TheatreVoice

INTERVIEW: CHRIS SONNEX AND DAVID RALF. In 2016 Joshua McTaggart and Joel Fisher converted an underground car park in south London into a theatre, and very quickly the Bunker established itself as a leading fringe venue, championing new work by underrepresented writers and bringing in new audiences. In 2018 Chris Sonnex took over as artistic […]

INTERVIEW: DEATH OF A SALESMAN CAST. Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell’s revelatory Death of a Salesman cast the Loman clan as an African-American family, striving against the stream of white society in 1950s New York. Led by Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman, it remade Arthur Miller’s play anew, finding not a failure, but a man […]

INTERVIEW: CLAIRE CUNNINGHAM. Having a physical impairment since birth, Claire Cunningham spent her formative years wishing she could divert attention from her body. Having trained as a classical singer, she discovered a confidence on stage that she lacked in everyday life. But it was only when she made the unexpected switch to dance that she […]

INTERVIEW: ZOE WANAMAKER. Born in New York, Zoë Wanamaker was brought up in the UK where her father, Sam Wanamaker, fled to escape McCarthyism. Known for the detail of her characterisation, for her equal skill in comedy and tragedy, in new writing and the classics, and her deep, smokey voice, Zoë Wanamaker has been nominated for […]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW: JONATHAN MILLER. The legendary late director Jonathan Miller spoke to Judi Herman about his fifth – and final – attempt at King Lear in 2015. Having directed Northern Broadsides’ artistic director Barrie Rutter in the title role, Miller shared his thoughts on the play, before giving an impromptu masterclass on how to speak […]

INTERVIEW: PAMELA CARTER AND STEWART LAING. Playwright Pamela Carter and director-designer Stewart Laing have worked together on a string of ground-breaking shows since Slope in 2006. In the original version of that production, the audience sat above the stage, peering down on a series of bathrooms where the 19th-century poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine […]

INTERVIEW: SARAH FRANKCOM. As she finishes her tenure at the Manchester Royal Exchange, Sarah Frankcom looks back over her decade in the artistic director’s chair and, before that, 10 years at the helm of its literary department. She tells Catherine Love about how her early experiences of youth theatre and theatre in education defined her […]

INTERVIEW: JULIE TAYMOR. To mark its 20th anniversary in the West End, The Lion King‘s director joins Dominic Cavendish to look back at the show’s beginnings. Surveying its astonishing success – the highest-grossing Broadway show in history – they move onto the question of its aesthetic politics, from progressive casting to cultural appropriation. Recorded in […]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW: SHUNT COLLECTIVE. A decade has passed since the Shunt Vaults shut up shop to make way for the new London Bridge station. Before it opened its doors, critic Dominic Cavendish got a sneak preview of the space with the company’s founding member David Rosenberg. They discuss the possibilities of large-scale immersive theatre and […]

INTERVIEW: RACHEL O’RIORDAN. The new artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith tells Lyn Gardner about her route to and plans for one of London’s largest subsidised theatres. They discuss her successful tenure at the Sherman Theatre, and the importance of thinking locally as a springboard to theatre of national importance. Recorded at the Lyric Hammersmith, September […]