This week's guests were Fergus Head and Michael Zwiauer from Face Oddity, who are about to take their latest show This Isn't Working to Edinburgh in August, with a quick stop off at Canal Cafe on 29 July before that.

We caught up with the pair to discuss the show, how they manage to put it all together when you've got a team of writers all bringing ideas to the table, and why sketch shows should really be more common at the theatre.

This Isn't Working plays Canal Cafe 29 July - more info here before moving to Edinburgh 4 - 19 August - more info here.

Ahead of two nights at Applecart Arts on 7 and 8 July, before then heading up to Edinburgh for August, we caught up with Monia Baldini to find out what Be My Guest is all about.

We discuss the show, where it came from, why she writes in English even though she is Italian, and how audiences vary from country to country. Plus a whole lot more.

Our latest guests on our Runn Radio show were Nicky Diss and Vicky Gaskin, Artistic Directors of Open Bar Theatre. This summer they are taking two of the bard's finest works on a tour of Fullers pub gardens, come rain or shine.

We chat about the originals of the company, why pub gardens are actually the perfect place to perform Shakespeare, and how they cope with the variables of the British summer weather! We also discuss why their casting process allows them to cast their net wider and hopefully results in a greater diversity of actors than would be the case if they followed more normal processes.

Romeo and Juliet and Twelth Night will be touring Fuller pub gardens from 3 July until 15 September. You can find full details of venues and shows here.

This week our guest on our Runn Radio Show was Molly O'Gorman, the writer of new musical Ghost Light. This new musical that tells the story of a washed-up child star named Kat trapped in a cycle of emotional and financial abuse, and the toll that the nature of being a woman in the public eye takes on her mental health. When her sister returns and finds Kat at her lowest, dissatisfied with her own life, she has to decide whether to go back to the world that destroyed her.

We chat with Molly about the show, and why the portrayal of mental illness on stage can sometimes be done in ways that are not realistic. We also talk about the joys of making fringe theatre and how having to make a show on a very limited budget can often lead to some very inventive ideas.

Ghost Light comes to The Hope Theatre 11 - 29 July. Further information and tickets available here.

Tom Derrington has been writing a monthly diary for Everything Theatre during 2023, giving a fascinating insight into what he gets up beyond actually writing plays. So when he informed us back in March that it looked like he would be putting a play on in London soon, we did get rather excited. As soon as it was confirmed that his play Bounce would be coming to Lion and Unicorn Theatre in June, we quickly asked him to be a guest on our podcast. Thankfully he said yes!

Bounce

Jesse is electric! A self-made millionaire, motivational life coach, best-selling author and showman. He travels the world, helping tens of thousands of people to uncover their true purpose and take control of their destiny. But when a young man living with depression is transformed during one of Jesse’s intense live events, things quickly unravel. Sylvia, his mother, is desperate to find out what happened to her son. Unable to understand, she books herself a ticket, takes a seat in the front row and seeks to uncover the answers she needs. 

Bounce plays at Lion and Unicorn 6 - 10 June, tickets available here.

Lucinda Coyle and Samuel Xavier join us this week to talk about their show Our Last First. On first glance, it may seem a simple love story, but it doesn't need much digging to discover why this is so much more. For a start, it's written without any character features, so no gender, age, appearance, or anything else that might usually be used to place a character into a particular category. And then to mix it up even more, all four actors are cast each evening for any of the four roles, which means the show could, and will, be different every night as the dynmaics between characters change.

There's a lot going on, and so we try to cover it all as we chat to the writer (Lucinda) and director (Samuel) on why they choose to set the bar so high, whether this makes rehersals a whole lot harder, and just what this means for the audience.

Our Last First comes to The Space on Canary Wharf 6 - 14 June, bookings here. The show will also be livestreamed and available on demand for two weeks afterwards.

Our latest guest on our Runn Radio show was Georgie Bailey, well known on these pages for his work with Chewboy Productions. Their latest show, these words that'll linger like ghosts till the day i drop down dead comes to The Pleasance from 13 June, so it seemed the perfect time to sit down and ask the one question that is surely on everyone's lips - why on earth have you given your show such a long title?!

But we do more than just moan about the length of that title, we also discuss what the play is all about, whether due to its space themes if there will be any zero gravity special effects and what else Chewboy are planning for the year. We also get a little history about how Chewboy came into being, something we cannot believe we've never actually asked when he has been our guest before.

About these words that'll linger like ghosts till the day i drop down dead

Two living, breathing people face each other in a theatre space. One is here to help. The other is here for redemption.

These words that’ll linger like ghosts till the day I drop down dead is a brand-new experimental play from the multi-award-winning playwright Georgie Bailey, exploring the things we wish we’d said to those that have left, how effective art is as a coping therapy mechanism, how we manage grief and how ultimately, we can never change the past no matter how hard we try.

Our latest guest is Sarah Thom, who has been working in theatre for over 30 years. She is currently putting on her own one woman show, Beak Speaks, which she describes as an "homage to the fringe". The show finds Gillian Beak putting on a masterclass for actors, and as you will hear, is very much based on experiences she has had in her career, all wrapped around a story about Gillian's life.

The show was first performed back in 2017 at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and only returned this year after a chance encounter with the AD of The Hen and Chickens Theatre. And after a very successful run, she has been invited back for another week's run (9 - 13 May). Tickets are available here.

We chat with writer Andy Walker and director Lesley Manning as they prepare to bring their new show Happy Hour to Upstairs at the Gatehouse.

Happy Hour finds Jacqui confronting her inner demon, who happens to be called George, and who is constantly tempting her to keep drinking. As we hear, whilst a work of fiction, the play comes from Andy's own fight with drink, although he has been sober for a few decades now.

The play comes to Upstairs at the Gatehouse from 16 - 28 May

We first came across Ruby Shrimpton when she brought her show Unstitching to Camden Fringe in 2022. The show is centred around Ruby's love of the Eurovision Song Contest, although as with all great theatre, that is just a starting point for something much more fulfilling. We said about the show at the time "when you accept the randomness of it, it can be genuinely enjoyable and unironic fun."

The show was written long before it was announced that Liverpool would be the host for the 2023 edition of Eurovision. But as Ruby tells us, coming from Liverpool, how could she not want to have the opportunity to put her Eurovision loving show on as part of the city's celebrations around the contest. Which is exactly what is happening when she takes the show to Liverpool Arts Bar in May.

So it was a perfect time to chat with Ruby about the show, more about how she got involved with Liverpool's celebrations and what else she might have planned, both for the show and herself, in 2023.

As well as Liverpool, the show will also be playing at Brighton Fringe Festival (22 - 24 May), London's King's Head Theatre (29 May & 2 June) and Edinburgh Fringe Festival (14 - 22 August).