British Theatre Guide podcast

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 wit...

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 speak...

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...

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 pr...

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 la...

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 ,...

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...

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 Chadder...

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...

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 unchara...

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 F...

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, fr...

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...

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 Assembl...

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...

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 2...

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. I...

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 al...

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...

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 Theat...