their show runs at the Pleasance Dome at 16:20 until 24 August 2014, and can also be seen at the Lyric Theatre in London on 22 September and selected dates around the country. For more information, see www.henryblofeld.co.uk/tour_dates.html.

Halifax-based Northern Broadsides will soon tour a new production of Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy She Stoops to Conquer, directed by director, actor and composer Conrad Nelson, a regular member of the Broadsides production team.

In this episode, Conrad talks about his production and about how it fits with the general philosophy of the company.

She Stoops to Conquer will open on 29 August 2014 at the company’s own Viaduct Theatre in Halifax before touring to The Dukes in Lancaster, Rose Theatre Kingston, Oxford Playhouse, Harrogate Theatre, Everyman Cheltenham, Theatre Royal Winchester, Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough, West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Liverpool Playhouse, York Theatre Royal, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and finally The Lowry in Salford, where it will close on 13 December.

For more information about Northern Broadsides, see www.northern-broadsides.co.uk.

Actors Shobna Gulati and Joe McGann speak to BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme about touring in John Godber's two-hander April in Paris, directed by the author.

Shobna Gulati is best known for playing Anita in Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies and Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street from 2001 to 2006, a role to which she returned at the end of 2009 and departed again in 2013. Since then she has been a panellist on Loose Women.

Joe McGann was Charlie Burrows, the “housekeeper”, in the hit TV comedy series The Upper Hand, which ran for six years. His major stage roles include Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and Ray Say in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

April in Paris will open at Derby Theatre (27 June to 12 July) then tour to Brighton, Woking, Aylesbury, Malvern, Bromley, Glasgow, Crewe, Manchester, Richmond, Chesterfield, New Brighton, Dundee and Coventry.

HOME Manchester, the new arts organisation formed from the merger between the Library Theatre Company and Cornerhouse Cinema, is filling the time before the opening of its new, purpose-built home in spring 2015 with a series of site-specific productions around the city.

The first of these, Angel Meadow, is a collaboration with Dublin-based ANU Productions that looks at the Irish communities in Ancoats who settled there in the late nineteenth century.

In this episode, some of the team from ANU talk about the process of creating and performing this devised, site-specific piece and some of the difficulties it has posed.

First, we spoke to actors Thomas Reilly and Lloyd Cooney, and then to director Louise Lowe with performers Dee Burke, Will Irvine and Úna Kavanagh.

Angel Meadow from ANU Productions will be produced by HOME Manchester in Ancoats with performances from Tuesday 10 to Sunday 29 June 2014.

For more information on this and the other site-specific productions in this HOME season—Romeo and Juliet at Victoria Baths and David Greig’s The Events in the office building Number One First Street—see the HOME Manchester web site.

(Rehearsal photo by the show's lighting designer Ciaran Bagnall.)

The Octagon Theatre in Bolton ends its year-long season with the first UK revival of the musical Love Story since it closed on the West End in 2010.

Based on the novel by Erich Segal and the hit film, both from 1970, the show features a book by Stephen Clark and a score by Howard Goodall.

The Octagon’s production is directed by Elizabeth Newman, the theatre’s associate director, with the principal couple both played by graduates of the BBC TV audition reality shows: Daniel Boys, who was in Any Dream Will Do in 2007, and Lauren Samuels, who was Over The Rainbow in 2010.

In this episode, both actors and the director together with musical director Tarek Merchant speak about the show and a rehearsal process that is more usual for a play than for a musical, and also about life as a working performer after the glaring spotlight of the TV reality show.

Love Story will run at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton from 19 June to 12 July 2014.

(Love Story rehearsal photos by Ray Jefferson, Bolton Camera Club)

Kneehigh Theatre Company from Cornwall is currently working on a brand new adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera titled Dead Dog in a Suitcase, with a script by regular Kneehigh writer Carl Grose and music by Charles Hazlewood, directed by Kneehigh founder Mike Shepherd.

Charles Hazlewood spoke to us from Sweden where he was conducting a concert of music from video games with the Malmö SymfoniOrkester. He talks about his involvement in the project from taking it to Mike Shepherd as an idea around three years ago through his process of creating the score in rehearsals with the performers and scriptwriter-lyricist Carl Grose.

Mike Shepherd, speaking to us at the end of the first week of rehearsals at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where the show opens in June, speaks about the evolving story and politics of the show and the influences of modern events and modern popular culture, as well as the process of bringing it to the stage.

Mike also explains how Kneehigh has developed and constantly changed direction since he founded it in 1980, and talks about some current Kneehigh projects including Kneehigh Rambles and the company's mobile theatre space the Asylum.

Dead Dog in a Suitcase runs at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool from 21 June to 12 July 2014, and then will be performed in Kneehigh’s mobile theatre, the Asylum, at The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall from 30 August to 28 September.

Charles Hazlewood’s Orchestival summer festival, with which Kneehigh is also involved, is on 19 and 20 July in Somerset.

(Rehearsal images of Mike Shepherd and Charles Hazlewood by Steve Tanner.)

Britain’s National Theatre is currently promoting tours of three of its most successful productions: War Horse, adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s First World War novel by Nick Stafford, Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, an updated version of Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters set in 1960s Brighton, and an adaptation by Simon Stephens of Mark Haddon’s much-loved novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

The title character of War Horse is Joey, created on stage by the puppetry of South African company Handspring. We speak to the three performers currently playing the part of the adult Joey, Dave Emmings, Stuart Angell and Mikey Brett, who play Joey’s head, heart and hind respectively

The lead character in One Man, Two Guvnors was originally played by James Corden, but the latest tour will feature Gavin Spokes in the exhausting role of Francis Henshall, who tells us all about playing the role.

We also speak to National Theatre associate director Marianne Elliott, co-director of War Horse with Tom Morris and director of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, about both of her productions and also about her personal and professional history with Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre and how that shaped her career as a director.

For more information, go to www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/whats-on and scroll down to the “Other Venues” section.

Irving Berlin’s classic Wild West musical Annie Get Your Gun, based on the true romance story of sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, is to be revived by Ambassadors Theatre Group starring Jason Donovan and Emma Williams in the two lead roles with Norman Pace as Buffalo Bill Cody.

Like many of ATG’s own productions, it will open at one of the company’s own Manchester theatres as part of its “Manchester Gets It First” scheme, with previews at the Opera House from 16 May 2014.

Director Ian Talbot OBE ran the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre for 20 years where he introduced the summer musical productions for which the company is now famous. He talks about his take on the production and why he believes it hasn't been revived much professionally recently and reflects on his legacy at Regent's Park and the work he has done since he left.

Norman Pace is best known as half of the comedy duo Hale and Pace but has also forged an acting career in plays and musicals, including a spell as Amos Hart in Chicago on the West End. He explains his role in this production, his training as an actor through performing in productions and realising a few long-held ambitions.

For more information about the show, see www.anniegetyourgunthemusical.com, and to book online go to www.atgtickets.com.

Mark Babych, who was artistic director of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton for ten years up to 2009, was appointed artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre in 2013.

His debut production as director is a revival of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, which will run at Hull Truck from 27 March 2014 starring Shameless and Waterloo Road actress Rebecca Ryan as Jo before embarking on a national tour.

In this episode, Mark speaks about why he chose this play, bringing one of Salford's best-known plays back to Salford's Lowry, his involvement with the successful bid for Hull to become the UK's City of Culture for 2017 and how he went from the Octagon to freelance to taking on another building-based theatre company.

He also pays tribute to Chris Honer, who stepped down as artistic director of Manchester's Library Theatre Company recently and whom Mark considers to be a big influence on his own work.

Highlights of the 2014 Manchester Theatre Awards at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester on 7 March 2014 hosted by Justin Moorhouse, celebrating the best theatre seen in Manchester throughout 2013.

Speakers, presenters and award winners who can be heard on the podcast include: Kevin Bourke, Sue Jenkins, David Crellin, Andrew Wright, Kathryn Davies, Richard Mantle, Ray Fearon, Julian Glover, Lisa Maxwell, Catherine Kinsella, Paula Wilcox, Christine Cort, Christopher Villiers, Isla Blair, Shirley Darroch, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Alistair McDowall, Sir Richard Leese, Matthew Forbes, LipService, Graeme Hawley, Colin Connor, Lisa Connor, Rachel Austin, Ian Kershaw, Eric Potts, Charlotte Keatley, Rob Ward, Martin Jameson, Wyllie Longmore, Freya Sutton, Caroline Clegg, John Henshaw, Joyce Branagh, Suranne Jones, Cush Jumbo, Alex Poots and Chris Honer.

Plus other representatives of the Michael Clark Company, Singin' in the Rain production team, Opera North, Manchester International Festival, National Theatre's War Horse and the ensemble of Chicago at Oldham Coliseum.

Ellie Nunn, daughter of director Sir Trevor Nunn and actress Imogen Stubbs, talks to BTG reviewer Belle Lupton about her one-woman show Bombshells.

Ellie talks about playing six different roles in this comedy by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith which she performed at Jermyn Street Theatre in London in January 2014.

She also explains about not going to drama school and about growing up with parents famous for their theatre work—plus how she reacts if they offer her advice.

Jersey Boys is a smash hit musical based on the songs and the life story of pop band Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons which started life at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California in 2004, moved to Broadway the following year and has since opened all over the world, winning best musical awards at the Tonys in 2006 and the Olivier Awards in 2008.

Producer David Ian talks about bringing the show to the UK after seeing the last preview on Broadway.

West End cast members David McGranaghan and Jon Boydon, who play Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito, and Tim Driesen, who has been playing Frankie Valli in the Dutch production, talk about the rigorous selection and training process and about what it is like to be a part of the show.

Richard Hester, who has been involved with the show since it began in San Diego in 2004, tells us what it has been like to go from stage manager of that original production to being in charge of 11 productions throughout the world.

Finally, co-writer Rick Elice talks us through the process of creating the show and looks back on a successful ten-year run.

For more information on the UK tour, see www.jerseyboysuktour.com.

Playwright Anya Reiss, whose first play was produced by London's Royal Court Theatre less than four years ago, talks about her adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, written for Southwark Playhouse and currently being revived by Manchester's Library Theatre Company.

Anya talks about her original works—Spur of the Moment and The Acid Test at the Royal Court, Forty-Five Minutes for National Theatre Connections and a monologue for the Bush Theatre's Sixty-Six Books—plus her adaptations, with new versions of Chekhov's Three Sisters for Southwark and Wedekind's Spring Awakening for Headlong both about to go into rehearsal.

The Seagull will be the last play directed by Chris Honer as artistic director of the Library Theatre Company. It will be performed in the Quays Theatre at The Lowry in Salford from 21 February to 8 March 2014.

For more information, see www.librarytheatre.com or www.thelowry.com.

(Photo of Anya Reiss by Emma Bullivant)

Actor and writer Deborah McAndrew, who played Angie Freeman in Coronation Street in the 1990s, talks about her latest play, An August Bank Holiday Lark, commissioned by Barrie Rutter of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War.

Deborah talks about her research and writing process for this play, her 20-year association with Northern Broadsides as an actor and writer and, the week after Julie Hesmondhalgh made a high-profile exit from Coronation Street, about life and career after soap.

For more information, see www.northern-broadsides.co.uk

London editor Philip Fisher speaks to some of the stars of Broadway and off-Broadway on his annual trip to New York's theatreland.

Bryce Pinkham stars in the hit Broadway show The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. This is a musical based on the same story as the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. He talks about his road to stardom and also the pleasure of working in a Broadway success story.

Eric Tucker and Andrus Nichols are the artistic directors behind Bedlam’s four-performer double bill of Hamlet and Saint Joan playing off-Broadway at Culture Project. They discuss the company's ethos and the way in which it manages to revive classics on a shoestring, giving perspectives both as actors and part of the creative team.

Home Manchester is a new purpose-built arts centre that will bring together Manchester’s Cornerhouse cinema and Library Theatre Company into one organisation with shared facilities, due to open in spring 2015.

BTG editor David Chadderton speaks to Walter Meierjohann, who takes over from Library Theatre Company artistic director Chris Honer, and chief executive Dave Moutrey about the new building.

For more information about Home, see the official web site homemcr.org.

The Nottingham Playhouse and Birmingham Hippodrome are two of the UK's leading pantomime powerhouses. Simon Sladen speaks to Rebecca Little of the Nottingham Playhouse's Jack and the Beanstalk and Danielle Hope, Gary Wilmot and Matt Slack of Birmingham Hippodrome's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs about their pantomime careers and this year's festive productions.

Nottingham Playhouse's Jack and the Beanstalk runs from 29 November 2013 to 18 January 2014.

Birmingham Hippodrome's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs runs from 19 December 2013 to 2 February 2014.

Kat B and Matt Dempsey have appeared in many Hackney Empire pantomimes. The two performers speak to Simon Sladen about the pantomime rehearsal process, their love for the Hackney Empire and their roles as Puss and Tom in this year's production of Puss in Boots.

Having returned to the UK after filming Mister Maker Around the World for CBeebies, Phil Gallagher speaks to Simon Sladen about his pantomime career, his love of Kent and his role as Billy Trot in this year's Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk.

The winners of the £16,000 first prize and three judges prizes of £8,000 in the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting were announced at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester on 22 November 2013.

We present some highlights of the ceremony itself, followed by a chat with winning playwright Anna Jordan and three members of the judging panel: broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray, Bruntwood chairman Michael Oglesby and Royal Exchange artistic director Sarah Frankcom.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his publishing house, Nick Hern talks to Philip Fisher about a career in theatre and his work with some of the greatest names in the business.

For more information about Nick Hern Books, see www.nickhernbooks.co.uk.

Actor Martin Barrass on playing the fool in his 28th panto at York Theatre Royal, the art and the craft of slapstick, having the part of Alfie written for him by Richard Bean in One Man, Two Guvnors and his home town of Hull becoming City of Culture.

Martin will appear in Aladdin and the Twankeys by Berwick Kaler at York Theatre Royal from 12 December 2013 to 1 February 2014. See www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk for details.

Paul Holman Associates has produced over 200 pantomimes since 1995.

Simon Sladen speaks to Paul Holman (founder, company chairman and Managing Director) and Lee Waddingham (Artistic Director / Associate Producer) about their pantomime careers, producing pantomimes and Paul Holman Associates' 2013 season, which sees the company produce thirteen pantomimes and one Christmas musical in venues across the UK.

Playwright Tom Morton-Smith and director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder on In Doggerland, the first national tour from new writing company Box of Tricks Theatre Company.

The play will tour to:

7-9 November: The Lowry Studio, Salford
10-11 November: New Diorama, London
14 November: Rosehill Theatre, Whitehaven
15 November: Derby Theatre Studio
19 November: Mill at the Pier, Wigan
20 November: York Theatre Royal Studio
21 November: The Continental, Preston
22-23 November: Lantern Theatre, Liverpool
26 November: Exeter Phoenix
27 November: Square Chapel, Halifax
28-30 November: Theatr Clwyd, Mold

After two and a half years, the newly-refurbished Birmingham REP has reopened with an additional third auditorium.

REP executive director Stuart Rogers takes us on a tour of the new building and artistic director Roxana Silbert explains what it is like to have three separate spaces to programme.

At the Edinburgh International Book Festival, author Philip Zeigler talks about his new biography of Laurence Olivier, based largely on 50 hours of taped interviews with the great actor, and theatre director Michael Bogdanov gives us his views on directing and Shakespeare as his books on directing and directing Shakespeare are published.

Over at the Assembly Rooms, actor and writer Pip Utton, celebrating his 20th year on the Fringe, talks about the two pieces he has revived in Edinburgh for 2013: Adolf and Churchill.

Theatre The Director's Cue

Shakespeare, The Director's Cut

Olivier

Phoebe Waller-Bridge talks to Philip Fisher about her solo show Fleabag at Underbelly as well writing, performing in the West End and elsewhere and the Edinburgh experience.

The Traverse's Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin takes a break from rehearsals to discuss with Philip Fisher the theatre's work and what the Festival Fringe means to her.

Animator and stand-up comedian Howard Read talks to David Chadderton about his two shows in this year's Fringe: for families his most successful animated character returns in Little Howard's Big Show, and for adults he presents his new show Hide and Speak.

On the day of the official start of the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe (Friday 2 August), we bring you our first Edinburgh podcast with interviews with the creators of some events we will be reviewing:

Andy Lawrence of Theatre of Widdershins on Rumpelstilskin and the Wheel of Fortune
Richard Medrington and Rick Conte of Puppet State Theatre on The Man Who Planted Trees
Oliver Lansley of Les Enfants Terribles on The Trench plus Les Petits Theatre Company's Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs
Phil Nichol on The Weary Land

See the official Edinburgh Fringe web site for full listings and booking information.

Co-founder Simon Willis, head of content for Wise Buddah, talks about the proposed new Internet radio station dedicated to musical theatre called Stage Door and about the crowd-funding campaign, currently running on Indiegogo, to raise the funds to launch it.

The presenters on Stage Door will all be current stars of musical theatre, and two of them spoke to us about their involvement.

Canadian actor Alex Gaumond is probably still best-known for playing Galileo in We Will Rock You but is currently in Top Hat in the West End while rehearsing to take over as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda later this year.

Louise Dearman is most famous for playing both Glinda and Elphaba in Wicked, a show that she will soon leave as she prepares for a concert tour later this year.

More information:

Stage Door
Indiegogo campaign page
Alex Gaumond
Louise Dearman

In July 2013, Manchester's 24:7 Theatre Festival, dedicated to producing brand new one-hour plays in venues around the city, will celebrate the tenth of its annual events.

Actor David Slack, who co-founded the festival in 2004 and is still its producer, reflects on ten years of putting new writing on stage and talks about new developments for this year's event.

Following this, five of the writers from this year's festival talk about their plays at the media launch in June 2013 at Manchester's Comedy Store: Alice Brockway (Blunted), Thomas Bloor (Night on the Field of Waterloo), Richard O'Neill (Temper), Micheál Jacob (Daylight Robbery) and Catherine Manford (Billy the Monster and Me).

For more information, see www.247theatrefestival.co.uk.

At the Manchester International Festival, Alexander Vlahos talks about playing Malcolm in Macbeth, a production that sees Kenneth Branagh return to the stage in the title role opposite Alex Kingston as Lady Macbeth, directed by Rob Ashford and performed in a deconsecrated church at a secret location in Manchester.

Also, Hadley Fraser talks about playing chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in The Machine by Matt Charman directed by Donmar Warehouse artistic director Josie Rourke who, despite being Salford-born, has never directed in Manchester before.

The 2013 Manchester International Festival runs from 4 to 21 July. For information about all MIF productions and other events, see www.mif.co.uk.

Philip Fisher talks to actor Seth Numrich, currently playing Chance Wayne opposite Kim Cattrall as Alexandra del Lago in Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams at the Old Vic in London following Broadway success in Golden Boy and War Horse.

BTG London editor Philip Fisher chats with actress Sarah Greene, currently playing a romantic lead opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Noel Coward Theatre.

See Philip's review of this production.

Dukes Theatre artistic director Joe Sumsion talks about his production of a new adaptation of Robin Hood in Williamson Park, Lancaster this summer, a comeback for the Dukes's famous outdoor productions by popular demand after it was announced that the 25th anniversary production two years ago would be its last due to funding issues.

Joe talks about their unusual approach to the famous story in a production set in the future, about the challenges and joys of outdoor promenade theatre in the UK and about the up-side of their announcement that these productions were to cease.

Following this, production manager John Newman-Holden takes us on a walk around Williamson Park, talking us through the different locations used for the production and the practical challenges of realising the creative team's visions in the open air.

Robin Hood runs in Williamson Park, Lancaster from 5 July to 10 August 2013. For more information, see www.dukes-lancaster.org or call the box office on 01524 598500.

Manchester's Library Theatre Company has created a trilogy of site specific works about Manchester since leaving its home of more than half a century at Manchester Central Library in 2010.

The third of these, Manchester Sound: The Massacre, written by Polly Wiseman and directed by Paul Jepson, will take place at a secret location in Manchester city centre between 8 June and 6 July 2013.

BTG editor David Chadderton spoke to Polly and Paul in Manchester a week before the show's opening.

For more information on the show, see www.librarytheatre.com.

Playwright Fin Kennedy was thrust into the heart of the debate about arts funding when he produced a report—called In Battalions, a title taken from a quote from Hamlet—with professional researcher Helen Campbell Pickford into the effects of cuts in public funding to theatres on their production of and development of new writing.

In this episode, Fin talks about the origins of the report in a conversation he had with UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaisey and about its findings, as well as speculating on how this will continue to affect the theatre sector and on the motivations behind cutting an area of the UK budget so small that it will have a barely-noticeable effect on the UK deficit.

Fin Kennedy is an award-winning playwright and theatre blogger whose plays are produced in the UK and US. In the UK, he has written for Soho Theatre, Sheffield Crucible, Southwark Playhouse, Half Moon Theatre, The Red Room, Birmingham Rep and BBC Radio 4.

Fin also has many years’ experience teaching playwriting in schools, youth clubs, and universities. Since 2007 he has been writer-in-residence at Mulberry School in East London, for whom he has co-founded a theatre company and written four new plays which premièred at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

He is also a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College, a member of the Writers’ Guild Theatre Committee and an occasional contributor to The Guardian and The Stage.

For more information, see his blog at www.finkennedy.co.uk.

Sarah Brigham talks to BTG Midlands Editor Steve Orme about taking the reigns of Derby Theatre as its first artistic director since University of Derby took over the lease of the troubled former Derby Playhouse and succeeded in obtaining Arts Council funding for it in 2012.

The first homegrown production from the new Derby Theatre is Lee Hall's Cooking With Elvis, and Steve talks to director Mark Babych and actor Jack Lord about the production.

Babych, who was artistic director of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton for ten years, also talks about his recently-announced appointment as artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre, a post he takes up immediately after finishing work on this production.

Stephen Barlow, artistic director of the Buxton Festival which combines rarely-seen opera with live music and literature, talks about this year's event and about the history of the festival, which has been running in the small Derbyshire town in the Peak District since 1979.

For more information, see www.buxtonfestival.co.uk or ring the box office on 0845 127 2190 or 01298 72190.

Playwright Tim Fountain and director Mike Bradwell talk about Queen of the Nile, a production they have worked on together for Hull Truck Theatre.

Fountain is best known for his controversial plays such as Sex Addict (Royal Court), Resident Alien (Bush Theatre), Dandy in the Underworld and Julie Burchill Is Away (Soho Theatre).

Bradwell founded Hull Truck in 1972, but hasn't directed for it for more than 30 years. He has also been artistic director of The Bush, one of London's leading new writing theatres.

Queen of the Nile will run from 18 April to 11 May 2013 at Hull Truck Theatre. For more information, see www.hulltruck.co.uk or call the box office on 01482 323638.

Associate Puppetry Director Tommy Luther talks about the first ever UK tour of the National Theatre hit production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, and about his involvement in the production since the early workshops in 2007.

Recorded at The Lowry in Salford, where the production will spend Christmas and New Year 2013-4 on its longest run of the tour.

For more information about the production, see the War Horse On Stage web site.

Announcements of the theatre events in the 2013 programme for the Manchester International Festival from Festival director Alex Poots and some of the artists involved.

Featured on the podcast are actor Maxine Peake, director Josie Rourke, Belgian director Inne Goris, actor Kenneth Branagh and director Rob Ashford.

Playwright Amanda Whittington talks about her career and her writing process and about three new plays she has opening in the next twelve months:

The Thrill of Love opens at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme from 22 February to 9 March before moving to the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough from 13 to 23 March and the St James Theatre in London from 27 March to 4 May.
The Dugout from Splice Productions will be at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol in May.
My Judy Garland Life will open at Nottingham Playhouse at the beginning of 2014.

Indhu Rubasingham talks about her first season and upcoming plans as artistic director of London's Tricycle Theatre, which she took over in May 2012 from Nicolas Kent, who had run the Kilburn venue for 28 years.

Manchester's Library Theatre Company, currently without a permanent performance home since moving out of Central Library and not due to move into its joint new home with Cornerhouse cinema until 2014, is taking advantage of its temporary residency at The Lowry's Quays Theatre with a major new revival of Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children, translated by Tony Kushner.

Lead actress Eve Polycarpou, composer and musical director Greg Palmer and director Chris Honer talk about the production.

Midlands editor Steve Orme talks to actress Tara Fitzgerald, known to TV viewers as Dr Eve Lockhart in Waking the Dead and The Body Farm and for the US TV series Game of Thrones, about her Royal Shakespeare Company debut playing Hermione in The Winter's Tale.

Andrew Quick of Imitating the Dog talks about the company's methods and interests, and gives some details about the forthcoming tours of its two new productions: The Zero Hour and 6 Degrees Below the Horizon.

The tour dates are:

Wednesday 30th - Thursday 31st January: Live at LICA, Lancaster (The Zero Hour)
Wednesday 6th - Thursday 7th February: Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, UK (6 Degrees Below the Horizon)
Friday 8th - Saturday 9th February: Warwick Arts Centre (The Zero Hour)
Tuesday 12th February: Axis Arts Centre, Crewe (6 Degrees Below the Horizon)
Thursday 14th - Saturday 16th February: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds (The Zero Hour)
Tuesday 26th - Wednesday 27th March: Exeter Northcott Theatre (6 Degrees Below the Horizon)
Thursday 9th May: Contact, Manchester (6 Degrees Below the Horizon)

Ben Roddy is an experienced pantomime performer and, in his 15th season, he takes on the role of Dame for the first time.

Simon Sladen speaks to him about his theatrical career and playing Nurse Nellie in this year's Sleeping Beauty at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury.

David Chadderton talks to Barrie Rutter, artistic director of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company in Halifax, about the forthcoming national tour of Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby directed by Jonathan Miller in which Rutter plays the title role.

Philip Fisher talks to The Village Voice's chief theatre critic Michael Feingold on New Year's Eve 2012 about the past year's theatre in New York.

Susannah Flood stars in Nina Raine’s Tribes—originally produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2010—at Barrow Street Theatre, New York and talks about the difficulties of playing a character losing her hearing and learning sign language in three weeks.

2012 marks Simon Fielding's sixth pantomime for the Towngate Theatre, Basildon.

A pantomime producer, performer, director and choreographer, Fielding speaks to Simon Sladen about his pantomime career.

Richard Vergette's play American Justice, set in an American prison against the backdrop of the Obama administration, began life as an hourlong piece called As We Forgive Them as part of Manchester's annual new writing event 24:7 Theatre Festival.

Under its new title and with a cast of three—Peter Tate, Ryan Gage and David Schaal—the play opens for a limited run at the Arts Theatre in London's West End in January 2013.

Vergette talks to David Chadderton about the background to the play's development and the issues that it tries to highlight.

For more information, see www.americanjusticetheplay.com or www.artstheatrewestend.co.uk.

On the day of its opening at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, David Chadderton speaks to some of the principal cast members of Disney's The Lion King, currently on its first ever UK tour.

We speak to Carole Stennett who plays Nala, Nicholas Nkuna who plays Simba, Stephen Carlile who plays Scar and Gugwama Dlamini who plays Rafiki.

Kevin Shaw, artistic director of the Coliseum Theatre in Oldham, talks about the long tradition of acclaimed panto at the theatre and the well-known panto performers who honed their craft there.

As director and co-writer (with regular dame Fine Time Fontayne) of the pantos for the last few years, Shaw talks about the writing and production process and the origins of some of the stories and routines that they use.

Philip Fisher interviews James Graham ahead of the transfer of his Evening Standard nominated political drama This House to the Olivier Theatre.

In addition to discussing British politics in the second half of the 1970s, the conversation also looks into what it takes for a young writer to make it to the National, the joys of working at the Finborough and James Graham's career to date.

Bolton Octagon artistic director David Thacker pays tribute to the theatre's founder Robin Pemberton-Billing, who died on 18 November 2012 at the age of 83.

Also included are some memories of working at the theatre in its early days from actor Robert Powell, recorded in July 2011.

Jodie Prenger, who won the part of Nancy in Oliver! in TV reality show I'd Do Anything, is currently starring as Dolly in Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors, the multi-award-winning comedy from the National Theatre based on Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters directed by Nicholas Hytner, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London.

Jodie will join the current tour of the production for a couple of its northern dates. David Chadderton talks to her about bringing the production to her home town of Blackpool.

At the Empty Space Peter Brook Awards on 6 November 2012, the Peter Brook / Mobius Award was presented to The Lowry in Salford for its support of new work and new practitioners in its Studio.

The citation on the award stated that it was awarded for, "determined efforts to support early development of new companies offering continual showcasing to improve their growth and sharpen their abilities".

David Chadderton talks to Porl Cooper, programmer for the Studio, about his and The Lowry's reaction to winning the award.

Paul Hendy launched Evolution Productions in 2005 with his wife Emily. Since then the business has grown from an initial four productions to seven and 2012 will mark the second year the Company has produced at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon.

This year's production Jack and the Beanstalk boasts face of CBeebies Sid Sloane in the role of Jack and Laila Morse, Big Mo from EastEnders, in her pantomime debut as the Fairy.

Simon Sladen speaks to Paul Hendy about his career, the pantomime industry and gains some valuable advice for those wishing to start out in the business.