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- Beautiful Burnout (1/2): Playwright Bryony Lavery talks about her critically acclaimed boxing play (Frantic Assembly/National Theatre of Scotland) to Carole Woddis, and also gives insights into her long and prolific career. Recorded at the National Theatre. More info: www.nationaltheatrescotland.com.
“The gym was vibrating with good energy, with about fifty boys and three girls all training - I think it was the safest possible environment.”
- Recording Date: 27-Aug-2010
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- Beautiful Burnout (2/2): Actor Taqi Nazeer, who plays the part of Ajay Chopra in Bryony Lavery's play (Frantic Assembly/National Theatre of Scotland) talks to Suman Bhuchar about his professional debut in the show. Recorded at the Pleasance Forth. More info: www.nationaltheatrescotland.com.
“It has taken time for Asian people to come through in the arts and sports - and they usually need the support of their family.”
- Recording Date: 14-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Writer and director David Leddy, of Fire Exit Ltd, talks to Matt Boothman about his critically acclaimed show, Sub Rosa (Hill Street Theatre), a Victorian gothic promenade through a dark world of secrets and revolt. Expletives not deleted. Recorded at the occasionally noisy Underdogs cafe.
“There have been posts about the show on masonic chatrooms, where people have asked whether their 'brothers' have seen it.”
- Recording Date: 24-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Round-Up (Part 1). Neil Cooper (The Herald) and Mark Fisher (Scotland on Sunday; Guardian) join Philip Fisher (British Theatre Guide, Western Mail) to discuss Caledonia by Alistair Beaton (King's Theatre) at the International Festival; Roadkill by Cora Bissett (Traverse) and Hot Mess (Hawke and Hunter) by Ella Hickson.
“Roadkill is not alone in subjecting audiences to pretty harsh examples of men being crap - there's lots of examples of male brutality.”
- Recording Date: 24-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh Fringe 2010: Round-Up (Part 2). Neil Cooper (The Herald) and Mark Fisher (Scotland on Sunday; Guardian) join Philip Fisher to select their personal highlights from the Fringe, as it draws to a close in its final week.
“Teenage Riot (at the Traverse) - the clue is in the title... it puts two fingers up to the audience and then it puts two fingers up the audience again...”
- Recording Date: 24-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Issy van Randwyck discusses her Edinburgh show, Brian Parks’ Imperial Fizz, balancing family and theatre work and her varied career. Interview by Philip Fisher. The show is at Assembly @ George Street: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/imperial-fizz
“Brian Parks has a delicious use of the English language. It’s Stoppard crossed with Noel Coward. It’s a joy for an actor.”
- Recording Date: 19-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Irish playwright Michael West discusses collaborative creation in the context of his Traverse hit about the uncertainties of life seen through the eyes of a dying man, Freefall, and also his previous play Dublin by Lamplight. Philip Fisher quizzes. http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/freefall
“There’s a chemical change in the air in Ireland and ordinary people are feeling the sense in which we do have choices to make in our lives about the way society operates and how we behave in it...”
- Recording Date: 18-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Nilaja Sun. The New York actor and writer talks about No Child, her tragicomic expose of the worst aspects of the American schooling system, and her attempts to improve kids' lives through the use of theatre. www.assemblyfestival.com
“I am in a festival where people love theatre. I cannot believe how everyone's souls are so open and so ready to love the show.”
- Recording Date: 15-Aug-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Richard Jordan talks to Philip Fisher about the economics of producing shows in Edinburgh during the recession and chats about some of the biggest shows in town.
“I think everyone is affected by the global recession. Edinburgh has been very buoyant with audience numbers and again, like last year, it's been very busy. From an economic perspective of producing shows, it's inevitably becoming harder.”
- Recording Date: 14-Aug-2010
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- Interview: Mike Bartlett. A series of extracts from a conversation with Dominic Cavendish about Earthquakes in London, the playwright's debut hit at the National Theatre, in which he talks about climate change, the Baby Boomer generation and why Coldplay shouldn't be given the cold shoulder in the theatre.
“We actually want to do things without a constant contextualisation in the past, a constant sense of 'You're doing what we did, but slightly worse.'”
- Recording Date: 19-Jul-2010
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- Edinburgh 2010: Andy Field and Deborah Pearson, co-artistic directors of Forest Fringe, talk to Dominic Cavendish about their Fringe-transforming venue, which creates new opportunities for artists to make work during the festival while letting audiences in on a pay-what-you-can basis. Recorded at Forest Fringe, Edinburgh EH1 1EY. www.forestfringe.co.uk
“We'd hate to become poster-boys for David Cameron's big society - we see ourselves as part of a wider theatre ecology in which funding is absolutely crucial.. but what I think Forest Fringe demonstrates is a resilience - if you don't have money, prove that you deserve it...”
- Recording Date: 12-Aug-2010
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- Diaghilev special: Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance at the V&A, talks to Carole Woddis about Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, the upcoming V&A exhibition which marks the centenary of the Ballets Russes, including items relating to The Firebird (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913). She also describes the V&A's Theatre and Performance Collection, located at Blythe House. More info: www.vam.ac.uk.
“Dance was moribund when Diaghilev revitalised it, and by doing so he created a template that influenced the whole theatrical profession.”
- Recording Date: 04-Aug-2010
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- Shakespeare: Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. Actor Roger Allam talks to Heather Neill about his critically acclaimed performance as Falstaff in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 (Shakespeare's Globe), directed by Dominic Dromgoole. Recorded at Shakespeare's Globe.
“So much has been written about Falstaff, but you really can't say that this character has read all that has been written about him!”
- Recording Date: 03-Aug-2010
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- Interview: Angus MacKechnie. The producer of the National Theatre's Watch This Space events tells Carole Woddis about this 14-week free festival, the longest open-air theatre programme in the land, now in its 12th and most ambitious year. Recorded at the National.
“We call the Theatre Square our fourth auditorium - and it has a distinctive tone to its work, which usually has a strong narrative thread.”
- Recording Date: 03-Aug-2010
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- Asian voices: Writer Sudha Bhuchar and director Kristine Landon-Smith of Tamasha discuss their latest, The House of Bilquis Bibi (Hampstead, and touring), with Suman Bhuchar. The play is an adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba and is part of the company's 21st birthday celebrations.
“Why, when a British Asian company chooses to use Indian accents in a play set in the sub-continent, do some critics think this is incomprehensible?”
- Recording Date: 01-Aug-2010
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- On criticism: Nicholas Dromgoole, onetime dance critic of the Sunday Telegraph, talks to Aleks Sierz about his new book, The Role of the Critic (Oberon), which surveys the history of arts criticism from the ancient Greeks right up to the present. Recorded at Dewynters, London.
“Quite often, critics in the past not only got it wrong, but they also did positive damage to the art form they should have been serving.”
- Recording Date: 02-Aug-2010
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- Interview: Joe Hill-Gibbins. The director talks to Philip Fisher about his cracking revival of Martin McDonagh's 1996 debut, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Young Vic). He also looks back at his controversial debut, Wallace Shawn's A Thought in Three Parts, and forwards to his upcoming production of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Recorded at the Young Vic.
“What sets it out from so many plays is that the storytelling and more specifically the plotting is just magnificent. It’s what makes it really powerful in front of an audience.”
- Recording Date: 29-Jul-2010
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- Interview: Polly Findlay. The director talks to Carole Woddis about her current revival of Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Arcola), her 1976 play about the radical ideas that surfaced during the English Revolution of the 1640s, as well as about the James Menzies-Kitchin Young Director Award, which she won in 2007. Recorded at the Young Vic.
“At the time, women were taking up roles that they otherwise wouldn't have done so it seemed appropriate to have female actors playing men.”
- Recording Date: 23-Jul-2010
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- Alternative theatre special (1/2): Director Mike Bradwell talks to Aleks Sierz about his new book, The Reluctant Escapologist: Adventures in Alternative Theatre (Nick Hern), which tells of his early experiences of making contemporary theatre, and his memories of East 15, Joan Littlewood, Living Theatre and Mike Leigh. Expletives not deleted.
“It seemed to me that what Joan Littlewood said and did just chimed with what I felt: I wanted popular entertainment that meant something.”
- Recording Date: 13-Jul-2010
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- Alternative theatre special (2/2): Director Mike Bradwell talks to Aleks Sierz about his new book, The Reluctant Escapologist: Adventures in Alternative Theatre (Nick Hern), which tells of his experiences of making contemporary theatre with Hull Truck, which he founded in 1971, and at the Bush, which he headed 1996-2007, and with Ken Campbell. Expletives not deleted.
“We were doing social satire, looking at our contemporaries across a wide class spectrum from public shoolboys to people on the dole.”
- Recording Date: 13-Jul-2010
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