Play Ground

Send us Fan Mail A dilapidated flat in East London. 17 year old Davey has followed 53 year old Anita home. Over an intense hour stories are revealed, connections are formed, and they both work through an intense amount of grief. There are some jokes, as in all good plays, but be warned this is a fairly bleak one. We talk shame, storytelling, and Philip Ridley's penchant for tough old lady cha...

Send us Fan Mail The distant future. The year 2000. Robots have been invented, subjugated, and produced in the millions. And they're very angry. This play not only invented the word 'Robot' (near enough), it's also an absolute banger of a comedy about industrial greed, workers revolutions, and the pitfalls of being just a simple girl. We talk robots, incredibly metal (as in har...

Send us Fan Mail An underground bunker filled with a thousand ping pong balls (which are actually other things) and a table tennis table (which is itself). 3 days, 3 characters, and some very rapid dialogue make this fringe play by Sam Steiner the perfect companion piece to his other play (podcast favourite) 'You Stupid Darkness!' We talk 'Table Tennis Play' as it's own su...

Send us Fan Mail In the ancient play The Frogs, which has survived 2.5 thousand years and been a lynchpin of many hundreds of academic careers, Dionysus and his slave (eesh) Xanthius go in desperate search of funny bits they can do. Some good funny bits include: spanking, calling the audience idiots, and slagging off the guy who once gave the author a bad review. We talk ancient Greek theatre fund...

Send us Fan Mail A 300 year epic told through 17 minute portraits, Joel Tan's  No Particular Order  is a very heavy going, incredible piece of writing detailing the rise and fall(?) of an unnamed despot in an unnamed country in an unnamed time.  We talk war, dictatorships, and whether  ART  can ever do justice to the atrocities that so many must suffer. Content Warnings: War/Fascism/Sexual As...

Send us Fan Mail Noël Coward has a legendary reputation - and this play lives up to it! Otto, Gilda and Leo all love each other, but due to the world's boring machinations they must keep trying out monogamy - can they, as a three, discover a new... design for living???? We talk throuples, flouncy theatre comedy, and the timelessness of trying to find a new... design for living. Content Warnin...

Send us Fan Mail We're doing a musical! And trying our very best to discuss the published script rather than the four thousand different live shows that Nancy has obsessively watched. This 2013 show is an adaptation of the controversial book (and cult film) American Psycho, but infused with synth and backflips. Strongly recommend listening to the soundtrack for this one as well as reading the...

Send us Fan Mail Football! Wait no soccer - Soccer! This Pulitzer-nommed play from 2016 follows an U17s indoor girls soccer team as they warm up for various games. Very little happens, and it's one of the most devastating plays we've ever read. We talk teen archetypes, coming of age, and (unfortunately) whether or not certain play-structures are mimicking of the male bedroom experience....

Send us Fan Mail 'The trashiest play we've ever done.' Content Warnings: Murder/Drugs/Classism Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover? Chat to host Nancy @N_Netherwood on various Chat to host Sam @Samwebbercool2 on Instagram (and go find @rootlingtheatre for his puppet antics) Theme music this episode: Spooky music by Victor_Natas -- https://freesound.org/s/560181/ -...

Send us Fan Mail After an infamously terrible debut, this classic Russian play went on to define naturalism, changing how we make theatre in the West forever. It is also full of sad theatre makers, which may go some way to explain its enduring popularity with theatre makers. We talk 3D characters, endurance, and theatres first goth icon. Content Warnings: Suicide/Ageism/Infant death/Mortality Have...

Send us Fan Mail A travelling 'Odditorium' is struggling to make ends meet, and as a change of tactic the performers start trying to make themselves as normal as can be. If you can see how bleak this is about to get, then congratulations on having more insight than Riley, the owner of this circus. We talk fables, otherness, and the futility of trying to fit in. Content Warnings: Domestic...

Send us Fan Mail Cillian Murphy somehow remains looking beautiful through this deeply intense and gruelling play - first performed in 1999 by Walsh himself, we very specifically take a look at the revised/updated 2011 version which took the intimate one-person show and blew it up to National Theatre size. We talk the victim mentality, routine as self-expression, and bootleg theatre recordings. Hav...

Send us Fan Mail Is this a play? Performance art? Essay? Real or not real? This play/text/email chain was originally presented as a live performance and digital experience combination, then printed onto paper, and now thrust back onto the internet by us in the form of audio podcast exploration. Heavy.  We talk chronic illness, the digital body, and the horrors/freedoms that the internet brings. Al...

Send us Fan Mail East coast round 2!  We talk aliens, village gossip, and the strange prescience of this play written in 1973 about 1907 when being read in 2025. FAIRYTALE UPDATE: I have searched and can find nothing substantial about this fairytale or why it is the birth of drama in children. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover? Chat...

Send us Fan Mail Once again we dive into a time bending play about sad women. This time it's Lucy Kirkwood's 2020 play The Welkin; set in 18th century Suffolk/Norfolk, 12 women must decide the fate of another in this epicly jam-packed courtroom(ish) drama. We talk oppression, class solidarity, and jokes about Lowestoft. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover? Chat to host...

Send us Fan Mail Time. Ghosts. Violence. Hope. Academia.  We return to pod favourite Alistair McDowall for his incredible 2022 play The Glow.  Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover? Chat to host Nancy @N_Netherwood on various Chat to host Sam @Samwebbercool2 on Instagram (and go find @rootlingtheatre for his puppet antics)

Send us Fan Mail We recorded this 3 years ago and then forgot to make more podcasts. It holds up!!! Declaring this the end of season 1, we'll be back with certified fresh content in 2 weeks time. Sam Shepard's True West is about two things: truth and the wild west. Oh, and two brothers. Oh, and Picasso. And coyotes. It's pretty famous. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us t...

Send us Fan Mail Step 1) Nuclear Meltdown Step 2) Gang Warfare Over Simpsons Quotes Step 3) ???? Step 4) The Greatest Story Ever Told If you're not familiar with the play of post-apocalyptic pop-culture mythology, prepare to have your mind blown, as we discuss Anne Washburn's play all about The Simpsons and the fusion of high/low art. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cove...

Send us Fan Mail Despite the characters explicitly talking about the cold all the time, prepare to hear about some very  hot and sweaty goings on in this William's classic. When a young hot guy walks into a Southern town that's afraid of hot people, there's prejudice and hatred to deal with on top of all the wild animal metaphors that Tennessee loves so much. We discuss why the town...

Send us Fan Mail Up front: 1) TW, this episode contains quite frank discussions of a variety of grisly topics, including sexual assault and suicide. 2) This podcast is about the original play, NOT the musical version (though we do of course mention the musical as how could you not!? In particular the recent Almeida production which, spoiler alert, we love) Have some feedback? A play you'd lik...

Send us Fan Mail It was inevitable that at some point we'd bump into the bard on our ever winding theatrical-textual journey, and we do so what in our un-researched opinion is 'one of the more obscure ones.' Cymbeline is a play about a young couple who vow their love to each other but then hate each other but then don't really and also this horrible man named Cloten who is an i...

Send us Fan Mail You Stupid Darkness! takes us into the world of Brightline, a call centre for those who need to talk to someone about their problems, and the 4 volunteers who answer those calls late at night. Meet Frances, Angie, Jon, and Joey the work experience boy, as they navigate life and each other. Oh, and also the apocalypse is in full swing. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us...

Send us Fan Mail The Flick is a 2013 play set in a cinema, in which you the audience sit where the screen is and watch as three employees get into some serious sweeping. This often silent and uneventful play is brim full of sad heartfelt characters, musings on what it means to be a grown up, and terrible opinions about films. Also discussed: - The power of celluloid film - Monkeys Have some feedba...

Send us Fan Mail The Hothouse (so called because the house is...hot?) is a 1980 play by Harold Pinter which was actually written in 1958, but still has his signature style of heightened language, biting edge and yes, lots of famous pauses. It's been a while since we did one of these, so there's lots of catching up to do on theatre and genre-based theatre, as well as a deep dive into the...

Send us Fan Mail Six Characters is a modern classic. Or maybe just a classic. It's hard to know where the age boundaries for those things are. Either way in this play Pirandello brings an early example of going full meta in theatre, introducing a rehearsal room full of actors (and maybe the real director, stage manager and technician) to a group of fictional characters that have come to life...