Nottingham Playcast

Nottingham Playhouse

Welcome to Nottingham Playcast.Join us as we go behind the scenes at Nottingham Playhouse where we chat with actors, playwrights and directors, and share new work from our Amplify Artists. read less
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Episodes

Episode 54_Adrian Scarborough
Sep 2 2022
Episode 54_Adrian Scarborough
We bring you an interview with Adrian Scarborough./An exclusive interview with Adrian Scarborough who, alongside Sophie Thompson stars in The Clothes They Stood Up In, his adaptation of Alan Bennett’s novella. He talks about how it felt to take on such a celebrated writer’s work , and why we should all be coming to see this play.Adrian has adapted Alan Bennett's novella The Clothes The Stood Up In, which is at the Playhouse Fri 9 Sep – Sat 1 OctGet your tickets hereThe Clothes They Stood Up In“Everything’s gone. Furniture, blinds. They even managed to carry off a hot oven and the ‘sticky chicken casserole’. They can’t be human.”Starring Olivier Award winning actors Sophie Thompson (Detectorists, Sex Education, Present Laughter, Gosford Park, Eastenders, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and Adrian Scarborough (The Madness of George III, Leopoldstadt, Gavin and Stacey).A night at the opera ends with a shock for mild-mannered couple Maurice and Rosemary Ransome when they open their front door to discover their flat completely empty. From light bulbs to carpets to toilet paper, even their chicken casserole has been stolen.The Ransomes turn detective to try and work out who is behind this outrageous act, and why and how they did it. Along the way, they are forced to examine their lives when stripped bare of the worldly possessions that define us all. Should they rebuild their old life, or begin afresh?A bittersweet exploration of marriage, dreams and lives unlived, Adrian Scarborough’s adaptation brings Bennett’s hilarious story to the stage for the first time, capturing his trademark observational wit in this gentle and darkly surprising tale.Support the showSupport the show
Episode 51 - Caroline Bird - Red Ellen
Apr 7 2022
Episode 51 - Caroline Bird - Red Ellen
The Playcast is back!We return with the first episode of the season brining you an interview with Caroline Bird. Caroline is the writer of Red Ellen which arrives at Nottingham Playhouse on Weds 13th April. Get your tickets hereBioCaroline won The Forward Prize for best poetry collection in 2020. She was shortlisted for the Costa Prize 2020, the TS Eliot Prize 2017, the Ted Hughes Award 2017, and the Dylan Thomas Prize twice in 2008 and 2010. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014. She has also won an Eric Gregory Award (2002) and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award two years running (1999, 2000), and was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2004, 2003 and 2002. Caroline was on the shortlist for Shell Woman Of The Future Awards 2011.Caroline has had six collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was only 15) is a topical, zesty and formally delightful collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim. Watering Can, her third collection published in November 2009 celebrates life as an early twenty-something with comedy, wordplay and bright self-deprecation. Her fourth collection, The Hat-Stand Union, was described by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny, sad and deadly.’ Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition (published July 2017) was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the 2017 Ted Hughes Award. Her sixth collection, The Air Year was published in February 2020, and was book of the month in The Telegraph, book of the year in the Guardian, shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and winner of the Forward Prize.Bird’s poems have been published in several anthologies and journals including Poetry Magazine, PN Review, Poetry Review and The North magazine. Several of her poems and a commissioned short story, Sucking Eggs, have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. She was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Her poem, The Fun Palace, which celebrates the life and work of Joan Littlewood, is now erected on the Olympic Site outside the main stadium.In recent years, Caroline has given poetry performances at Aldeburgh Festival, Latitude Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival, the Wellcome Collection, the Royal Festival Hall, the Wordsworth Trust, Cheltenham Festival, and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.Caroline Bird began writing plays as a teenager when she was the youngest ever member of the Royal Court Young Writer’s Programme, tutored by Simon Stephens. In 2011 Caroline was invited to take part in Sixty Six Books by the Bush Theatre. She wrote a piece inspired by Leviticus, directed by Peter Gill. In February 2012, her Beano-inspired musical, The Trial of Dennis the Menace was performed in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre.Caroline’s new version of The Trojan Women premiered at the Gate Theatre at the end of 2012 to wide critical acclaim. Caroline’s play Chamber PieceSupport the show
Episode 44 - Holly Race Roughan - The Amplify Podcast
Mar 4 2021
Episode 44 - Holly Race Roughan - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to more artists of national and international renown in our Amplify Podcast series. These conversations cover career and process, as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Holly Race Roughan.Holly Race Roughan trained on the Theatre Directing MFA at Birkbeck College. She is the Director of the Young Ensemble at the Lyric Hammersmith. Other directing credits include: Vernon God Little (Rose Bruford), How to Eat an Elephant (Theatre Royal Plymouth R&D), Broken Dreams (Royal Court), The Laramie Project (Arts Ed), Rough Beasts (Bush Theatre, R&D), Music Hall Monster (Wilton’s Music Hall, Co-Director), Blackout (Synergy), Prurience (Guggenheim, New York/Royal Festival Hall, London Co-director), CUNT (Yard Theatre, R&D), People Places & Things (UK Tour, directed with Jeremy Herrin), START (Lyric Hammersmith, Young Company), Best Served Cold (Vaults Festival), Clickbait (Theatre 503), The Low Road (Central School of Speech and Drama), Animal (Gate Theatre, Royal Welsh College of Speech and Drama), Eye of a Needle (Southwark Playhouse), A First World Problem (Theatre503), Pages from my Songbook (Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester), Believers Anonymous (The Rosemary Branch), Waiting For Alice (Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe Festival), After the War (Cambridge ADC Theatre).Holly is an Associate Director for arts in prison charity KESTREL, for them she has directed Jack a Lad in the Beanstalk (HMP Springhill Prison), Broken Dreams (Royal Court), Blood & Water (Royal Court), SkyFall (HMP Springhill Prison), and the films The 360° Man (HM Springhill Prison) and No Going Back (HMP Aylesbury Prison).As Associate/Assistant Director: People, Places & Things (National Theatre / West End), Stuff Happens (National Theatre - rehearsed reading), The Cane (National Theatre Studio - R&D), The Shoemaker's Holiday (RSC), Hotel (National Theatre), The Pass (Royal Court), The Birthday Party, A Doll's House, Rats Tales, The Country Wife (Royal Exchange), Three Birds (Bush Theatre/Royal Exchange), Adult Supervision (Park Theatre).Support the show
Episode 43 - Matthew Xia - The Amplify Podcast
Feb 23 2021
Episode 43 - Matthew Xia - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to more artists of national and international renown in our Amplify Podcast series. These conversations cover career and process, as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Matthew Xia.Matthew Xia (Director) is the Artistic Director at ATC (Actors Touring Company), a company dedicated to producing and touring new international and cross-cultural plays. Matthew was previously Associate Artistic Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Director in Residence at The Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, and Associate Director at Theatre Royal Stratford East.Directing credits for the ATC include: Amsterdam (Plymouth Theatre Royal / The Orange Tree).Credits for Nottingham Playhouse include: Shebeen (Nottingham Playhouse and Theatre Royal Stratford East) and One Night In Miami.Other directing credits include: Blood Knot (The Orange Tree); Blue/Orange, The Sound of Yellow and Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Young Vic & Eclipse); Dublin Carol (Sherman Theatre);Eden (Hampstead Downstairs); Suckerpunch: Boom Suite (The Barbican & NitroBEAT); Migration Music and Scrappers (Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse); Frankenstein, Wish List (also Royal Court), Into the Woods and Brink (Royal Exchange Manchester); Cinderella, The Blacks and I was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (Co-Director, Theatre Royal Stratford East & The Barbican); Mad Blud and Aladdin (Associate Director) and Sleeping Beauty (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Soundbites: Ruth the Divorcee and Barry the Love-Sick Bee (Lyric Theatre Studio & Bestival); Soundbites: Abandonment (Rich Mix); and Wild Child (Royal Court Rough Cut).Composing/Sound Design credits include: Paralympics Opening Ceremony (DJ); The People are Singing (Royal Exchange); Free Run (Underbelly); That’s The Way To Do It(TimeWontWait); Pass The Baton and Bolero Remixed (New London Orchestra); Da Boyz, Family Man, The Snow Queen, Hansel and Gretel, Medea and Squid (Theatre Royal Stratford East).Matthew is a founding member of Act for Change and a trustee for Cardboard Citizens and Artistic Directors of the Future.Support the show
Episode 42 - Tom Jackson Greaves - The Amplify Podcast
Feb 18 2021
Episode 42 - Tom Jackson Greaves - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to more artists of national and international renown in our Amplify Podcast series. These conversations cover career and process, as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Tom Jackson Greaves.Tom trained at Laban and London Contemporary Dance School.Recent choreographic work includes: So Here We Are (Manchester Royal Exchange and Hightide Festival), Juicy and Delicious (Nuffield Theatre Southampton), When We Were Women (The Orange Tree), The Crocodile (Manchester International Festival), Teddy (Southwark Playhouse), Defect The Musical (Arts Educational School), Shadowthief (Barnsley Civic), Kerry Ellis at the Palladium (London Palladium), LIFT (Soho Theatre), Harvest Fire (YMT The Lemon Tree Aberdeen), The Seventh Muse (YMT Barbican Plymouth), short creations at ArtsEd, The MTA, CPA Studios and Dance Academy Russia and music videos for C.Duncan, Boy George and Clare Maguire.Tom’s also makes his own dance-theatre creations include: Seven Deadly Sins (UK Tour) and Vanity Fowl (Sadlers Wells). He is currently working on an original creation with Kneehigh Theatre as Director/Choreographer that will premier in Spring 2016.Tom was a winner of the New Adventures Choreographer Award in 2012.Tom has also worked extensively as a performer touring regularly with ‘Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures’. Other highlights include; Tristan And Yseult (Kneehigh Theatre) and Kes (Sheffield Crucible). Support the show
Episode 41 - Rebecca Gatward - The Amplify Podcast
Feb 10 2021
Episode 41 - Rebecca Gatward - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to more artists of national and international renown in our Amplify Podcast series. These conversations cover career and process, as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Rebecca Gatward.Rebecca Gatward studied for a degree in Drama and English and an MA in Theatre Direction at the University of East Anglia. She is a graduate of the BBC Directors’ Academy. She has been working as a freelance television drama director since 2008 and as a theatre director since 1995.Her credits include ALEX RIDER, TRACES, DUBLIN MURDERS, DOCTORS, EASTENDERS and CASUALTY. She is a graduate of the BBC’s Director’s Academy.Theatre credits as Director include:THE COMEDY OF ERRORS for Shakespeare’s Globe 2009 & 2010.  THE MERCHANT OF VENICE for Shakespeare’s Globe’s 2007.  THE INDIAN BOY (2006) by Rona Munro for the RSC Complete Works Festival; THE CANTERBURY TALES (2006) RSC TOUCHED by Stephen Lowe (2008 Salisbury Playhouse); YIKES! (2005 Unicorn Theatre); CANCER TALES (2005 New Wolsey Theatre Studio); OLD KING COLE (2004 Unicorn at the Cochrane Theatre); THYESTES (2003 RSC The Other Place) THE ACCRINGTON PALS (2002 West Yorkshire Playhouse); THE OWL WHO WAS AFRAID OF THE DARK (2002 Bristol Old Vic); THE MAGIC TOYSHOP (2001 Shared Experience: Soho Theatre and national tour); THE THREE BIRDS (collaboration between Gate Theatre and NT Studio ; VENECIA (2000 Gate Theatre). She also restaged THIS IS OUR YOUTH with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (2002 Garrick Theatre).Support the show
Episode 40 - Paul Hunter - The Amplify Podcast
Feb 2 2021
Episode 40 - Paul Hunter - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to more artists of national and international renown in our Amplify Podcast series. These conversations cover career and process, as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Paul Hunter.Paul Hunter is co-founder and Artistic Director of Told by an Idiot. Paul has worked on all Told by an Idiot shows to date as director/devisor/performer.  Directing credits include: The Ghost Train (Told by an Idiot / Royal Exchange, Manchester); Too Clever By Half (Told by an Idiot / Royal Exchange, Manchester); Every Last Trick (Royal & Derngate, Northampton); You Can’t Take It With You (Told by an Idiot / Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Mouse and his Child (RSC); Low Pay, Don’t Pay (Salisbury Playhouse); Senora Carrar’s Rifles (Young Vic); The Opium Eater and Light is Night (Brouhaha); The Underpants (Hope Street, Liverpool); One Set to Love (National Theatre, Hungary); Not With That Hand and Jiggery Pokery (Tour/BAC), Ordago (for Punto Finco in Bilbao).  As Associate Director at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton, Paul Hunter directed: The Venetian Twins, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Best Production, Manchester Evening News award), Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Cleo, Camping Emmanuelle and Dick.  Acting credits include: Wise Children (Wise Children Old Vic and UK tour); Life of Galileo (Young Vic); The Little Match Girl (Shakespeare’s Globe); Gaslight (Royal and Derngate); Tartuffe (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing, The Globe Mysteries, Troilus And Cressida, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare's Globe); Rapunzel and The Red Shoes (Kneehigh); Under The Black Flag (Shakespeare's Globe); The Water Engine (Young Vic/Theatre 503); The Play What I Wrote (West End); Oliver Twist and Pinocchio (Lyric Hammersmith); Into Our Dreams (Almeida); the title role in Richard III (English Shakespeare Company), Animal Farm and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (Northern Stage); Les Enfants Du Paradis (RSC); and the title role in The Servant With Two Masters (Sheffield Crucible). Support the show
Episode 39 - Sam Hodges - The Amplify Podcast
Jan 28 2021
Episode 39 - Sam Hodges - The Amplify Podcast
Back with more brand new episodes for 2021, Nottingham Playhouse’s Amplify Producer Craig Gilbert chats to artists of national and international renown in our Amplify podcast series. These conversations cover career and process as well as offering a few ideas to explore from home during this time of social distancing. This week Craig is chatting to Sam Hodges, a theatre director, artistic director and producer with over 15 years’ experience across the not-for-profit and commercial sectors. A few years after graduating from Cambridge University, he founded the HighTide Festival Theatre which grew into one of the country’s leading new writing companies. He was Artistic Director for five years, during which time he produced early work by the leading writers and directors of his generation – including writers Nick Payne, Sam Holcroft, Ella Hickson and Beth Steel, and directors Mike Longhurst, Polly Findlay and Natalie Abrahami. Highlights include Stovepipe - which was co-produced with the National Theatre and named one of The Sunday Times ‘Ten Best Theatre Productions of the Decade’ - and Ditch, which opened the Old Vic Tunnels. In 2009, Sam was named in Esquire Magazine’s 60 Brilliant Brits for shaping British theatre. Between 2012 and 2014, he was invited by Stephen Fry and Sally Greene to become the Creative Producer for the Criterion Theatre in London’s West End. More recently, Sam was Artistic Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST) where he built on his reputation for commissioning new plays and musicals. Highlights include international award-winning tours of Fantastic Mr Fox the Musical and Billionaire Boy the Musical, London transfers for A Number to the Young Vic and SS Mendi to the Royal Opera House, and world premieres of The Shadow Factory by Howard Brenton and an adaptation of the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy. After his first season in charge, NST was named Regional Theatre of the Year and Sam has been named in the Stage 100 power list for the last 4 years. As a director, his productions for NST include The Audience (nominated Best Design & Best Actress, UK Theatre Awards), The Shadow Factory (nominated Best Design, UK Theatre Awards), Dedication, and The Glass Menagerie (nominated Best Director, UK Theatre Awards). He has also written two short films, Player (nominated Best Short: Raindance Film Festival, Miami Short Film Festival) and Double Take (commissioned by BAFTA and Big Dance for Channel 4: Dance on Camera Festival 2013 ) which he also directed.Support the show
Episode 38 - Lucy Bailey - The Amplify Podcast
Sep 17 2020
Episode 38 - Lucy Bailey - The Amplify Podcast
Our Amplify Producer, Craig, has been holed up in his makeshift bedroom studio talking to a host of exciting artists of national and international renown. These conversations cover career and process as well as offering a few exciting ideas to explore from home during this time of Social Distancing. Today’s guest is theatre director, Lucy Bailey.Lucy Bailey is a theatre director who co-founded and was the co-artistic director of The Print Room. Recently, she has directed a staggering production of Agatha Christie’s Witness For The Prosecution at London County Hall, immersing the audience into the text, as well as a UK Tour of Gaslight starring Martin Shaw.Other work includes: Ghosts (Northampton Royal and Derngate), Love from a Stranger (Northampton Royal and Derngate, and UK Tour), Cave (Printworks, Rotherhithe), The Graduate (Leeds Playhouse, Leicester Curve and UK Tour), Comus (Shakespeare’s Globe, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) and Kenny Morgan (world premiere and revival, Arcola Theatre).Opera and Musical Theatre: Lucy co-founded and was the Artistic Director of The Gogmagogs – a music theatre ensemble of string players. She has conceived and directed many shows including: The Gogmagogs Gumbo Jumbo (Greenwich Theatre and International Tour), Troy Town (BAC and Riverside Studio), The Fool (Norwich Festival and Queen Elizabeth Hall), Introducing the Gogmagogs (ICA Theatre and Royal Court), Let’s Begin Again (World premiere – Norwich Festival), Jenufa (ENO/London Coliseum).If you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast, please consider donating to our Curtain Up Appeal, to ensure we can keep creating new work for audiences to enjoy: https://www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/support/curtain-up-appeal/​​Support the show