Guest Author - Page 4

This summer I found myself producing and writing two shows at the same time, in two different countries. On 6 August, Book Club premiered and sold out in New York at The Flea. Less than two weeks later, on 15 and 16 August, Tenner Bag sold out The Hope Theatre in London.

Few families have captured the English imagination quite like the Mitfords. The six sisters—and their brother Tom—came of age in the 1930s, a period when other land-rich, cash-poor aristocrats quietly slipped into obscurity. Instead, the Mitfords commanded headlines: dazzling and scandalising in turn as debutantes, runaways, novelists and devoted fans of Fascism.

I’ve always been told how beautiful the Ulrey Performing Arts Center on the Harding University campus was, but I finally saw it for myself when I attended Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre’s production of Noises Off, which has one more weekend coming up August 21–23.

It’s no secret that the British theatre industry has been going through a tough period recently. In the West End, tourism is back and venues are generally on a more even footing (excepting a recent downturn in May widely reported and perhaps due to hotter than normal weather). As a freelance director, I know that it’s more of a mixed picture regionally. Especially for mid scale venues for whom the pipeline of new shows is unpredictable and producing is increasingly tough.

The Pitchfork Disney will mark the fifth collaboration between myself and Philip Ridley, including our production of Leaves of Glass, and Copper Beeches - a world premiere of Phil’s newest play. There’s a deep and personal resonance for me with Phil’s imagination, and a mutual respect between us both; it’s become a relationship I’ve enjoyed immensely over the years.

There’s something reassuring about stepping into a show that is already a success. But similarly, if you’re a catastrophiser like I am, it’s utterly terrifying. Even when I joined the cast of Les Misérables in its 31st year, I thought to myself, “What if I’m the one that manages to close Les Mis!!?” Imagine my fear then, when I landed the role of Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

How long does it take to develop a play before it's ready for an audience? At the end of July my first play A Manchester Anthem will begin it's run at The Hope Mill Theatre, finally being performed in the city it's named after, before transferring to London in August. I began working on the play over seven years ago. 

Cirkus Summarum har fået ny cirkusdirektør og Helga vil have Summarum med i Cirkuseliten. Heino, Motor Mille, Hr. Skæg, Rosa og Onkel Reje skal give den gas, så telefonen kan ringe, inden forestillingen er slut.

Based on the 2010 movie, Burlesque The Musical makes its London debut this month. Lena Lenman began her journey as a burlesque performer in 2008 and has been producing her own cabaret show 'Hundred Watt Club' for the last 14 years. In this article, she asks: 'What impact will the musical have on the actual UK burlesque industry?'

August 2025 marks the 20th edition of the Camden Fringe. Well, sort-of. Remember 2020? We were in the midst of taking applications and booking shows when the pandemic hit, so that particular version had to be abandoned. But 2025 at least marks the 20th time we’ve organised a fringe festival. To be honest, we’ll probably be celebrating our actual 20th birthday next year as well.

I’m Fifi Garfield and I’m an actor. I’m also deaf, I was born deaf and have been using sign language as my primary source of communication all my life. I use British Sign Language - BSL - daily, hourly, every minute! It’s how I communicate with people and how I access the world.

Le Nozze di Figaro is a piece I’ve been living with as long as I can remember. To me, it might be the best opera ever written: it makes me laugh, it moves me to tears, the plot twists still fill me with delight, and all the characters have potential for complexity and depth. It is the only piece I’ve ever revisited: this production will be my third, and not only do I not get tired of it, it seems to get more exciting each time.

Someone once told me writing a musical with an original story would be like climbing Everest. This turned out to be not entirely true. A mountaineer at least knows Everest is there to be climbed. That it has a top to be reached. That it will not disappear under him halfway up. None of these comforts are afforded the writer. You have to have a really good reason for abandoning the reassurance of a pre-existing story.

It is without doubt that the plays that we attribute to Shakespeare are genius. They examine what it is to be a human and have survived centuries and multiple adaptations precisely because of this fact: love, jealousy, hatred and grief are all the same regardless of whether your father was a Duke from Verona or a Welsh coal miner. 

Horror is one of my favourite genres, and one of cinema’s most profitable genres, but it’s still rarely attempted on stage. There are a handful of big horror stage hits - 2:22 A Ghost Story, The Woman in Black, Ghost Stories - which are gripping and entertaining, but tend to be, as the titles suggest, a particular kind of ghost story, operating on a system of jump scares, sudden blackouts and pre-recorded screams.

Creating Conversations After Sex was a raw, intimate, and often challenging process—much like the show itself. At its core, the project began with a question: What happens in those unguarded moments between people when they think no one is watching?

Since the earliest times, theatre that speaks to the state of the nation has always been a cultural mainstay, and plays that speak to the practise of politics seem to have enduring popularity – from David Hare’s The Absence of War to Alistair Beaton’s Feelgood, along with the works of Mike Bartlett, Peter Morgan, Jonathan Maitland and of course James Graham.

I grew up in a small northern town—now known to the world as the real Happy Valley. It’s a place of two sides: a creative, hippy-dippy haven filled with wacky parades and free hugs, yet also a town weighed down by thick clouds, hidden struggles, and an undercurrent of mental health crises.