News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1234: 19 October 2025
Editorial
Just before lockdown in 2020, I saw a production of Shirley Valentine at Bolton Library and noted in my review that, despite having been a fan of Willy Russell’s work for more than thirty years, this play, and the film based on it, had previously passed me by.
When I interviewed Mina Anwar, who played the eponymous heroine on that occasion, about something different a few months later, I asked her whether, if she was speaking to the playwright again, she could ask him whether he would write something new—although, as Richard O’Brien once said of his most famous creation, Blood Brothers must have proven to be a decent pension plan, if not quite on the same scale as Rocky Horror.
It was Blood Brothers that one of our reviewers, Rachel Duggan, found herself watching for the very first time this week, despite her years of theatre-going. It’s great to see someone come to a show like this with completely fresh eyes and still find it works today as a powerful piece of theatre, even after more than three decades of almost constant touring.
While I have seen the late Bill Kenwright’s production, albeit not for some years, my main memory of this show is from when I was follow-spot operator for the amateur première at Guide Bridge Theatre in 1986, lying face-down on scaffolding boards across the rafters over the auditorium for the whole show after pulling up the home-made wooden ladder. It was over those nine performances that I grew to love the show, and Russell’s writing in general.
For his feature this week, Philip Fisher has looked at the cast of what he calls “almost certainly the best TV series in living memory”—Slow Horses on Apple TV+—which has “inspired a flood of nostalgic recollection of exceptional theatre performances by many of the leading performers”.
I’ve never subscribed to any paid streaming services so will have to take Philip’s word for this particular series, though I’m pretty pleased to have seen most of the principal cast of Starsky and Hutch—unusual for a popular TV series of the 1970s in that it doesn’t appear to contain much to make TV companies nervous if they showed it today—on stage at different times.
If Captain Dobey—Bernie Hamilton—ever performed on the British stage, I missed him, but I saw Ken Hutchinson—David Soul—in the title role of a touring production of Mack and Mabel in 2006, Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at the Royal Exchange in 2006.
Going from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, I’ve only managed one member of the cast of The A Team: Lieutenant Templeton 'Faceman' Peck—Dirk Benedict—as another famous TV Lieutenant, Columbo, in a 2010 tour of Prescription Murder. A-Team The Musical at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 wasn’t quite the same.
Also in Edinburgh, I’ve seen the star of another favourite from the ‘90s, Jonathan Creek, Alan Davies, both in stand-up and as an actor, including in The Odd Couple with fellow series actor Bill Bailey, plus I’ve seen his original (and I think the best) detecting partner Caroline Quentin a couple of times, most recently in By Royal Appointment, and Sheridan Smith as Funny Girl Fanny Brice.
This is a fun game. Who have you seen from your favourite TV shows, past or present? Have you ‘collected’ a full cast of anything?
After a year's break, World Ballet Day "moves from its theme of access behind-the-scenes to a focus on access as a way to make dance a welcoming space for all."
A one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is to be performed in a new National Trust location in the Midlands—a 14th century Carthusian monastery.
Layton Williams and George Blagden will join the cast of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, from Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower.
Layton Williams and George Blagden will join the cast of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, from Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower.
Layton Williams and George Blagden will join the cast of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, from Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower.
After a year's break, World Ballet Day "moves from its theme of access behind-the-scenes to a focus on access as a way to make dance a welcoming space for all."
Layton Williams and George Blagden will join the cast of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, from Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower.
A one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is to be performed in a new National Trust location in the Midlands—a 14th century Carthusian monastery.
After a year's break, World Ballet Day "moves from its theme of access behind-the-scenes to a focus on access as a way to make dance a welcoming space for all."
Black Power Desk (Brixton House and PlayWell Productions in association with Birmingham Hippodrome and The Lowry) - Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham, –
Starter for Ten (Antic Productions, Bristol Old Vic, Longshot Films and Playtone) - Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham, –
