Backstage

It's deja vu all over again! Groundhog Day is our Musical of the Week (music and lyrics by the amazing Tim Minchin!) and we hear some no-nonsense talk about the craft of acting from one of the very best in the business, either on stage or on screen, Dame Judi Dench.

Another new-ish face to the region, in the form of Lily Berry, joins us for a yarn and we explore her choice of Musical of the Week... the perennial favourite of many, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Well, it had to be done sooner or later...

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea...? Thanks to our guest last week (Jonty Climo) our Musical of the Week this time is Spongebob Squarepants — is it any good? You have to listen to find out. We also tap in to the wisdom of celebrated English actor Bill Nighy, and give a comprehensive round up of what's hitting the stages in our patch over the coming couple of months... there's a LOT!

When there's a new kid on the block, you want to know everything about them, right? We put musician, actor, and all-round theatre junkie Jonty Climo under the 'scope to find out why he chose to start calling Hamilton home recently, and what he's into at the moment. And American Idiot is our Musical of the Week – proving you can take a band's concept album and turnit into pretty bloody good theatre!

Matamata Dramatic Society's President Julie Taylor joins us for a yarn about the theatre's activities and how they're keeping themselves active these days... turns out they're going full steam ahead! This week we go all nostalgic for a time 30 years ago with our Musical of the Week (Mel's choice) — 'Cruel Intentions – The 90s Musical' ...an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation of an original story from the 18th century.

Did you ever hear the story of the Johnstone twins...? This week's Musical of the Week is the extraordinary Liverpool drama Blood Brothers. Our Scouse pal Jacinta Parsons joins us to talk about what it is that makes this show so compelling, and we hear from the director of the Hamilton Musical Theatre production, Angela Walker – who's so obsessed with the show, she's seen it 25 times!

The dynamic duo are back together again — Mel is all refreshed after her honeymoon... We have a feel-good Musical of the Week this time, in the form of You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. We also feature more of Thames MAD's Diane Connors, talking about how they operate as a smaller theatre society. And our list of What's On Around the Place Soon-ish is absolutely HUGE!

Guest co-host this week, while Mel is on her honeymoon, is Jono Freebairn, who chose Kinky Boots as the Musical of the Week. We also meet Diane Connors, President of Thames Music and Drama (Thames MAD) and director of their upcoming production of Mamma Mia! Plus we cover the ins and outs of how to perform dying on stage.

After a couple of weeks being MIA, it's back to more of what you love about being Backstage... All glitz and glamour with our Musical of the Week, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert... and we looked for a play about a wedding, just for fun, and came up with a beauty – Blood Wedding! Oh the drama of it all!

Heard of the huge budget NZ musical 'City of 100 Lovers'...? Nah, we hadn't either, but it was a thing. And was supposed to be running forever at Sky City Theatre, but it turned out to be a total dog and got cancelled, leaving a very bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. We tell all in this week's episode — our 100th!

And oh yes... Mel gives us all you needed to know about Moulin Rouge — our Musical of the Week.