News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1275: 2 August 2026
Editorial
You may notice some small changes to the newsletter this week, as I’ve been giving it a bit of a tweak.
I’ve changed the latest offers section from a single paragraph to a bulleted list, so it should be easier both to see what’s there and to click on the links. Also, I’ve got rid of the category headings in the news section, as some items were in a few different categories and so appeared several times. Instead, each headline has a list of tag names underneath, which correspond to the headings under which they would have appeared.
I’ve created a brand new web app this week as well, which was fun. For the last few years, I’ve put all of the press releases and other e-mails relating to the Edinburgh festivals into Evernote and shared them with our reviewers, but this year, Evernote increased its annual subscription from slightly more than I really wanted to pay to far more than I can afford, so I built my own very basic version that does just enough of what I need and runs on a computer the size of a credit card in my living room. It may not be pretty, fast or sophisticated, but it works, and I’m quite proud of it.
There has been more election excitement in my neck of the woods this week, but Philip Fisher in his latest feature has looked at the interaction between politics and theatre, based on a play soon to be produced about a notoriously thin-skinned and vengeful world leader. I’m not sure it would be advisable for any of those involved to cross the Atlantic for the next two and a half years.
As Philip mentions, it wasn’t permitted in this country to portray or criticise a member of government or the Royal Family on stage until the Theatres Act of 1968—I seem to remember Beyond the Fringe got into trouble for this. In Shakespeare’s day, playwright Ben Johnson got away with literal murder but was arrested for his part in writing the possibly satirical play Isle of Dogs in 1597. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, commissioned Shakespeare’s company to perform Richard II, after some had compared the protagonist to Queen Elizabeth, the day before he led a rebellion in 1601—which didn’t end well for him.
As Philip mentions, Brecht was far away from his homeland in the USA when he wrote the play that portrayed Hitler as a Chicago gangster, but his work while still in Germany was also heavily critical of the government; when he and his actress wife, Helene Weigel, escaped from the country the day after the Reichstag fire, he was number five on Hitler’s death list. At one point, Brazilian director Augusto Boal taught his actors to shoot guns to defend themselves from local authorities who objected to him giving their citizens the opportunity to speak out against them. It can require a lot of bravery to create theatre that genuinely tries to change people’s lives in some parts of the world even now.
Philip also mentioned the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar in New York in which the title character was distinctly Trump-like, which provoked stage invasions and threats on social media from the President’s supporters. This is described in detail in James Shapiro’s fascinating book Shakespeare in a Divided America—I can highly recommend all of his books on Shakespeare.
Our reviews pages have been a bit quieter this week as a lot of regional theatres are becoming dormant for the summer, but that will change soon as the first Edinburgh festivals begin in less than a week’s time. Keep an eye on our Edinburgh 2026 page for developments.
Jake Canuso, best known for his long-running role as Mateo Castellanos in the ITV comedy Benidorm, is joining the cast of Chesterfield’s 2026 panto Beauty and the Beast.
Actor and director Adrian Dunbar and musician Nick Roth will bring Beckett: Lieben 2026, an international festival celebrating the works of Samuel Beckett, to Liverpool.
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The role of Chris is to be played for the first time by female leads in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s new production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Calendar Girls The Musical (Octagon Theatre Bolton, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Theatre By The Lake and New Wolsey Theatre) - Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, –
