British Theatre Guide podcast

Indie rock band The Wedding Present was formed in Leeds in 1985, achieving a huge critical success with its debut album, George Best.

40 years and 300 songs later, the band is still going, and Artistic Director of Engine House Theatre and Wedding Present fan Matt Aston has written and is directing a new musical, Reception, based on the band's back-catalogue.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Matt during rehearsals for the show about how he put it together, his history as a long-time fan of the band and the challenges of producing an original musical.

David also spoke to David Gedge, founder, lead singer and songwriter for the band, about his reactions to having a musical based on his songs, his reflections on what he has seen in rehearsals and his songwriting style and technique.

Reception: The Wedding Present Musical will be performed at The Warehouse in Holbeck, Slung Low, Leeds from 22 August to 6 September 2025. Tickets can be booked at the Leeds Playhouse web site.

For more information about The Wedding Present, David's other band, Cinerama, and his annual Brighton festival, see the Scopitones web site.

Photo: Matt Aston (furthest left) and David Gedge (furthest right) and the cast of Reception on the first day of rehearsals (credit: Northedge Photography)

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.

For almost 40 years, the Classic Thriller Season has been held during the summer at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. It's one of the few rep seasons left in the country.

In 2025, the season has been reduced to three weeks instead of four and will feature plays by Peter Gordon, Ira Levin and Richard Harris. BTG Midlands editor Steve Orme spoke to Karen Henson from the producers Tabs Productions as well as Mark Pearce, who's taking part in his first Thriller Season as the incomparable Inspector Pratt, and Sarah Wynne Kordas, who will be appearing in all three plays. The Classic Thriller Season will run at the Theatre Royal from 12 until 30 August. PICTURE: Sarah Wynne Kordas, Mark Pearce and Karen Henson.

While the various Edinburgh festivals are running, one of the many publications providing extensive coverage of them is The List magazine, which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary.

The List publishes year-round free print publications and online content on arts and entertainment in Scotland, but it will be producing seven print publications in six weeks dedicated to the festivals, as well as bringing back its cross-festival awards, which it inaugurated last year and this year has expanded with new categories.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to List Publishing Ltd's CEO, Sheri Friers, about how The List started, how it kept going after lockdown nearly closed it down, expanding into Australia, the challenges of journalism in the 21st century and covering the Edinburgh festivals.

To find out more and to read the magazine online, including back issues going back to 1985, see list.co.uk, or if you are in Edinburgh during August, you will be able to pick up a current issue in print from many different locations around the city.

The winners of the biennial Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary, were announced at a ceremony at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre on Monday 21 July 2025.

Immediately after the awards were presented, BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to four of the five winners: Daisy Miles, who won the £10,000 North-West Original New Voice Award for her play R Lady's, Terri Jade Donovan, who won a special commendation of £5,000 for Dog Dog Dog, Silva Semerciyan, who won the Judges' Prize of £10,000 for her play Przewalski's Horses, and Tolu Okanlawon, who won the £20,000 overall prize for his play Shooters.

The winner of the International Award of £10,000, Jesús I Valles, for his play Spread was not able to attend the ceremony.

(Photo of winners Silva Semerciyan, Daisy Miles, Tolu Okanlawon and Terri Jade Donovan in the Royal Exchange Theatre following the ceremony, credit: Ellie Kurttz.)

Greg Mosse was the founder of the Criterion New Writing programme based at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End in 2015 and has written and produced 25 plays and musicals at venues including Chichester Festival Theatre, Portsmouth Guildhall and Worthing Theatre.

Since lockdown, he has turned to writing novels, despite being married to best-selling novelist Kate Mosse, and his latest book, The Coming Fire, the third in a series that he began writing during lockdown, was published by Moonflower Books on 17 July 2025.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Greg just before the new book was released about the series and how he came to write it, as well as about the Criterion New Writing programme—for which he encourages mid-career theatre writers to apply—having two writers working in the same house and lots more about the process of writing and the current new writing scene in British theatre.

Applications for the 2026 Criterion New Writing programme will open on 1 September 2025.

Lorenzo Allchurch and Alex Helfrecht, the writer and director of new play Lost Watches, which is to première at Park Theatre in London this summer, met when Alex directed Lorenzo as a child actor ten years ago in the film The White King.

For his debut full-length play as a writer, Lorenzo will star alongside a sculpture of the head of the author William Burroughs voiced by Jason Isaacs, star of, amongst others, The Salt Path, The White Lotus, The Death of Stalin and the Harry Potter films, in the latter as Lucius Malfoy.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Lorenzo and Alex about the play and how to stage something with a surreal style and lots of technical challenges, the writing and development process, the differences between film and theatre directing, finding a gap in Jason's busy schedule and lots more.

Lost Watches can be seen at Park Theatre in London from 30 July to 23 August 2025.

Paula Garfield MBE, Artistic Director and co-founder of Deafinitely Theatre, is taking her adaptation of The Vagina Monologues by V (formerly Eve Ensler) on a short tour.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Paula a couple of weeks before the performances about her adaptation for both deaf and hearing audiences of a play that was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s, as well as about her reasons for co-founding the company in 2002 and its range and methods of working.

Paula's words are voiced by BSL interpreter Kathy Yeoman-Owens.

The production will be performed at Exeter Northcott Theatre on 15 July, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield on 17 July and The Rep in Birmingham on 19 July 2025.

For more information, see www.deafinitelytheatre.co.uk or contact the theatre box offices for tickets.

Elizabeth Newman, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres, has adapted F Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, which is now 100 years old, for the stage for the theatre she recently left, Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

It will be co-produced by Derby Theatre, where it will also open that venue's 50th anniversary season, and will by directed by Derby's Artistic Director, Sarah Brigham.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Sarah and Elizabeth about the production, the story's continuing appeal and how their adaptation works, as well as about Derby's anniversary, Elizabeth's move from Scotland to South Yorkshire… and snooker.

Elizabeth Newman's adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, directed by Sarah Brigham, will run as part of the summer repertory season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland from 27 June to 25 September 2025 before transferring to Derby Theatre from 3 to 25 October.

59E59 Theatres in New York City has presented a regular Brits Off Broadway season of British theatre productions since 2004.

This year, the season runs from 22 April to 29 June and features eight productions that were recently performed in the UK.

BTG Editor David Chadderton spoke to Val Day, 59E59's Artistic Director, and Brian Beirne, Managing Director, about the origins of the season, their selection process, the financing of this theatrical 'unicorn' (as Brian calls it) and the productions in the 2025 programme:

• The Last Laugh, written and directed by Paul Hendy, from Evolution Productions and Jamie Wilson Productions from 22 April to 25 May.
• The Ungodly, written and directed by Joanna Carrick, from Red Rose Chain from 23 April to 11 May.
• The Mistake by Michael Mears, directed by Rosamunde Hutt, from Essential Theatre from 24 April to 11 May.
• Gertrude Lawrence: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening written and performed by Lucy Stevens and directed by Sarah-Louise Young from Astor Theatre from 13 to 25 May.
• Shellshocked, written and directed by Philip Stokes, from Richard Jordan Productions and 412, from 14 May to 8 June.
• A Special Relationship by Tim Marriott and Brian Dykstra, directed by Margarett Perry, from 29 May to 29 June.
• Pride and Prejudice adapted by Abigail Pickard Price, who also directs, with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches from Guildford Shakespeare Company from 30 May to 29 June.
• Kafka, written and performed by Jack Klaff and directed by Colin Watkeys from Twilight Theatre Co from 12 to 29 June.