British Theatre Guide podcast

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 Ge...

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 Playwri...

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 T...

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...

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 Russe...

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 car...

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 spok...

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 som...

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...

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...

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...

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 Edin...

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 creat...

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. B...

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 f...

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...

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 crea...

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 writte...

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 w...

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...

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 , Lond...

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...

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...

#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 performa...

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 t...