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The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1216: 15 June 2025
Editorial
Do you remember when theatre programmes were called “souvenir programmes”? When kept with the ticket to prove you were actually there, they were something special to look back on, with their frozen-in-time cast biographies, photos and related articles—even the adverts can be interesting. I’m, still amazed that my dad saw The Crazy Gang and Bob Hope—comics from two different continents and eras—in successive trips to London for the Cup Final in the 1950s, or that I saw an unknown Hugh Grant in An Inspector Calls when Goodies member Graeme Garden was Inspector Goole, but I have the programmes to prove it.
The mass adoption of e-tickets during the pandemic was accompanied by the phasing out of printed programmes at many theatres. While some have returned to them, a lot offer a QR code to wave your phone at—assuming you have a smartphone—to view something that is hard to read on a tiny screen, doesn’t look great if printed and will probably vanish soon after the production closes. It may just about be a programme, but it’s no longer a souvenir.
I was given a nicely-designed programme this week that included a message from the director and a list of the cast and production team, but their biogs could only be read via a QR code. That seems to me as respectful to creative teams as when a TV company shrinks the credits to the corner of the screen in order to advertise other shows. Another local theatre told me they weren’t providing programmes to reduce their paper usage—just after she’d given me a printed copy of a press release I’d already had by e-mail.
It’s ironic that the Information Age is making these things so ephemeral that we will have nothing to look back on to remind us of what we have seen.
It took me a while to find how to download the PDF version of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe brochure from its web site, which was released earlier this month and lists more than 3,000 shows in the Scottish capital this August. For as long as I can remember, there have been discussions about whether the Fringe is getting too big, with comedians claiming there is too much theatre and theatre companies complaining there is too much comedy. Philip Fisher has considered this again in his feature this week.
I put this to Joyce McMillan, the highly respected critic for The Scotsman, back in 2016 when I interviewed her for the BTG podcast. She said, “people talk about it being too big, but the brute fact is, what are you going to do? What is your plan for making people not come to the Fringe?
“…we live in such a control freak society that people don't grasp this idea of an open festival. They think somebody must have invited everybody, or somebody must be controlling the size of it, or somebody must be deciding that it should be this size or that size, or this shape or that shape, or have this much comedy, or this much theatre. But the whole point of the Edinburgh Fringe is that nobody decides that…
“But short of taking a much more controlling and top-down attitude to it, there is not anything to be done.
“As long as people can find a space that they can afford and somehow get themselves somewhere to stay in Edinburgh for the three weeks, they will come and they will do their thing. I think that's what's wonderful about it.”
The affording part has become even more difficult since 2016, but that’s another issue and I’ve run out of space for this week.
Finally, there is a very short time left to get into a draw from Bookshop.org to win a £250 digital gift card if you buy a book through its web site this weekend. We are an affiliate, so will get a small cut if you buy through the link in this paragraph on our web site, but you will also be supporting independent bookshops rather than multinational organisations with your purchase.
Gatsby in Pitlochry and Derby Elizabeth Newman on adapting and Sarah Brigham on directing The Great Gatsby at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Derby Theatre
Hayman tours as Miller's Willy Loman Actor David Hayman and director Andy Arnold on the current touring production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House's Overture mentorship programme is a collaboration with Black Lives in Music and the National Open Youth Orchestra.
To celebrate 100 years of British puppetry, Coventry Puppet Festival is to be held at the Belgrade Theatre in association with the British Puppetry Guild.
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House's Overture mentorship programme is a collaboration with Black Lives in Music and the National Open Youth Orchestra.
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House's Overture mentorship programme is a collaboration with Black Lives in Music and the National Open Youth Orchestra.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief Royal Shakespeare Company and Factory International at Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Just for One Day: The Live Aid Musical Jamie Wilson Productions, Kevin McCollum, Sonia Friedman Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions, Kenny Wax Ltd, ATG Entertainment, David & Hannah Mirvish, Nederlander Presentations, Stephen C Byrd, Tilted, No Guarantees Productions, Burnt Umber Productions, Willette & Manny Klausner, Nicole Eisenberg, Hornos/Moellenberg and The Old Vic by permission of The Band Aid Charitable Trust. at Shaftsbury Theatre
This Bitter Earth (Thomas Hopkins, Jana Robbins, Craig Haffner & Sherry Wright, Alex Deacon, Jonathan Kaldor & Kohl Beck in association with John Rogerson and Sarig Peker) - Soho Theatre, London, –
Grease (Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Blackpool Grand Theatre) - Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Pitlochry, –
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Elliott & Harper Productions and Catherine Schreiber, based on the original Leeds Playhouse production) - His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, –
The Koala Who Could (Nicoll Entertainment present a Rose Theatre, Lowry, Northern Stage, Unicorn Theatre and MAST Mayflower Studios production) - Ulster Hall, Belfast,
