British Theatre Guide podcast

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 writ...

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 Lo...

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 a...

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...

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...

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 set...

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...

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...

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 sho...

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 drama...

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...

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 tradition...

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...

Kimber Lee's provocatively titled winner of the first International Award from the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019, untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon 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...

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...

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...

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 Lond...

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 P...

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...

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,...

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 Br...

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, Ken...

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 ,...

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 Lew...

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 exp...