British Theatre Guide podcast

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 created the Meltdown Festival working with guest curators including Scott Walker, John Peel, Elvis Costello and Laurie Anderson, to UCLA Performing Arts in Los Angeles and then to Adelaide before returning to Kent—including a few stops on the way that he says aren’t even on his CV any more.

For more information about Gulbenkian Arts Centre and its programme or to buy tickets, see www.thegulbenkian.co.uk or find it on Twitter or Instagram at @thegulbenkian.

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.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Sally during previews about the play and its setting, about teaching a young cast about life in the ‘80s and about various aspects of Sally’s career, including being directed by John Malkovich (and making him cry) and being a member of Max Stafford Clark’s Out of Joint theatre company in the 1990s, which, she says, made her a much better actor.

Of course The Bill is mentioned, and her colleague from that long-running TV series Chris Simmons (DC Mickey Webb) who is performing in her play, plus there is an element of two people reminiscing about growing up near Manchester in the 1980s.

The Still Room opened for previews at Park Theatre in London on 1 June and runs until 25 June 2022. You can find Sally on Twitter at @SallyARogers.

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 for young people, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, all the different production skills she has picked up from working at Contact and how much she loves a good spreadsheet.

(Photo of Keisha Thompson by Audrey Albert)

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 influences and looked back over their work during the last 20 years.

The House with Chicken Legs runs at HOME Manchester from 29 March to 23 April 2022.

The music for the show featured in this episode is by Alexander Wolfe.

(Photo of James Seager and Oliver Lansley by Rah Petherbridge Photography)

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 creating a theatre company without knowing how to go about doing so and about making theatre for the people from the community in which he grew up.

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy runs at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 31 March to 30 April 2022.

(Photo of Ryan Calais Cameron, credit: Ali Wright)

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 written by S Shakthidharan and will be directed by Pilot’s Artistic Director, Esther Richardson.

Esther and Shakthi spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton about the process of adapting the novel from opposite sides of the world, how refugees are treated in Australia and the UK and creating work both for and in collaboration with young audiences.

The Bone Sparrowfrom Pilot Theatre will open at York Theatre Royal on 25 February 2022 then tour to Theatre Royal Bury St Edmonds, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and Mercury Theatre Colchester before ending at Theatre Peckham in April.

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 writers.

More information on Vikki's many projects can be found at her web site.

Aladdin runs at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until 2 January 2022.

Award-winning writer, composer, actor and musician Vikki Stone is known for her original comedy songs, quick wit and hilarious charm.

As a comedian, Vikki has appeared on many television and radio shows, including The John Bishop Show, The Now Show, This Morning, That Sunday Night Show, ITV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now, amongst many others.

Her one-woman show at Soho Theatre Instrumental received huge praise. For her stage work, she has won the Soho Theatre Stand-Up Award, the Hospital Club’s HCLUB100 Award for Theatre and performance and the Best Musical Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival.

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 character of Thomas Cromwell across all three plays.

Also returning is Nathaniel Parker as King Henry VIII. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him on the morning of the press night performance about the production, as well as about playing real people (from King Henry to Gordon Brown and Albert Speer), lockdown, playing Bond (in a manner of speaking) and just a little bit of politics.

The Mirror and the Light began previews at London’s Gielgud Theatre on 23 September 2021, opened on 6 October and is booking until 23 January 2022.

For more information about the production, see the web sites of The Mirror and the Light or The RSC. To keep up-to-date with Nat’s work and blog posts, see his web site.

(Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII in The Mirror and the Light - Photo by Marc Brenner)

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, London’s oldest pub theatre.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to them both about their ideas for helping people working in the industry as we come out of a global pandemic, their support for new writers and young LGBTQ+ people and how digital theatre will play an important part in their future plans.

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 Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas for his 27th year on the Fringe, about how different Edinburgh seems this year, as well as the damage caused to theatre by lockdown, even touching on the effects of Brexit on touring artists.

Guy Masterson’s shows tour regularly around the UK and internationally. The Shark is Broken will run at the Ambassador’s Theatre in London from 9 October 2021 to 15 January 2022. For more information, see Theatre Tours International.