News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1219: 6 July 2025
Editorial
This may be the time when, traditionally, many regional theatres are winding down for the summer break, but there is still plenty of new theatre to see, as you can see from the list of this week’s reviews below.
The festivals in Manchester are major contributors to this week’s reviews, with two from me at the Manchester International Festival—you can hear from some of the creators of both of them on the episode of the BTG podcast recorded at the MIF launch in March—and four from the first week of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival from David Cunningham.
Amazingly, although it feels to me like the year has barely begun, we are less than a month away from the start of the Edinburgh festivals. As we’ve reported a few times, the biggest problem at the moment in visiting the Scottish capital in August for audiences and performers alike is the cost of accommodation, which has massively increased since the pandemic, exacerbated by a shortage caused by the Scottish government's well-meaning restrictions on short-term lets.
Last year, as I mentioned at the time, it cost us more for three days in a hotel a bus-ride out of town than we paid only a few years ago to rent a central one-bedroom flat for a week. This year, there is the Oasis premium—as the band is playing, rather inconveniently, while the festivals are running, and prices have gone up to cash in on the demand—and the new tourist tax. That is likely to be enough to keep me at home this August.
We have recently had a press release from someone who claims to be able to help with this issue, and Philip Fisher has had a look at what they are offering. While university accommodation has been made available during the summer for a while, this looks like a more formal monetisation of the university’s downtime.
This is student accommodation, so it is likely to be rather cramped single rooms with shared facilities a bit of a trek out of town, but if you’re not planning on spending much time in your room, this may not bother you. It’s cheap-er rather than cheap, but there are rooms still available, which you might not find if you look elsewhere.
We haven’t released a podcast episode in a little while, but I recorded two this week, to be released shortly: one about a short tour of a play that was massive on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s and one that features the recording of a British Hollywood star as the voice of sculpture of a famous author that comes alive.
In the first of those, my interviewee was deaf and had a signer translating for both of us, who was absolutely fantastic. I have to pay tribute to BSL live signers, who have to both listen and ‘talk’ at the same time—I can’t imagine being able to do that well even if I was proficient in both languages.
I was expecting to have to edit out gaps from the recording from when she was listening and relaying what was said, but there weren’t any—anyone listening to the unedited files would probably not even realise that they weren’t listening to the spoken replies of my interviewee. She wasn’t even in the same country as either of us, as she was translating over Zoom from Australia!
But that’s all to come, so look out for them “wherever you get your podcasts”.
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
Birmingham Hippodrome has revealed the cast for No Such Thing as Wolves from two of the writers of the Horrible Histories franchise, to be staged Christmas 2025.
Birmingham Hippodrome has revealed the cast for No Such Thing as Wolves from two of the writers of the Horrible Histories franchise, to be staged Christmas 2025.
By Royal Appointment Daniel Schumann and Lee Dean: Theatre Royal Bath at Festival Theatre, Malvern
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical Stage Entertainment, Joop Van Den Ende and Tali Pelman in association with Tina Turner at The Lyric, Theatre Royal Plymouth
Liberation Royal Exchange Theatre and Factory International, Manchester at Royal Exchange Theatre
CAGED (Linden Dance Company) - Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham,
The Winter’s Tale (Royal Shakespeare Company) - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, –
SPLAT! (OfTheJackel) - Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham,
Remythed (Bet’n Lev Theatre) - The Old Joint Stock Pub & Theatre, Birmingham,
Bing’s Birthday (Fierylight) - Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, –
4.48 Psychosis (Royal Shakespeare Company & Royal Court Theatre) - The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, –
War Horse (National Theatre) - The Alexandra, Birmingham, –
The Addams Family, The Musical Comedy (Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment, John Stalker Productions and Bill Kenwright Ltd) - Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham, –
How To Win Against History (Bristol Old Vic and Francesca Moody Productions) - Bristol Old Vic, Bristol, –
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Longborough Festival Opera) - Longborough Festival Opera, Moreton-in-Marsh, –
South East
Poor Clare (Orange Tree Theatre) - Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, –
Don’t Rock The Boat (The Mill at Sonning) - The Mill at Sonning Theatre, Reading, –
A Company of Rascals (Guildford Shakespeare Company & Yvonne Arnaud Theatre) - Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, –
The Comedy of Errors (Guildford Shakespeare Company & Yvonne Arnaud Theatre) - Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, –
Taj Mahal (Grange Park Opera) - Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, –
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Elliott & Harper Productions and Catherine Schreiber, based on the original Leeds Playhouse production) - Norwich Theatre Royal, Norwich, –
News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1218: 29 June 2025
Editorial
It’s been a nice weekend for Glastonbury this year, both for those attending the UK’s biggest music festival and for anyone going the cheaper route, eating burgers and drinking beer in a tent in the garden while listening to the wireless (although there are one or two spots of rain on my keyboard as I type this—plus the flying ants have picked this afternoon for their annual take-off).
To keep this on the subject of British theatre, Ian McKellen appeared on stage at Glastonbury with Scissor Sisters—I only caught the very end of that, but it looked like a lot of fun, so it’s one to catch up with—and former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi sang with fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand (the other Capaldi was a surprise act as well, but not one that I found as interesting). While BBC 6 Music’s coverage is great overall, I’ve just heard one track from Glastonbury for the third time today, which is a little over-the-top.
It was in the context of Glastonbury that I saw our Culture Secretary mentioned in the news for the first time for a long time, possibly since her appointment, though it was to question the BBC about live-broadcasting offensive statements made by one act that no one was expecting (the one they were worried about was not broadcast live, just in case, but can now be watched almost in its entirety on iPlayer).
But it seems that she has been doing something for our sector in the background, as shown in the government’s recently published Creative Industries Sector Plan, part of its much-publicised Industrial Strategy, which Philip Fisher has examined in his feature this week.
Lisa Nandy, in her “Ministerial Foreword”, pays tribute to the UK creative industries and notes its major contribution to the country’s job market and economy, which isn’t news to those of us who have been telling this story to politicians for decades, but it’s good to see that the message has got through and is producing some results: the government is promising to double its investment in the sector over the next ten years years.
The report has been met with cautious optimism from arts organisations; Creative UK has simply said it will wait to see whether what is promised will actually be delivered, while the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain has said it is encouraged by the report but still unsure about the government’s attitude towards protecting the creative industries from huge tech companies, who want free use of everything they can access to feed their hungry AI models without having to acknowledge or recompense their sources.
Glastonbury finishes this weekend, but in the coming week, in my neck of the woods, the Manchester International Festival and the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival will both commence. I will be at two events at the first of those later this week—the one at the Royal Exchange actually opened on Friday, not next Thursday as stated on the MIF web site—while David Cunningham, who has already made his creative contribution to MIF and written about it for us, will be producing his first batch of reviews from GM Fringe.
But I’ll now enjoy a cheaper-than-festival beer in what’s left of this evening’s dull-but-warm weather here in east Manchester.
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
Stereophonic Sonia Friedman Productions at Duke of York’s Theatre
Showmanism Hampstead Theatre presents the Studio Theatre Royal Bath production at Hampstead Theatre
42nd Street Celia Mackay for Kilworth House Theatre at Kilworth House Theatre
Dear Evan Hansen ATG Productions and Gavin Kalin Productions present the Nottingham Playhouse production at Grand Opera House, York
Hamilton The Public Theatre and Cameron Mackintosh at Sunderland Empire
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 at Soho Theatre
Press Black Bat Productions at Jack Studio Theatre
The Koala Who Could (Nicoll Entertainment present a Rose Theatre, Lowry, Northern Stage, Unicorn Theatre and MAST Mayflower Studios production) - York Theatre Royal, York, –
Pride & Prejudice (Octagon Theatre Bolton, Theatre By The Lake And Stephen Joseph Theatre) - Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, –
Macbeth (HER Productions, Girl Gang Manchester and Unseemly Women) - Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, –
Dad's Army Radio Show (Jack Lane and Something For The Weekend) - The Stables, Milton Keynes,
Red Hot and Ready (Burn the Floor) - Cambridge Corn Exchange, Cambridge,
Only Human (Vaudeville Productions, Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, Paul Sandler and Derren Brown for Only Human Productions Ltd) - Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea, –
