British Theatre Guide podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Buzz Goodbody was the first female director at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford where she was instrumental in setting up the venue The Other Place.

She died just 50 years ago at the age of 28, and her nephew, Adam Goodbody, has created a new theatre company, Buzz Studios, in her honour. The company's first production is Petty Men at London's Arcola Theatre.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Adam and his co-writer and fellow performer, John Chisham about the play and its creation, adapting Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to create a modern piece, the importance of theatre and Shakespeare education and of course the legacy of Adam's aunt, Buzz Goodbody.

Petty Men runs at the Arcola Theatre in London from 19 November to 20 December 2025.

(Petty Men image of John Chisham and Adam Goodbody, photography by Tom Dixon.)

Steve Marmion is currently in his second season as Chief Executive and Director of Programming for Watford Palace Theatre, but he also ran Soho Theatre in London for eight years and founded PantoCo Ltd.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Steve about the upcoming panto production of Jack and the Beanstalk with the voice of Stephen Fry as the Giant, but he also spoke at some length about the value of panto in general, the challenges of running and programming theatres for diverse communities, why theatres need to conquer TIkTok and how his social media reels resemble Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Jack and the Beanstalk will run at Watford Palace Theatre from 29 November 2025 to 4 January 2026. Steve also mentioned Werewolf, which will run at the same theatre from 22 November to 24 December 2025, and The Mesmerist, running from 2 to 21 March 2026.

This episode features two very different solo shows, which can both be seen at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Thom Tuck is playing the titular 100-year-old clown, whose life story takes audiences though some of the major events of the 20th century, in Justin Butcher's Scaramouche Jones, which he performed in Edinburgh in 2005, then again in 2015.

His partner, Jenny Ryan, best-known as The Vixen on TV quiz programme The Chase, is performing her musical comedy show Björn Yesterday that unpacks her theory that ABBA never existed.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to them both together almost halfway through the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe about their shows, the current state of the Fringe, remembering lines and quiz answers, philosophy, the music they grew up listening to and lots more.

Björn Yesterday runs every day at 5:30PM in the Cabaret Bar at Pleasance Courtyard from 30 July to 17 August. Thom Tuck is appearing in Scaramouche Jones at Hoots at Potterow at 2:45PM from 1 to 25 August 2025.

In common with most of the UK's theatres and other arts venues, HOME Manchester announced it would close soon after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's statement on 16 March 2020 appealing to the public to stay away from public places to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

A week later, HOME announced a series of commissions, titled Homemakers, from artists asking them to devise new works in their homes for audiences who will also be at home.

The initiative was created by HOME's Associate Director Jude Christian who spoke to BTG Editor David Chadderton online, both in their own homes, a few days after the announcement. Jude explained about the project and the commissioning process and about some wider issues relating to the impact on theatre of the country's current shutdown.

Homemakers aims to launch its first works online in early April 2020.

For the second successive year, Derby Theatre is producing a major show featuring fully integrated British Sign Language and captioning.

In 2019, the theatre presented Neil Duffield's adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book; in 2020 Treasure Island will get similar treatment.

For this episode, BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme chats to Derby Theatre's artistic director Sarah Brigham about the show and what the theatre is doing regarding the coronavirus outbreak.

He also interviews Beth Hinton-Lever who plays Long John Silver and T J Holmes, taking the role of Israel Hands.

Treasure Island runs at Derby Theatre from 28 March until 11 April 2020.

(Photo of Sarah Brigham, Beth Hinton-Lever and T J Holmes, credit Steve Orme)

Amy Leach is a theatre director and Associate Director at Leeds Playhouse, currently working on a new version of Oliver Twist.

This new adaption is by Bryony Lavery, and it's being staged by Leeds Playhouse in collaboration with the Ramps on the Moon consortium, a partnership between six National Portfolio Organisation theatres and Graeae Theatre. Ramps on the Moon aims to create change within the UK theatre industry in terms of the inclusion and integration of deaf and disabled audiences and theatre-makers.

Benjamin Wilson is one of Ramps on the Moon's Agents for Change. He's a cast member in this latest production, and has had a key role in developing creative approaches to audio description for this and a number of other shows he's worked on at Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres.

Amy and Ben joined Mark Smith towards the end of their rehearsal period to discuss the Ramps on the Moon initiative, the opportunities opened up by creative approaches to access for D/deaf and visually impaired audiences and performers, and the reasons behind Amy's choice of Dickens's work for her latest project.

Oliver Twist plays Leeds Playhouse's Quarry Theatre from 28 February to 21 March 2020, ahead of a UK tour to Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Sheffield Theatres, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich and Theatre Royal Stratford East, which are all part of the Ramps on the Moon consortium alongside Graeae, the UK's leading disabled-led theatre company.

(Oliver Twist rehearsal images of director Amy Leach and of Brooklyn Melvin and Benjamin Wilson, credit Anthony Robling.)

Ben Brantley is the co-chief theatre critic for The New York Times. He has been a staff critic since 1996, filing reviews regularly from London as well as New York.

In this episode, BTG's London Editor Philip Fisher speaks with Ben about his career, as well as about plays in London and New York, past, present and future.

(Photo credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

Laurie Sansom has been Artistic Director at the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal and Derngate in Northampton, but he has more recently taken over at Northern Broadsides in Halifax.

His first production there as director is a revival of Quality Street by J M Barrie, the title of which has a special connection with the company's home town. BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to him a couple of weeks into rehearsals about the play and the 'forgotten' Barrie canon and about his plans for this well-known touring theatre company, and he also looked back briefly on his time at National Theatre of Scotland.

Quality Street opens at The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax from 14 to 22 February 2020 before touring to

• The Lowry, Salford, 25–29 February
• The Dukes, Lancaster, 3–7 March
• Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, 10–14 March
• Liverpool Playhouse, 17–21 March
• Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, 24–28 March
• Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 7–11 April
• Derby Theatre, 14–18 April
• Leeds Playhouse, 21–25 April
• New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 28 April–9 May
• Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 12–16 May
• Harrogate Theatre, 19–23 May
• Hull Truck Theatre, 2–6 June
• York Theatre Royal, 9–13 June

Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Perthshire, Scotland announced its summer rep season for 2020 in December.

In 2018, Elizabeth Newman joined the theatre as Artistic Director from the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Elizabeth in January about the new season and about how she had developed the theatre's programme over the last eighteen months, as well as how she had coped with settling in an unfamiliar region after ten years in Bolton.

The summer season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre runs from 22 May to 3 October 2020.

(Photo: Elizabeth Newman and David Greig)

Pilot Theatre is to tour the UK with Crongton Knights by Alex Wheatle in an adaptation by Emteaz Hussain co-directed by Pilot's Artistic Director, Esther Richardson, and Corey Campbell, Artistic Director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, with music by beatbox champion Conrad Murray.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Esther and Corey during rehearsals for the production at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry about the play's story and themes, and also about the financial implications of producing new work, creating work for young audiences and getting them to come and see it when schools are struggling for funds, the challenges of touring and about getting actors to beatbox.

Crongton Knights will run at the Belgrade Theatre from 8 to 22 February 2020 before touring to York Theatre Royal, Brighton Theatre Royal, The Lowry in Salford, Derby Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and ending at Theatre Peckham in May.

(Image of Esther Richardson and Corey Campbell: Sharron Wallace Photography)