TheatreVoice

INTERVIEW: CLAIRE APPLEBY. Claire Appleby is the architecture advisor for Theatres Trust – the national advisory public body for theatres – and also manages the Theatres at Risk register, which highlights theatre buildings under threat across the country.  She talks about the work of both organisations, and their vital role in championing and maintaining British theatre […]

INTERVIEW: TINGYING DONG. Tingying Dong is a sound designer, composer, and theatre maker. Dong talks about her early interest in student drama and improv and her eventual training at LAMDA, following a pivot from postgraduate economics studies.  Dong has since amassed an impressive resumé, including critically acclaimed work in productions including The Crucible and London […]

INTERVIEW: RUFUS NORRIS.  As he prepares to leave his role as Director and joint CEO of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris reflects on a decade in one of the highest profile arts jobs in the UK. Recorded at the National Theatre on January 9th, 2025. Image credit: Ellie Kurttz

INTERVIEW: OLIVER ROYDS. Across several different companies, Oliver Royds has his hand in a huge range of theatrical endeavours. Nicoll Entertainment creates some of the UK’s leading children’s theatre, including The Tiger Who Came To Tea and Olivier Award-winning Dinosaur World Live. BOS Productions produces hit shows in the West End and beyond. And Troubadour […]

INTERVIEW: DAVID BYRNE.  In 2024, David Byrne left the small New Diorama Theatre in London – which he’d transformed into a powerhouse of new work by exciting young artists and companies – to take up the role of artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. His first year there has seen huge hits like Mark […]

INTERVIEW: CARO NEWLING. Caro Newling is one of the most successful and influential producers in British Theatre. After meeting Sam Mendes at the RSC, the two of them set up the Donmar Warehouse, and have since worked closely on all Mendes’s stage productions. As joint founder of Neal Street Productions she oversees the development and […]

A recording of an interview by Tim Bano with Theatre Critics Arifa Akbar and Fergus Morgan discussing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024. This is an annual TheatreVoice critical round-up to cover and reflect on the Festival. This interview was recorded on Zoom, September 2024. In the recording, the critics discuss their process when reviewing shows […]

A recording of a panel talk discussion celebrating 20 years of the TheatreVoice archive. The panel included theatre critic Arifa Akbar, theatre critic and founding editor of TheatreVoice Dominic Cavendish, theatre producer Ellie Keel, Theatre critic Rachel Halliburton, and it was chaired by Tim Bano, theatre critic and editor of TheatreVoice. This discussion took place […]

INTERVIEW: DAME PATRICIA ROUTLEDGE. Dame Patricia Routledge is one of the UK’s most beloved and recognisable actresses, whose career spans more than 70 years and hundreds of plays, musicals, television programmes and films. Although best known for her roles as Hyacinth Bucket in TV sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, Patricia made her name in theatre, starting […]

INTERVIEW: BUNNY CHRISTIE. Bunny Christie is one of the most acclaimed designers working in theatre today. She is the winner of four Olivier Awards and two Tony Awards, and has designed shows including The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Company, People Places and Things as well as the three immersive shows […]

ARCHIVE EDITION: INDHU RUBASINGHAM. When Indhu Rubasingham spoke to Theatre Voice in 2013 she was just coming to the end of her first year as artistic director of what was then called the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London. Ten years on, the Tricycle has undergone a huge refurbishment, is now called the Kiln, and is […]

INTERVIEW: DAVID SABEL. Fifteen years ago the National Theatre had its first live cinema broadcast, Nicholas Hytner’s production of Racine’s Phedre starring Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper. The driving force behind NT Live, now a global phenomenon, is David Sabel. He went on to help found the Bridge Theatre and now runs Sabel Productions, working […]

In April 2023, as part of the V&A’s Performance Festival, a group of leading theatre practitioners came together to discuss representation in theatre. Taking part were: Mei Mac, Cherrelle Skeete and Gabrielle Brooks, with the discussion chaired by Talawa Theatre Company's Carolyn Forsyth.

INTERVIEW: JESSICA HUNG HAN YUN. What makes good lighting design in theatre? Jessica Hung Han Yun explains all – and talks through some of her award-winning lighting work from the past few years, including Equus, for which she won the Knight of Illumination Award, and My Neighbour Totoro, which won her the 2023 Olivier Award […]

INTERVIEW: ISOBEL MCARTHUR. Isobel McArthur is an Olivier award winning actor, director and playwright. In 2018 she created Pride and Prejudice *sort of, a raucous and irreverent take on the Jane Austen novel featuring comedy and music. The play went on to win the 2022 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. Since then […]

INTERVIEW: CHRIS BUSH. Chris Bush is an award-winning playwright and lyricist. Her work ranges from huge community-led pieces to musicals and political plays. Her recent musical Standing At the Sky’s Edge, featuring the music of Richard Hawley, won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Recorded on Zoom, 14th November 2023.

DISCUSSION: As theatre makers recover from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023, Tim Bano is joined by critics Fergus Morgan and Arifa Akbar to discuss the highs and lows of this year’s festival, as well as picking their top three shows. Recorded on Zoom, 7th September 2023.  “The dynamic between artist, critic and audience is completely […]

INTERVIEW: LOLITA CHAKRABARTI. At this year’s Olivier Awards, Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi took home five wins from its nine nominations. The success was another high point for Chakrabarti who, after a long career as an actor, turned to writing a decade ago with her play Red Velvet about the life […]

INTERVIEW: ELLIE KEEL. Ellie Keel is an award-winning producer and campaigner. She is the Founder Director of The Women's Prize for Playwriting, a literary prize and campaign for gender equality among writers for the stage in the UK and Ireland. In 2022 she was the youngest producer ever to be shortlisted for Producer of the Year […]

INTERVIEW: TRISTAN FYNN-AIDUENU. Writer and director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu grew up in a Ghanaian household in South London, and discovered drama as a teenager by chance through a youth theatre improv class. He went on to study drama at Roehampton University and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and won the prestigious JMK Young Director […]

INTERVIEW: MARK RAVENHILL. Mark Ravenhill exploded on to the theatre scene in 1996 at the Royal Court with his uncompromising play about young people in a materialistic world, Shopping and Fucking. Other original work followed, including Some Explicit Polaroids, Mother Clap’s Molly House and, most recently, The Cane. His version of Hitchcock’s Blackmail has just opened […]

ARCHIVE EDITION: Belarus Free Theatre was founded by Natalia Koliada and Nikolai Khalezin in 2005. After falling foul of Belarus’s oppressive political regime, the company has been forced to hold performances in secret for 17 years. In 2021 the whole ensemble left their home country of Belarus and are now in exile. At a critical moment […]

INTERVIEW: FINN AND LEWIS DEN HERTOG.  The sons of actor Ann Louise Ross and production manager Nils Den Hertog, brothers Finn and Lewis Den Hertog spent their formative years in and around Dundee Rep. Finn was quick to join the family business, working first as an actor then as a director. Lewis thought he was […]

INTERVIEW: ABDUL SHAYEK. In August 2020, Abdul Shayek took over the reigns as Artistic Director of Tara Theatre. Following his first 18 months in the role, he talks to Anya Ryan about taking on the legacy of the pioneering South Asian company, and his continued plans to grow its presence both locally and nationally. Recorded on […]

ARCHIVE EDITION: Alecky Blythe is one of the leading practitioners in verbatim theatre, responsible for flexing and breaking the form with works like The Girlfriend Experience, London Road and Little Revolution. As her new play Our Generation opens at the National Theatre we revisit previous TheatreVoice interviews from 2008, 2011 and 2014 to find out about […]

INTERVIEW: LISA SPIRLING. Sam Marlowe met Lisa Spirling, artistic director of Theatre503, in Battersea, South London, at a time of exciting redevelopment for a venue that has made its mark as a home of first-time writers. They talk about surviving the pandemic, and how Spirling and her team are pioneering new ways to bring emerging talent […]

INTERVIEW: STEPHANIE SIRR. For the start of a new series, and in the midst of a time like no other for theatre, we're looking forward. Stephanie Sirr was recently made joint president of UK Theatre, the membership body that represents theatre across the country. She tells Tim Bano about her predictions for the future of […]

INTERVIEW: GIUSEPPE CANNAS. Sam Marlowe sits down with Giuseppe Cannas, Head of Wigs, Hair and Make-up at the National Theatre, to find out about the extraordinary craft and minute detail involved in creating a production’s special effects. From hand-stitching every single hair, to creating exploding eyeballs, Cannas’ work not only involves a wide range of disciplines, but […]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW: MUSTAPHA MATURA AND NICOLAS KENT. When Mustapha Matura died in October 2019, he had become one of the most important dramatists in Britain. Matura was born and grew up in pre-independence Trinidad, and his early life and home country shaped his work. His plays often explored colonialism and its legacy, and used humour […]

INTERVIEW: ELIZABETH NEWMAN. Elizabeth arrived at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in 2018 after eight years at Bolton’s Octagon, five as associate director and three as artistic director. Now in her second season as artistic director of the self-styled “theatre in the hills”, she has increased the annual number of productions to nine, a figure in Scotland […]

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 […]