British Theatre Guide podcast

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...

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 art...

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...

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...

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...

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 P...

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 w...

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 cu...

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 in...

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 fro...

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 2...

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 environm...

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 The...

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 (ti...

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...