British Theatre Guide podcast

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...

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 Da...

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 B*ea...

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 fe...

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. Latitud...

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....

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...

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 We...

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 Sh...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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 P...

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...

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 D...

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 Ch...

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 Septembe...

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...

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 conjunctio...

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...

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...