News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1267: 7 June 2026
Editorial
It’s another dull weekend, though at the moment the forecast for next weekend is looking more promising. Before that, I’ll be making a rare but brief trip to London, although I don’t know yet whether it will involve any theatre-going.
One trip I haven’t made for the last couple of years and am unlikely to be making this year is to the Edinburgh Festivals—one of our favourite cities in the world has become just too expensive for us to visit in August—but, as Philip Fisher reports this week, the Fringe programme has just been released. It isn’t as much of an event as it used to be when we were kept in suspense about what it might contain until June as shows have been going on sale since January, but now you can download the whole thing as a PDF or order the paper version.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival also releases its programme this month, which is still largely kept under wraps until the launch, although they do release details of some headline shows in advance, as does the Edinburgh International Festival.
I have finally released the feature I promised a couple of weeks ago, which is a very personal account of a course I’ve been involved in since its inception, thirty years ago.
In 1995, I received a leaflet for a new distance learning degree course in Theatre Studies at Rose Bruford College, one of the UK’s leading drama schools based in Sidcup in Kent. I didn’t go to university after A levels, and so I signed up to something that changed my life in many ways.
After six years of part-time study of many different areas of theatre including annual residential schools that included visiting some amazing productions in London that I otherwise wouldn’t have even known about, I received my BA (hons). As a student, I had also created a web site and e-mail discussion lists for us all to keep in touch—my first foray into web design and programming.
After completing an MA at University of Glamorgan, I returned to Rose Bruford as a tutor, and have been teaching various modules—including Theatre Criticism— over the last decade and a half, revising many of them to work with the new online method of delivery.
If you listen to to the podcast, you will have heard me speak to Michael Walling in October about the 30th anniversary of the course—I was one of its first students and Michael was one of my tutors, and is now a colleague. But now the course has been cancelled by the college and is taking no new students. Initially, we were told that existing students would be able to complete their degrees, but now the closing date has been brought forward, so not everyone will be able to do so.
While it’s sad that it won’t continue, the late Professor Tony Hozier, who created the course initially, has left an amazing legacy that has changed many lives over three decades.
David Chadderton reflects on his experiences as a student then a tutor on the innovative Theatre Studies distance learning degree, which has now been cancelled.
Audiences at the 2026 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival can hear three long-lost songs from Iolanthe, recently discovered in the British Library.
TheatreCraft is bringing together leading UK theatre organisations to highlight the vital role of STEM skills in theatre and inspire the next generation of technical talent.
Audiences at the 2026 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival can hear three long-lost songs from Iolanthe, recently discovered in the British Library.
The Choir Of Man (Immersive Everywhere, Nic Doodson, Andrew Kay, Wendy & Andy Barnes and AK Theatricals) - Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, –
