The WhatsOnStage Podcast

By Sarah Crompton & Alex WoodTV & Film Society & Culture Arts Performing Arts

The WhatsOnStage Podcast episodes

August 23, 2024 11. Special guest Francesca Moody talks Fleabag, Fringe and the secret to stage success
In this special episode recorded from both sides of the Scottish border, Alex and Sarah talk to special guest producer Francesca Moody as she completes another bumper season at the Edinburgh Fringe, all while also transferring smash-hit musical Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder to the West End.

With shows like Fleabag and Baby Reindeer to her name, Moody spills the beans on why she’s so keen to stage work at the festival every year.
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35 min
August 16, 2024 10. Our favourite musical revivals
Finally, a reunion! Alex and Sarah are back in the same room after many weeks apart to catch up on their latest theatre outings - to the Almeida, Chichester Festival Theatre, the London Palladium, the Edinburgh Fringe and beyond. Then, down to business: the duo pick their favourite musical revivals from across the years.
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33 min
August 09, 2024 9. Who wins at Edinburgh?
Alex reports from the Edinburgh Festival where there's an American invasion, a lot of producers trying out new shows, a few rising stars, and not many vegetables. But who is making a killing and who is losing out? Plus, Sarah visits the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre for a fabulous production of Fiddler On the Roof which makes the most of the variables of theatre outside.

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40 min
August 02, 2024 8. Bernadette Peters: the Broadway legend on Sondheim, solo concerts and sharing a dressing room with dames
This week Alex had a virtual sit down with musical legend Bernadette Peters ahead of her eagerly anticipated solo concert at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 12 August. Their discussion ranged from Sondheim to West End audiences, working with musical directors who know the difference between singing and making noise and Broadway Barks.
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27 min
July 26, 2024 7. From Edinburgh Fringe to world domination?
As the Edinburgh Festival begins, Sarah and Alex talk about their memories of festivals past - from great shows such as Fleabag!, Six and Baby Reindeer, to disasters, miseries and the rain.
Is the Edinburgh Festival still really a hotbed for new talent or are prices and rents simply too high for the truly unknown to thrive? And what part did the Fringe play in the end of Alex's career as a playwright
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35 min
July 19, 2024 6. Is Death of England the great state of Britain play? Ft Roy Williams and Clint Dyer
In this guest episode, Sarah talks to playwright Roy Williams and the National Theatre's deputy artisitc director Clint Dyer about the three plays they wrote together that seem to sum up the spirit of the times. As Michael, Delory and Closing Time are performed together for the first time at Soho Place, the writers discuss what promted the plays, their struggles with illness, Covid and sheer bad timing to get them to the stage, and the impact their work has had. Plus why you can be deadly serious and very funny at the same time.
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34 min
July 12, 2024 5. What happens when a show loses its star?
In a week of shock substitutions Alex and Sarah talk about James Corden at the Old Vic, Justine Mitchell at the Almeida and the way that history of theatre is filled with understudies who become the star.
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33 min
July 05, 2024 4. Is Andrew Lloyd Webber cool now?
With a new production of Starlight Express taking over the Wembley Troubadour and Jamie Lloyd's radical Sunset Boulevard due to open on Broadway, Sarah and Alex ask whether the British composer is having a renaissance. Plus: does the seat you sit in change your feelings about a show?
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34 min
June 28, 2024 3. Are musicals manipulative?
Alex has been singing along to Taylor Swift and Sarah has been on a musical theatre adventure with London Theatre at Sea. Which got us thinking about the power of song and how it makes people feel. Why does that make musicals such a potent force and are our emotions being played on - with special reference to Ghost Quartet, Dear Evan Hansen and Next to Normal
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28 min
June 18, 2024 2. Tonys special: Light in a troubling time for Broadway + Sondheim's supremecy cemented
In the second WhatsOnStage podcast, Sarah is literally all at sea but still finds time to talk to Alex about the most significant awards in American theatre - and how new thinking and some British input is changing Broadway.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
34 min

About The WhatsOnStage Podcast

From the publisher's feed

WhatsOnStage managing editor Alex Wood and chief theatre critic Sarah Crompton host a weekly podcast on all things theatrical. News, views, frank exchanges and lists offer an unmissable guide to…