British Theatre Guide podcast

The 2024 summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London will open with a new production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley, an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and an Associate Director for Cheek by Jowl.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Owen at a break during rehearsals about his approach to the play, his love of Shakespeare and the perhaps unusual way he was originally introduced to the Bard’s work.

Twelfth Night Or What You Will directed by Owen Horsley runs at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre from 3 May to 8 June 2024.

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 writing process, how his work comes from his own experiences and observations and his introduction to creating theatre through Anna Scher drama classes and a transformational experience through Jonzi D’s Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells.

Now, I See runs at Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London from 10 May to 1 June 2024.

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 London.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him a few days before it opened about the play and how much more of himself he will be presenting to an audience than in other roles he has played.

He also spoke about some of his past roles, including performing naked in Romans in Britain for a role that nearly ended him up in criminal court immediately followed by appearing in full costume and mask for Peter Hall’s famous Oresteia (he credits Hall as his mentor at the National in the 1970s).

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, adapted and directed by Laurence Boswell, is at Marylebone Theatre in London from 21 March to 20 April 2024.

(Rehearsal image of Greg Hicks inThe Dream of a Ridiculous Man, credit Richard James Taylor)

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 about the process of creating it.

Dark Noon will be performed in the South Warehouse of Aviva Studios in Manchester from 6 to 10 March 2024.

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 creators and performers, the state of touring shows around the UK and Europe at the moment and the company’s style and creative process.

Frankenstein, featuring design by Hayley Brindle, lighting by Andrew Crofts and original music by James Hamilton, will open at Leeds Playhouse from 15 February 2024, before touring to Oxford Playhouse, Watford Palace Theatre, The Lowry in Salford, Cast in Doncaster, Mercury Theatre in Colchester, Liverpool Playhouse, The Dukes Lancaster and Northern Stage in Newcastle.

(Photo of Andrew Quick, credit Ed Waring)

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 it develops new shows based on Dahl’s books and some of the plans for the future.

The National Theatre production of The Witches runs until 27 January 2024.

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, it’s North East setting, having a TikTok star in the title role, the process of adapting a challenging novel for the stage and the current state of theatre for young people in the UK.

A Song for Ella Grey will open at Northern Stage in Newcastle 1–15 February 2024, before moving to York Theatre Royal 20–24 February, Theatre Peckham 27 February to 2 March, Hull Truck Theatre 5–9 March, Liverpool Playhouse 13–16 March and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford 19–23 March.

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 child in 1932 to escape persecution, how this developed to look at migration stories more widely, the politics of migration then and now and Gecko’s—and Amit’s—creative process in making theatre.

Kin will run at the Lyttelton Theatre from 12 to 27 January 2024.

(Photo of Amit Lahav in Kin by Gecko (c) Malachy Luckie)

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 importance of storytelling, football, class, what makes a ‘creative act’, Oliver Cromwell, Brecht, Shakespeare and a lot more.

England & Son, directed by Cressida Brown, is at the Arcola Theatre in London until 25 November 2023 then moves to the Playhouse in Sheffield from 28 to 29 November and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh from 5 to 9 December.

For more information about Mark, performance dates and tickets, see his web site.

(Performance shot of Mark Thomas in England & Son, credit Alex Brenner)

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 show’s West End run and how it originally came about, as well as some of his views on songwriting.

The Prince of Egypt will be released in selected cinemas across the UK and internationally on 19 and 22 October 2023 by Trafalgar Releasing. Tickets are on sale at ThePrinceOfEgyptMusicalFilm.com.

For information about Stephen and his work, see the Stephen Schwartz official web site.

(Photo of Stephen Schwartz, credit: Nathan Johnson.)