Selling a show takes more than putting it on sale and hoping people will come. You need to give audiences a reason to notice it, make them curious, remind them it exists and, ultimately, persuade them to book a ticket.

The good news is that effective promotion doesn’t always require a big budget. It requires thought, imagination, consistency and a willingness to let people see the personalities and hard work behind the production.

The three essentials: title, image and synopsis

These three elements are of equal importance and must work together to sell your show.

1. The title

Your title is often the first thing an audience encounters. It needs to grab attention, create curiosity and, ideally, give some indication of what the show is about. It should be memorable and work well across ticketing platforms, search results and social media.

2. The image

Your image is your visual calling card. It needs to stand out, communicate the character of the production and make someone stop scrolling. A strong image can create intrigue before a potential audience member has read a single word. Give it the same consideration you give your title.

3. The short synopsis

Once the title and image have caught someone’s attention, the synopsis needs to make them want to know more. Keep it concise, engaging and accessible. Tell people enough to understand the show’s appeal without giving everything away. Above all, sell the experience of seeing the show rather than simply describing its plot.

Once these three essentials are in place, it’s time to think about your audience.

Who is your audience, and how will you reach them?

You cannot effectively market a show until you have some idea of who is most likely to want to see it. Who will connect with its subject matter, style, performers or creative team? Where do those people spend their time, both online and in the real world?

Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you can start planning how to reach them.

A potential audience member may need to encounter your show seven times or more before it registers in their memory. The exact number will vary, but the principle is important: one announcement is rarely enough.

However, repeatedly posting the same image with the same message is unlikely to keep people interested. You need to find different ways to tell the story of your production, giving audiences something new to discover each time.

Keep your show visible on social media

Start planning your promotional content as soon as the show goes on sale. Don’t leave everything until opening week.

Your campaign should include:

• On-sale announcement: Introduce the show and give people a clear reason to book.

• Casting announcement: Reveal who’s involved and encourage performers and their networks to share the news.

• Promotional photoshoot: Capture the cast and, where possible, the creatives. Give yourself a bank of quality images to use throughout the campaign.

• Rehearsal shoot: Show the production taking shape and let audiences see the work going into it.

• In-tech shoot: Capture the transformation as lighting, sound, set and costumes come together.

• Opening preview: Share the excitement of the show finally reaching an audience.

• Press night: Make the occasion count, sharing photographs, reactions and any early critical responses where available.

These are just the starting points. There are plenty of other ways to keep a production in people’s minds.

Think about sharing cast profiles, short interviews, star cards, memorable quotes, audience vox pops and clips of enthusiastic applause or standing ovations, where you have permission to film and share them.

And don’t forget the moments audiences don’t usually get to see.

A glimpse behind the scenes can be every bit as engaging as a polished promotional photograph. Dressing-room antics, backstage camaraderie, vocal warm-ups, late-night journeys home, last-minute preparations, stressful moments and silly incidents can all help bring a production to life.

These moments give people a sense of the human beings behind the show. They help audiences feel connected to the cast and creative team, and give them another reason to care about what happens on stage.

Not every post needs to be glossy. Sometimes the most engaging content is the most spontaneous.

The difficult truth about getting an audience

Even when you do everything you can to promote a show, selling tickets without a marketing budget can be a real challenge. Theatre is competitive, audiences have limited time and money, and even the best productions can struggle to fill a room.

But there is another aspect of audience support that can be surprisingly painful: complimentary tickets.

For performers, having friends and family come to see their work is often deeply personal. It is about sharing something they have worked hard to create, celebrating a milestone and having the people who matter to them experience it.

For producers, arranging a complimentary ticket also represents time, effort and a gesture of goodwill. That seat has been offered because someone wants another person to experience the production and support the people involved.

So, when someone accepts a comp and then arrives late, fails to turn up or cancels at the last minute without good reason, the disappointment can go well beyond the financial value of the ticket.

Of course, genuine emergencies happen, and nobody should feel obliged to attend if circumstances make it impossible. But accepting a complimentary ticket should still be treated as a commitment. If you cannot make it, let the person who arranged it know as early as possible.

Perhaps the most frustrating experience is when a fellow performer, someone who understands just how much it means to have an audience, accepts a complimentary ticket to see a friend’s show and then doesn’t turn up.

Supporting a friend in theatre isn’t always about spending money. Sometimes it is simply about giving your time, showing up and being there.

A ticket is an invitation. Turning up is an act of support.

The 10 Top Tips to remember:

1 Get the title right

Make it memorable, distinctive and capable of catching someone’s attention.

2 Invest in the image

Your artwork is a vital selling tool. Make it striking, relevant and recognisable.

3 Write a compelling short synopsis

Give people a clear, concise reason to want to see the show.

4 Know your audience

Identify who is most likely to love your show and understand what will appeal to them.

5 Plan how to reach them

Choose the social platforms, networks and promotional opportunities most relevant to your audience.

6 Start promoting early

Build your campaign from the on-sale announcement through rehearsals, tech, previews and press night.

7 Keep your content varied

Repeat the message, not the post. Give people a fresh reason to notice your show each time.

8 Show the people behind the production

Share cast stories, rehearsal moments, backstage glimpses and genuine audience reactions, with appropriate permissions.

9 Make every ticket count

Whether paid or complimentary, every seat represents an opportunity for someone to experience your work. Treat invitations and commitments with respect.

10 Show up for each other

Theatre is a community. Supporting a colleague or friend by being in the audience can mean far more than the price of a ticket.

Theatre promotion is about persistence, creativity and connection. You need to make people notice your show, give them reasons to remember it, and make them want to be part of the experience.

And once the curtain goes up, remember that behind every production are people who have invested their time, talent and energy into making it happen. Sometimes the best support you can give them is simply to turn up.

🎭

Richard Lambert is a theatre producer, lighting designer and arts entrepreneur, and CEO of Fringe Theatre Awards Ltd. He is also Director of LAMBCO Productions Ltd and has created and developed independent theatre venues, championing ambitious, thought-provoking work and emerging artists.

Through the Fringe Theatre Awards, he is committed to celebrating excellence, raising the profile of independent theatre and recognising the talent that makes the fringe scene so vibrant.

To discover productions, explore venue listings and stay up to date with nominations and news, visit fringetheatreawards.co.uk

The show is over. The stage door queue has finally thinned. It is past eleven and the walk to wherever home is tonight is longer than it should be, through a city that is not yours, in a street you do not know.

Matt Henry has made that walk. And he has never forgotten what it felt like.

When I speak to Matt, he is in the middle of eight shows a week playing Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada at the Dominion Theatre. But he is not here to talk about the role, or the rehearsal room, or what it is like to perform opposite some of the biggest names in West End theatre. The accolades and the curtain calls are not what is driving him right now. Something else is.

That something else began in Sunderland. It was 2004 and Matt was on tour. “We weren’t so up on mental health and safety then,” he tells me, “and you kind of were in the shut up and put up era of our lives in the industry. I thought that when I got to a point where I had a voice that people would listen to, I wanted to bring about a change.”

But it was not until years later, working as Associate Director on The Drifters Girl, that everything crystallised. Every Tuesday he would arrive and ask the touring company the same question. How are your digs? “There was always something,” he says. “There was always a negative response.” A repairman had walked in unannounced. Someone had tried to let themselves into the house. A young actor had been racially profiled in the building where they were staying simply because nobody knew they lived there. “It just correlated with what I was going through back in 2005,” he says. “And so I felt this was the turning point. Something needed to change.”

And so Matt did something about it. He used his own funds to buy a house in Bradford. A seven-bedroom house, each room with its own en suite, close to the theatre, affordable within the Equity subsistence allowance. “I wanted to create a prototype,” he says, “where actors can find community, safety, and affordability. And quality. When I say quality, I mean it feels like a home from home.”

The most surprising thing, he tells me, was that it spread entirely by word of mouth. Matthew Bourne’s company stayed during The Red Shoes. Then rebooked for The Car Man. Then for Cinderella. “They sent a message saying please, please, please,” Matt says. “We’ve told everybody. Everyone knows about this now.” He laughs. “It kind of feels very heartwarming that we’re doing something good.”

I ask Matt how he holds both lives simultaneously. Eight shows a week. A social enterprise to run. A son to look after.

“I don’t know,” he says, laughing. “I feel like there’s not enough hours in the day.” He answers emails in the interval. He grabs half an hour here, an hour there. “It’s a lot of plate spinning.” But he is not doing it alone. “I’ve started to put together a really good team of people who believe in the cause, who believe in the mission, who want to bring about change with me.” It is that team, he says, that has made the Christmas Songbook possible.

The need for it could not be more urgent. In the wake of COVID, private landlords flooded the market. Prices soared. Actors found themselves topping up their Equity subsistence allowance of between £280 and £340 a week out of their own pocket. “You couldn’t find anything less than £500 a week,” Matt says. “You were always having to use your wage.” And the subsistence itself? Eight years of negotiation to raise it by £40. “Which was crazy.”

The consequences are already being felt. Actors are refusing to go on tour. And when they do, regional theatre collapses from the inside. “The principals are being looked after,” Matt says. “But I’m talking about the young ensemble members, the swings, those working backstage. These people are the infrastructure of touring shows.”

“Just having the prototype in Bradford isn’t enough,” he says. “What we’re trying to do is expand into other towns and cities.” The model is straightforward. Find empty properties (there are many, with the government now pushing landlords to address vacant accommodation across the country), lease them, decorate them to a high standard, and make them available to touring companies at a price that sits within the allowance. “Actors should never have to touch their living wage,” he says. “It should always be within the Equity system.”

His endeavour to make this better for the acting community is largely attributed to an unpleasant and threatening experience Matt had in Sunderland.

It was late. The show had finished. He was trying to get back to his lodgings on the outskirts of the city when it started. Racial slurs. Men following him. Danger was thankfully averted.

“Thank God for the taxi driver,” he says, “who bundled me into a taxi to get me away from these guys.” He pauses. “For no apparent reason.”

He had just read an article in The Stage about the rise of racism and homophobia experienced by actors on tour. “To hear that it is still continuing,” he says quietly, “is really, really sad.”

Anxiety breeds conviction and tenacity will create this much-needed change.

On 7th December, at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, The Actors House will host its first major fundraising event. Twelve professional West End performers. Young musicians. Students and graduates stepping onto a West End stage for the very first time. “This will be their first West End debut,” Matt says. “And I think that’s what the Songbook is about. Raising funds, but also giving the opportunity for the next generation to perform alongside the current generation.” Among the ambassadors of The Actors House are Ian McKellen and Christopher Biggins.

It is, in essence, the handing over of a legacy. The next generation performing alongside the current one. Better equipped. Better supported. Better than those who came before.

Near the end of our conversation I ask Matt about his MBE. What does it mean to him now, in the context of everything he is building? He remains thoughtful. “It signifies my commitment to theatre,” he says. “It really sat with me for a while. And I think that’s also been a driving force behind me wanting to do something more than just be a performer and win accolades for roles I’ve done. It kind of really says to me, do something. Help your industry. Continue to champion your industry.” He pauses. “My services to theatre. In my performance life. But also my services to the theatre community by trying to bring about change in regards to the accommodation crisis.”

The show is over. The stage door queue has thinned. It is past eleven and the walk to wherever home is tonight is nearer, in a city which is not yours, but the street feels somehow familiar.

Matt Henry is making these changes. One house at a time.

🎭

Matt Henry MBE

Matt Henry MBE began his career at the back of the Adelphi Theatre, selling ice creams and watching the stars of Chicago. More than fifteen years later he stood on that same stage and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his extraordinary portrayal of Lola in Kinky Boots. In 2017 he was awarded an MBE for his services to musical theatre. He is currently playing Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada at the Dominion Theatre, London.

Those who wish to support The Actors House | Instagram can find the details below, together with the Christmas Songbook on 7th December.

The Actors House Christmas Songbook

Date: Monday 7th December 2026, 7pm

Venue: Gillian Lynne Theatre, 166 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5PW

Line-up: Matt Henry MBE with Beverley Knight MBE, Jess Folley, Oliver Tompsett, Kerry Ellis, Divina De Campo, Carly Mercedes Dyer, Declan Bennett, Amy Di Bartolomeo, Georgie Buckland, Keelan McAuley, Tosh Wanogho-Maud and Keziah Ibe

Tickets: From £30 to £120, book here

All proceeds support The Actors House.

Interviewed by Maria Teresa Rivera-Schreiber, Editor-in-Chief, Exits & Entrances, October 2026

Pink Rabbit asks, between jest and brutal honesty, whether women’s desires can be freely expressed within the families, cultures and faiths which raised them. It began as five minutes of inspiration at drama school and has been evolving with its writer and performer, Farah Ashraf, ever since, winning a Bestie Award and the Shedload-of-Future Fund on the way to its official London debut at Soho Theatre.

Alone on stage, Farah plays Amna, an eighteen-year-old British Pakistani woman who is one person at home and another online, and who lets the audience in on what her mother must never hear.

🎭

Production details

Venue: Soho Theatre (Upstairs), 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE

Runs: Tuesday 24th November - Saturday 12th December 2026

Running time: 70 minutes

Age guidance: 16+

Tickets: From £15

Instagram: Farah Ashraf Pink Rabbit

On paper, blending stand-up and sexual assault seems risky. While I would personally argue the medium to be the perfect place to address the unspoken, the taboo, the current role of stand-up in most people’s lives is to entertain rather than challenge. In any case, if it does confront the audience, at what point does the comedian become a lecturer?

Charlotte Ashton’s script does not lecture the audience, nor does it follow the depressingly well-beaten track of using women’s trauma to shock and titillate. In fact, we don’t witness any of the assault itself. Instead, we see the resounding effect on Dolly’s life, and the truth that the assault wasn’t an aberration, but a product of a society that doesn’t challenge misogynistic violence and punishes victims far more than perpetrators.

Jessica Clark is phenomenal as Dolly, captivating the audience throughout as both a convincing stand-up and woman at and past the breaking point. Director Anthony Biggs, together with superb Sound Design from Roly Botha and Lighting Design by Skylar Turnbull Hurd, masterfully builds the tension to agonising heights before allowing us to release and laugh at perfect Wotsit-eating impressions and hashtag misunderstandings. The stand-up framework is able to seamlessly merge into one-woman play, emerging as a mask for Dolly to hide behind; the choices of microphone vs without vs voiceover are genuinely outstanding.

Ever-present plastic dolls, piles of naked plastic bodies under live stream or present in the police interview room, are a well-executed metaphor. The live-stream aspect in general is interesting and well-utilised, though having only one pre-recorded video played on the projection (via Dolly’s mobile) makes the lack of any more footage shown feel incomplete. In general, Asli Ozuak’s design is impactful and yet blends well into this “stand-up” performance.

Dolly is bitingly angry, gripping and relevant. Many will recognise themselves in it, and those who don’t should watch to understand how common the experiences are. This is a show that everyone should see, and well deserves many more performances.

Dolly is running at the Omnibus Theatre until 7th November 2026.

🎭

Reviewed by Alice Wilson

Alice (they/them) is a set, prop and puppet maker who moonlights as a performer and writer. Their work encompasses political comedy, magical realism and children’s theatre, with a deep passion for folklore, history and queer stories. They also just really love the Muppets and make weird little creatures. Their work can be found at andyaliceart.com, on Instagram and more writing at zoneoneclub.com

Production details:

Written by: Charlotte Ashton
Directed by: Anthony Biggs
Performed by: Jessica Clark
Produced by: PlayGC Theatre Company
Design: Asli Ozuak | Lighting: Skylar Turnbull Hurd | Sound: Roly Botha
Venue: Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW
Runs: until Saturday 7th November 2026, Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30pm, matinee on Saturday 7th November at 3pm
Content warning: sexual violence
Tickets: £18 to £25, book here

We spend years teaching performers to develop their individual voices, bodies and artistic instincts. Yet, when it comes to acting, we sometimes seem keen for them to abandon those instincts and perform like somebody else. What can the latest evolution in a century of dramatic thought teach us about the relationship between personal experience, inherited tradition and the characters we bring to life?

By the time an actor approaches Hamlet, or a soprano first prepares Violetta, they will already know how a dozen celebrated predecessors have interpreted the role. They will have absorbed specific gestures, vocal inflections, and emotional choices and inherited a clear idea of how much emotion should accompany each moment. With a long tradition to respect, success can seem dependent upon how closely one learns to reproduce it.

But what happens when the desire to get a character “right” prevents us from discovering what we ourselves might bring to it? As directors and educators, we spend years encouraging artists to develop their individual voices, bodies and imaginations, only then to ask them to reproduce somebody else’s interpretation when we get into the rehearsal room. How often have we seen performers start a project with an invitation to bring themselves to the process, only to find their initial responses quietly quashed in favour of a more prescriptive approach? And how much more authentic might these performances have been if we had instead encouraged them to draw on their own lived experiences rather than trying to force them into the shape of what we think a successful performance should look like? In the quest for authentic performance there is a stark difference between learning from the past and feeling obliged to repeat it.

One of the reasons contemporary audiences seem so appreciative of “authenticity” in the theatre is because of the recent evolution in the value society places on identifiably genuine human interaction. Whether on stage or on Tik Tok, the trend for superficial perfection has now been superseded by a desire for genuine connection with genuine people – and the question for modern theatre-makers is how best we can craft authentic characters without any of the poison of performative perfection.

Contemporary thinking about identity has increasingly challenged the idea that people are entirely self-contained individuals, somehow separate from the relationships and cultural histories that have formed them. Post-individualism encourages us to appreciate that we are each shaped by a myriad of external forces: family, community, language, social expectations and the lived experiences that change our understanding of who we are.

Post-individualism in theatre

What did your family teach you about expressing anger? What does your community consider courageous? How do you recognise authority, intimacy or betrayal? Which assumptions have you inherited, and which have you spent your life questioning?

An actor approaching Juliet will never have experienced her exact circumstances, but may understand implicitly the exhilaration of first love, or the frustration of being underestimated, or the suffocation of family expectations. A singer approaching Carmen might be drawn first to her desire to be loved without being controlled, or her experience of being judged by others, or the tension between public confidence and private uncertainty. These different starting points will produce radically different performances, and that is the point. The most exciting thing about getting to tell the same stories through different lenses is that each new approach will reveal further and deeper layers of character and interpretation. There is a freedom in realising that there is no “correct” version of a character in a story – and an even greater sigh of relief in understanding that audiences are not expecting one. Instead, by embracing the multiplicity of identities that you carry within yourself, you can’t help but create characters that carry a genuine human authenticity. This is because each moment on stage will have been informed by a genuine human – you.

For performers, this may complicate the traditional idea of bringing ‘yourself’ to a role; we can no longer just solipsistically mine our private memories for emotional material as advocated by some “Method” approaches, nor will audiences reward reliance on tropes or archetypes that would have succeeded in other eras. Instead, this new focus on “authentic” performance insists that we utilise our entire network of influences, assumptions and relationships to build characters that carry an aura of holistic truthfulness about them.

The person behind the character

One assumption that persists in many performance approaches is that an actor must somehow leave themselves behind to become another person. In practice, this is impossible - we cannot suspend our histories, bodies, habits of thought or understanding of the world simply because we have entered a rehearsal room. But these fixed aspects of our identities are not obstacles to truthful performance - they are among its most essential resources.

Leading the vanguard in this post-Individualist landscape are dramatic theorists like Dr Cristal Chanelle Truscott. Rooted in Black storytelling modalities, Dr Truscott’s practice and scholarship challenges “traditional” assumptions about how an actor’s unique individual experiences can be embraced to generate authentic performances. By inviting us to consider how ancestral knowledge, contemporary consciousness and the fullness of an artist’s own identity might inform creative practice, Dr Truscott encourages artists to draw upon the knowledge they have uniquely built through their own lives, creating a “Cultural Conservatory” as rich in character-building resources as any training institution.

By reframing the value of the relationship between professional technique and personal experience, Dr Truscott asks us to look beyond the necessarily narrow limitations of the training institutions where our artistic skills are honed, and instead embrace the lessons of the other educational path that each student of performance has subconsciously embarked on since birth – our own lived experiences. The music heard around the family home, the stories told by grandparents, the emotional codes of a particular community, and the experiences that have changed our understanding of love, power or loss – these are the foundational aspects of our characters that have too often been subjugated or suppressed by a desire to perform a part “properly” according to someone else’s performance traditions.

After all, why should we exclude from our practice any intrinsic part of our own selves when we are seeking to play truthfully authentic people on a stage?

You are an individual, but you did not invent yourself

How much should I copy a famous and successful performance of a role I am about to undertake, or should my own experiences as a person shape my approach to that character?

This question has occupied actors and theatre-makers ever since people started arguing over motivation and approach, especially in our current climate which rejects the notion of a “correct” interpretation that exists in a vacuum-sealed bag ready to be unlocked and worn by whoever seeks to tackle the role.

It is important to remember that a play, musical, or opera is not simply a structure intended to be reproduced accurately; its language, music, silences and dramatic relationships contain tensions and possibilities that performers must not merely discover intellectually, but must inhabit imaginatively, physically and, crucially in the contemporary sphere, with a truthful authenticity.

Of course, making a work your own does not mean doing whatever you please. Shakespeare remains Shakespeare, Verdi remains Verdi, and artistic freedom does not excuse an indifference to the text, score or historical context. But precision and personal freedom are not opposing forces; the more secure your understanding of the material – and yourself - the more possibilities available to you as you exploit the intersections of your own lived experiences and the material you are performing.

Two actors can approach the same line with equal intelligence and reveal entirely different dramatic truths. One might find anger beneath apparent tenderness; another might uncover fear, or an attempt to conceal it. Both interpretations are illuminating, provided they emerge from a genuine intersection of the play’s circumstances and your own feelings as an actor.

In this way, the future of performance lies not in choosing between tradition and individuality, or between the self and the character, but in taking that relationship more seriously and in making choices more deliberately.

So, by all means encourage actors to bring all of their history into the rehearsal room. Whether actor, singer, or director - bring all of your experiences, your cultural knowledge and the things you still do not understand. And then allow the words, the music, the character and the people around you to complicate what you thought you knew.

You are not Hamlet. You are not Violetta. You cannot be. But by embracing your own unique interests, the communities that nurtured you, and the lived experiences that shaped you, you may discover something about your characters that nobody else could ever have found in quite the same way.

And that, surely, is what keeps an art form alive.

🎭

Greg Eldridge

Greg Eldridge is an Australian stage director. He has worked on over 90 productions across a 15-year career throughout the USA, UK, Europe, and Australasia, and has previously served as Professor of Directing at CCM at the University of Cincinnati, Executive Director of Opera Project Colombus, and on the board of Stage Directors UK - the industry body advocating for directors of live theatre in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. A vocal advocate for improving equity and access to theatre, he has worked with Young Artist Programs from Los Angeles to London and has also been engaged as a consultant on repertoire, intimacy, and artistic administration for several major companies. He continues to work at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and writes regularly for arts publications worldwide.

Website | Instagram

Further Reading

Are the Arts Essential? — Alberta Arthurs & Michael F. DiNiscia, NYU Press

Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches — Sharrell Luckett, Routledge

Postdramatic Theatre — Hans-Thies Lehmann, Routledge

When Aixa Amarante Productions founded RepresentAsian, the question was simple: where are the Asian voices in West End musical theatre? Three years on, the answer is getting louder.

Hosted by EastEnders icon Nina Wadia OBE at the Lyric Theatre on 9th November, the concert brings together some of the most exciting Asian performers working in West End musical theatre today and gives three emerging artists their very first West End stage.

Olivier Award-winner James Hameed, celebrated for his extraordinary dual portrayal of Paddington Bear and the Young Man in Paddington The Musical at the Savoy Theatre, joins a stellar line-up including Nadim Naaman, Roshani Abbey, Soophia Foroughi, Hiba Elchikhe, Zheng Xi Yong and Mia Kobayashi. Alongside them, graduates from Guildford School of Acting and the Royal Academy of Music will perform on a professional West End stage for the first time.

All proceeds go towards a scholarship at The Boury Academy. Last year’s concert funded its first recipient. This year’s will fund the next one.

Complimentary chai from Dishoom on arrival.

🎭

Lyric Theatre, 29 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 7ES
Monday 9th November 2026, 7:30pm
Tickets from £20

Eighty years after Josephine Leslie first wrote it under a man’s name to be taken seriously, The Ghost & Mrs Muir is finally getting the stage it deserves.

Director Kenneth Hoyt has known for twenty-six years that there was a musical waiting inside the 1945 novel. Now, with writer Peter Sham and composer Kevin Purcell joining him, that musical is finally taking shape.

At its heart the story is simple. A woman decides to live on her own terms. The ghost who shares her house decides to stay. What happens between them is anything but simple.

The announcement comes as Sham and Purcell are in the final stages of bringing their musical adaptation of To Catch A Thief to London’s West End.

🎭

Book & Lyrics: Peter Sham
Music: Kevin Purcell
Directed by: Kenneth Hoyt
In development: Workshops US and London 2027; West End 2028
Website: theghostandmrsmuir.com

Fifty years ago, Stage One was founded on a simple conviction: that the producers who build British theatre deserve the same investment as the work they champion. Half a century on, that conviction has not changed. The people have.

This year’s nine bursary recipients, each receiving up to £20,000 alongside mentoring and professional development, arrive from across the industry and beyond it. The nine recipients are Aixa Amarante Naranjo, Patrick Bone, Millie Brierley, Sam Edmunds, Mina Moniri, Zoe Novello, Suher Sofi, Kate Taylor and Lucy Wood. One holds a PhD in molecular biophysics from Oxford. One is a British Somali founder whose work has been seen at the National Theatre, Soho Theatre and Bristol Old Vic.

What they share is not a background or a route in. It is a refusal to wait to be invited in.

Meet them at stageone.org.uk.

Stage One’s patrons are Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Dame Judi Dench.

🎭

There are a lot of things you’re apparently supposed to know if you want to work in theatre, and it can be hard to know just where to start. Do you need to go to drama school? Take an MA? Find an agent? Should you enter competitions? Send your play somewhere? Put it on yourself? And at what mysterious point are you actually allowed to start calling yourself a playwright?

When I interviewed Morgan Lloyd Malcolm for the first issue of Exits & Entrances, we talked about Emilia, Dracula, The Turn of the Screw and the stories she’s passionate about telling. But I also wanted to ask her something more practical: how do you actually begin?

What if you don’t have family connections in the industry, haven’t been to drama school and can’t afford an MA – what should you be doing then? Morgan’s first piece of advice was refreshingly straightforward:

“I would advise them to find their local fringe theatre.”

1. Find your people – and make something together!

Go and see what’s happening at your nearest fringe theatre, Morgan suggests. See the shows. Find out who’s making them. If there’s an opportunity to get involved, take it. Start getting to know the community of theatre-makers around you.

And then?

Make something. It doesn’t have to cost thousands of pounds. You don’t need an elaborate set, a large cast or a prestigious venue. Morgan suggests asking a local fringe theatre whether they might let you use the space on a dark night, perhaps for free, to try something out with the people you’ve met there.

“Theatre can be anything… it could be you and one other person in a room.”

Making your own work can be difficult and expensive, and Morgan doesn’t pretend otherwise. But doing so can give you some real control over your creative life, rather than leaving every opportunity in somebody else’s hands. Your love of theatre can expand into “this whole other world of community and people” – you just need to “find your people, find your local community, and see what’s going on.”

And there’s another surprising advantage to simply getting involved: you might discover that the job you thought you wanted isn’t actually the thing you love most. Perhaps you begin by wanting to write – and then discover a passion for lighting design? Perhaps you think you want to perform, only to realise you’d rather stage-manage? Perhaps it’s producing, design, the box office, or something else entirely. Getting stuck in and making work gives you a real chance to find out.

2. See theatre – including things you don’t like!

Morgan recommends seeing as much theatre as you reasonably can, while acknowledging that tickets can be expensive.

Look for affordable performances, local productions and opportunities to see work without paying West End prices - and don’t limit yourself to productions that have received glowing reviews.

“Learn from things that aren’t good, as well as things that are good.” You might discover that you disagree with the critics. Something that everybody else seems to love might leave you cold, while a production that’s been dismissed by others could contain something that genuinely excites you. Or you might watch something that doesn’t work and begin to understand why. Either way, you’re developing your own judgement about what happens onstage – and about the theatre you want to make.

3. Take advantage of free opportunities.

Morgan’s advice here is clear: “Just do all the free events.”

Local theatres often run talks, Q&As, workshops, playwriting sessions and other events where you can learn something and meet people working in the industry.

Not every theatre offers them, of course, and what’s available will depend on where you live. But it’s worth looking beyond formal training courses to find out what else is happening in your area. The most useful conversation might even take place after an event rather than during it, if you can stay on for a chat or a coffee afterwards.

If the expensive route into theatre isn’t available to you, that doesn’t mean there is no route.

4. Ask questions!

Theatre can sometimes feel like an industry in which everybody else knows the rules – and often the only way to discover how something works is to ask.

Morgan encourages emerging writers to use the internet: follow people whose work interests you, find out what they’re doing and, within reason, get in touch. She regularly receives messages from writers wondering what to do with a play they’ve finished or what their next step might be and she has no problem with that.

Not everybody will have time to reply, and, of course, nobody is obliged to provide free mentoring. But a polite, specific question can be a perfectly reasonable place to start. You don’t need to assume in advance that nobody will answer and miss out on the opportunity to connect. And you certainly don’t have to work everything out alone.

5. Don’t give up the day job too quickly.

This may not be the most idealistic advice anybody has ever given an aspiring playwright but it may well be some of the most useful!

“Don’t give up the day job so quickly.” Morgan spent years writing alongside other employment and knows just how difficult it can be to build a financially sustainable career in theatre.

These days, alongside her work as a professional playwright and screenwriter, she also teaches and runs workshops. That’s another source of income – and one she wishes she’d embraced earlier.

Interestingly, she admits that she initially felt nervous about teaching: “Who the hell do I think I am to teach people how to do this when I barely know how to do it myself?” But she’s discovered that she enjoys it, particularly running workshops and talking to students.

It’s a useful reminder that a creative career doesn’t necessarily mean doing one thing, and only one thing, for the rest of your working life. You may need several different strands of work to keep yourself going. And there’s absolutely no shame in that. Indeed, keeping yourself afloat financially with other work may be precisely what allows you to carry on writing.

6. Remember that a career isn’t a timetable.

Morgan is clear that the theatre doesn’t offer a dependable sequence of steps leading from beginner to professional success. “There’s no, if you do this, then this will happen.”

Her own career took time. She worked a full-time day job alongside writing and, when she began, gave herself ten years to see whether she could make meaningful progress. Looking back, she wishes she’d understood sooner that building a writing career is “a marathon, not a sprint.”

It’s easy to see somebody else’s success and imagine that you’re falling behind. One writer appears to have arrived almost overnight, while another is still waiting for a first production. But careers develop at different speeds. Theatre is also a business, and luck and timing matter: sometimes a particular play happens to meet a particular moment. You can’t know when yours will.

Morgan’s advice to her younger self is considerably simpler: “Stick it out, stick it out.”

7. If you’ve written a play, you’re a playwright!

Perhaps my favourite part of this conversation came when I asked Morgan when she first began thinking of herself as a professional playwright, rather than somebody still trying to become one.

She remembered being told by a director friend, when she was in her mid-twenties, that she couldn’t call herself a playwright until she’d had a professional production. For a while she believed them. But it didn’t take her long to realise that it was “absolute rubbish” – and she is very clear now that “everybody who writes a play is a playwright.”

Of course, there’s a difference between writing plays and making your entire living from writing them. Morgan knows that as well as anyone – “It’s very hard to make money from writing plays.”

It took her a long time to reach the point where writing was her full-time profession, and she worked other jobs along the way. But she called herself a playwright long before she was earning money from it - and she doesn’t believe that lack of income should stop anybody else from doing the same.

“I would never want anybody to limit themselves by not thinking they are a playwright, just because they’ve not made any money from it.”

So perhaps the answer to How do I Begin…? isn’t quite as mysterious as it first appears.

Find your local theatre. See what’s happening. Go to the free events. Ask questions. Find some people. Make something.

Continue doing whatever work you need to keep yourself going, and don’t assume that somebody else’s career timetable should be yours.

And if you’ve already written a play, or you are writing one? You don’t need to wait for somebody else – anybody else – to tell you what you are.

You’re a playwright.

Read our main interview with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Who Gets to Tell the Story?, in which she talks about Emilia, Dracula, The Turn of the Screw and putting overlooked women at the centre of familiar stories.

🎭

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is an Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her play Emilia, commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe, transferred to the West End in 2019 and won three Olivier Awards including Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. Her other stage work includes The Wasp and Belongings (both Hampstead Theatre), Dracula (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, 2025) and Mum (Theatre Royal Plymouth and Soho Theatre). For screen, her adaptation of The Wasp was released in cinemas in 2024, and her adaptation of Josephine Hart’s Damage was released on Netflix as Obsession in 2023. She co-founded Terrifying Women, a company producing new horror plays written by women.

Production details & Tour dates:

Written by: Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, based on the novella by Henry James
Directed by: Nicky Allpress
Produced by: Blackeyed Theatre and Arcola Theatre
Running time: Approximately 130 minutes including interval
Tour: October 2026 - June 2027
Tickets and Venues

Written by Emma King-Farlow, Founder and Editorial Director, Exits & Entrances | September 2026

ThickSkin’s latest production, It Walks Around the House at Night, written by Tim Foley and directed by Neil Bettles, arrived at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre on Friday 16th October 2026, following a sold-out run in Edinburgh the previous weekend. Part psychological thriller and part ghost story, the 90-minute, interval-free piece plays out on a minimalist set of old wooden floorboards, accented only by a bed and a fridge to evoke a decaying manor.

From the outset, the production is lean and atmospheric. Pete Malkin’s sound design delivers perfectly timed, jarring bangs that work hand-in-hand with Joshua Pharo’s lighting and video design to keep the room on edge. The back wall projector displays a dynamic background of the manor and its floorplan map, a visual device that proves essential in helping the audience navigate the geography of the grounds. Audiences should note significant access warnings: the staging features intense blackouts and frequent, heavy flashing lights that pose a risk for anyone with photosensitive epilepsy. Accessibility was also an immediate concern in the auditorium itself; the steps leading up to the seating bank were exceptionally steep, feeling precarious for anyone with a mobility disability.

The production relies heavily on a single actor, anchored by an athletic and energetic performance from George Naylor as Joe, featuring voice work from Paul Hilton. While the script places a heavy demand on the performer, Naylor’s physical commitment drives the story forward. He covers the stage rapidly, matching his movement pace to Joe’s deteriorating state of mind. Key set pieces mirror this descent into instability: the fridge door is slammed with increasing violence as Joe’s grip on reality loosens, and at one moment glows with ominous red light to signal the supernatural. Naylor breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience, establishing a clear rapport across the entire room. His comedy delivery comes out of the blue with sharp timing, offering genuine surprise and much-needed light relief against the building dread.

Oliver Baines delivers strong support as The Dancer, appearing only at the peak of Joe’s insanity. His abstract, circular choreography intertwines with Naylor’s physical performance, creating a striking piece of visual art that elevates the emotional peak of the play.

Even so, the narrative style presents structural challenges. Much of the plot relies on Joe recounting interactions and impersonating the other characters himself rather than having them acted out by a full cast. Underpinned by themes of queerness and desire, and a recurring cycle of the character stripping off and redressing on stage, this multi-character monologue begins to wear thin about three-quarters of the way through.

Despite those structural lulls, the production offers creative highlights. The eventual appearance of the spectre, signposted effectively through shadows and sound, is well executed, and a mid-show sequence where the main actor appears to levitate provides a genuinely striking surprise before a series of twists in the final moments. The packed, student-heavy crowd was completely invested, reacting enthusiastically to every joke and screaming at the scary crescendos. While I did not leave feeling quite as exuberant as the rest of the audience, who awarded the performance a standing ovation, there is no denying the skill and theatricality behind its best moments.

🎭

Reviewed by Jennifer Petrie

Jennifer is a print journalist and theatre reviewer based in Aberdeenshire. A graduate in Print Media with work featured in the Daily Record, she brings an honest, specific eye to her reviews, shaped by her ongoing study in scriptwriting, script reading and acting. She has a particular passion for Scottish theatre and a commitment to accessibility in performance.

Written by: Tim Foley
Directed by: Neil Bettles
Company: ThickSkin
Cast: George Naylor as Joe, Oliver Baines as The Dancer, with the voice of Paul Hilton
Venue: Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5HB
Performed: Friday 16th October 2026
Running time: 90 minutes (no interval)
Age guidance: 14+
Content warnings: Loud and sudden noises, haze, strobe, flashing lights, occasional strong language, horror imagery and jump scares
Tour: October to November 2026 — full dates and tickets

The Tabard Theatre in Chiswick has a habit of producing musicals that punch well above their weight. With a 2023 Standing Ovation Award for Best Director and a Pub Theatre of the Year title to its name, Take Note Theatre knows exactly what it is doing — and its latest production is no exception.

Who Put the Bomp? is a new musical by Keith Strachan, who co-wrote Cliff Richard’s 1988 number one Mistletoe and Wine and created the West End hits Dreamboats and Petticoats and Dancing in the Streets. The show follows a group of London teenagers who discover the music their grandparents loved and find, in the golden age of Doo Wop and early rock ’n’ roll, something that speaks directly to their own lives.

Already nominated for five Fringe Theatre Awards and described as “a night of pure distilled joy” by London Pub Theatres, it is the kind of story that sounds simple but rarely is.

🎭

Venue: Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4 1LW (Turnham Green, 1 minute’s walk)
Runs: Wednesday to Saturday until 7 November 2026
Tickets: From £20. Book online

What Would Jarvis Do?, a new play by Laura Grillo, is built on a beautifully simple premise. Two best friends, Didi and GG, have purchased a pair of trousers believed to have been worn by their hero, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. The catch: they might not actually be his trousers. Their obsessive quest to locate the real ones sets the plot in motion.

Annabel Smith and Isabel Butt play Didi and GG with considerable charm. Their bond is strong and their dynamic well-drawn, though we are never told how they met. Their mission leads them to the house of Ms Lacy, their therapist, whose unconventional methods and increasingly erratic behaviour raise questions about her own sanity. The character-driven plot follows a cycle of replays of the visit to Ms Lacy’s house, each time presenting a different version of events, a structure reminiscent of Beckett, which the production wears lightly.

The night I attended, Ms Lacy was played by understudy Maggie Daniels, who continues in the role. It is no small thing to step into a central character, often at short notice and with minimal rehearsal time. Daniels rose to the challenge, bringing a dominant authority to Ms Lacy and slowly revealing her more insidious nature as the play progressed.

Isabel Butt excels as GG, particularly in her clowning and tangents, while Annabel Smith brings a slightly more child-like vulnerability to Didi. Henry Miller evokes unease as Mister, a character whose presence raises more questions than answers.

As the play progresses it takes an increasingly surreal turn, and the audience on the night I attended seemed entirely unfazed as the plot became ever more outlandish. The set design is resourceful and the use of laminated props, necessitated by a limited budget, is handled with humour. A few Pulp songs, mainly Something Changed, punctuate the action effectively.

What Would Jarvis Do? is an assured and entertaining debut from Laura Grillo. I look forward to seeing what she produces next.

🎭

Reviewed by Gemma Frost

Gemma is a Dance Facilitator and former Communications professional with a lifelong passion for theatre. She writes with a commitment to making the work accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Production details:

Written by: Laura Grillo
Directed by: Maiya Pascouche
With: Annabel Smith, Isabel Butt, Maggie Daniels, Henry Miller, Gigi Zahir
Venue: Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW
Run: 6 to 16 October 2026
Running time: 80 minutes
Tickets: £18 to £25 (concessions available)

When I spoke to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, I’d recently had the chance to watch her chilling new adaptation of The Turn of the Screw at the Arcola Theatre. I had also seen her Dracula at the Hammersmith Lyric last year, while Emilia was the first of her plays that I’d encountered at the Vaudeville back in 2019.

Looking back across those three productions, something struck me. Each, in a rather different way, seemed concerned with women whose voices had been overlooked, diminished or simply not believed.

In Emilia, a woman largely pushed out of the historical narrative is brought firmly into the spotlight. In Dracula, Mina moves from the margins to become the central figure in a story usually dominated by its male characters. And in The Turn of the Screw, the Governess is trying to tell us what has happened to her – even if she is met with scepticism, accusation and disbelief.

I wondered whether Morgan saw a connection between them herself. She did. As she put it when we discussed Dracula, she asks, “Can I pull out a woman in this story and give her the chance to tell it?”

It’s a question that seems to run through much of Morgan’s work. But once a woman has the chance to tell her story, another question follows: who believes her?

When we talk about Emilia, Morgan remembers the excitement surrounding its original production, which arrived during the momentum of the #MeToo movement. She recalls that it felt “really needed and wanted” at the time. And the questions it raised extended beyond the play itself: who gets to appear onstage, who works behind the scenes, and who gets to write the stories? Who gets the credit for the important things that history remembers?

But then came the pandemic. Morgan feels that, although the conversations about representation continued, the financial pressures facing theatres when they reopened meant that much of the practical work towards change was pushed aside. The immediate priority became getting productions back onstage and keeping theatres alive.

She acknowledges how difficult things have been for people running venues on very little money, and she does recognise some progress, particularly in the language and awareness surrounding bullying and sexual misconduct. But she remains concerned that the mechanisms needed to protect people and bring about lasting change haven’t kept pace.

As she puts it, “the promise of progress, or the promise of some change, was coming to us, and then it all just stopped.”

Finding another way into a familiar story.

Morgan has written several adaptations in recent years – partly because familiar titles have become attractive to theatres looking for productions with an existing audience. But recognising the commercial appeal of a classic novel is only the beginning.

When she’s considering adapting something, she asks herself two questions. Does she actually enjoy the story? And what can she in particular bring to it that makes putting it onstage again worthwhile?

“It’s always that question of why is this a theatre show? Why does this need to be on a stage when we could just literally sit down and read the book?”

It’s a good question. An adaptation has to offer something beyond a shortened retelling of the original.

With Dracula, Morgan found her way into the story through Mina. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Mina is far more instrumental in defeating Dracula than many adaptations would suggest. She identifies the nature of the threat and, through her connection with Dracula, helps the others track him down. Yet she is frequently reduced to a helpless woman in need of rescue.

Morgan saw an opportunity to change the emphasis: what if Mina was the hero? What if this became her telling of the story?

It’s not about inventing a different character, but looking more closely at the one who was there all along. Suddenly, a familiar story begins to look rather different.

The woman nobody believes.

With The Turn of the Screw, Morgan was drawn to the ambiguity at the heart of Henry James’s novella. Are the ghosts real? Or is the Governess imagining them?

Rather than choosing between those familiar interpretations, she wondered whether the two could coexist. What if the ghosts were real, but the Governess still had to endure the experience of trying to convince other people that what she had witnessed was true?

For Morgan, this opened up a different way of looking at the story. She drew a parallel with the questioning women can face when reporting sexual assault: the pressure to repeat an account, prove every detail, and persuade people that what they’ve experienced really did happen.

The isolated house in James’s story interested her too: a place with its own restrictions and secrets, where disturbing things might happen without the outside world knowing or believing. It’s a much more unsettling possibility than simply asking whether a ghost exists.

What interests Morgan isn’t only the supernatural threat. It’s what happens when somebody tells the truth – or believes they’re telling the truth – and cannot persuade anyone else to hear it. That question feels particularly resonant in her work because Morgan has spent much of her career writing women who are attempting, in one way or another, to make themselves heard.

What happens when the story reaches the stage?

Of course, identifying an interesting perspective is only part of the job. Morgan writes for the theatre, and she’s interested in what theatre can do that another medium cannot.

She often sees elements of a production in her head as she’s writing. With Emilia, originally created for Shakespeare’s Globe, she spent time sitting in the theatre, thinking about its architecture and what the space might make possible.

Despite that, she doesn’t expect the finished production to reproduce exactly what she imagined. Indeed, I hadn’t anticipated hearing quite how much Morgan enjoys the moment when other people start getting their hands on her work. It’s one of her favourite parts of the process. She loves seeing what actors, directors, designers, movement specialists, lighting and sound teams, and others can bring to it. A designer may take something she imagined and make it considerably better.

And rehearsals aren’t simply a matter of putting a finished script on its feet. Morgan describes the first draft brought into a rehearsal room as the beginning of another stage of writing. If something isn’t working, that doesn’t automatically mean the script is wrong. The question becomes what everyone is trying to achieve in that moment – and whether the answer lies in the text, the staging, or somewhere else.

Sometimes she rewrites. Sometimes moving an actor or changing the staging solves the problem. Occasionally, something she’s written proves impossible within the production’s budget, and everyone has to find another way. That doesn’t particularly trouble her. She sees it as part of making theatre. It’s a refreshingly collaborative attitude, especially from a writer whose exceptional plays can demand so much theatrical invention!

Making space for women’s stories.

When I asked Morgan what she was trying to say now that she couldn’t have said at the beginning of her career, she took me back to a very practical decision: “I set out to create jobs for women.”

She had female actor friends who weren’t getting enough work, partly because there weren’t enough roles available to them. Writing plays with more opportunities for women was something she could actually do about it. That decision led her towards women’s stories and women’s voices, although her relationship with the work has changed as she’s grown older.

“I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten bolder with what I’m saying.” She laughs at the thought of where this might eventually lead: “It feels like I’m just gonna get to the point where I’m just screaming on stage.”

It’s a brilliant image - but there’s a serious point beneath the joke.

Morgan understands the commercial pressures of theatre and the temptation to make choices based on what might please producers or advance a career. She also knows that being an established playwright doesn’t mean being financially secure.

Increasingly, though, she’s conscious that there are only so many plays she will write, and only so many opportunities to have them produced. She wants to use those opportunities to say what matters to her – particularly about what it means to live in the world as a woman.

Perhaps it’s that awareness of how precious those opportunities are that has made her less willing to spend them trying to please the industry. As she succinctly puts it:

“I think I give less of a shit about that.”

And that seems a rather good place to leave a conversation with a playwright who has spent so much of her career making space for women to tell their stories – and asking whether the rest of us are prepared to listen.

_{Want to know how to get started in writing for the theatre? In our accompanying Resources article, How Do I Begin…as a Playwright?, Morgan shares her practical advice on finding your people, making your own opportunities and building a career without waiting for permission. Coming Wednesday, 21st October 2026.}

🎭

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is an Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her play Emilia, commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe, transferred to the West End in 2019 and won three Olivier Awards including Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. Her other stage work includes The Wasp and Belongings (both Hampstead Theatre), Dracula (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, 2025) and Mum (Theatre Royal Plymouth and Soho Theatre). For screen, her adaptation of The Wasp was released in cinemas in 2024, and her adaptation of Josephine Hart’s Damage was released on Netflix as Obsession in 2023. She co-founded Terrifying Women, a company producing new horror plays written by women.

Production details & Tour dates:

Written by: Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, based on the novella by Henry James
Directed by: Nicky Allpress
Produced by: Blackeyed Theatre and Arcola Theatre
Running time: Approximately 130 minutes including interval
Tour: October 2026 - June 2027
Tickets and Venues

Written by Emma King-Farlow, Founder and Editorial Director, Exits & Entrances | September 2026

What’s the Story?

There can be few more enticing places to stage The Tempest than aboard The Golden Hinde. Moored beside the Thames on London’s Bankside, the reconstructed Elizabethan galleon provides something no conventional set could quite replicate: real timbers beneath your feet, cramped cabins, steep ladders, low beams and the irresistible feeling that you have stepped aboard something built and bound for another world.

For this site-specific production, Shakespeare’s sprawling tale of shipwreck, magic, betrayal, revenge and reconciliation has been condensed into approximately 60 minutes, performed by a cast of six. Both actors and audience travel through different levels of the ship, as Prospero’s enemies find themselves at the mercy of his magic.

It’s a daring proposition. At times, though, the setting proves a little more compelling than the play unfolding within it.

What Surprised Me?

The most successful idea of the evening is also one of the simplest: we don’t stay put. The audience is shepherded up ladders, through narrow spaces and between decks, following the story around the ship. At one point we’re divided into two groups, each watching a different scene before swapping places.

The surprise, when it comes to moving a disparate group of audience members, is that it all works beautifully - no cat-herding comparisons to be made here!

There’s something immediately bonding about squeezing into a tiny space together with a fellow band of adventurers to discover what is happening there – and the smaller groups create an intimacy between actors and spectators which suits the production very well.

What Worked?

Cassandra Wilson is particularly impressive in the dual roles of Ariel and Miranda. Her two characters are delightfully physically and vocally distinct. Take away Shakespeare’s words and the costume signifiers and there would still be little doubt which character she was playing. In a production relying heavily on multi-roling, that precision matters. Charlie Woodward also brings a likeable sincerity to Ferdinand, while Lauren Grierson creates some enjoyable comic moments as Stephano.

Simple costume choices generally help us keep track of changing characters, while the Golden Hinde itself does much of the designers’ work for them. There’s little need to suggest a maritime world when we’re crouching beneath actual wooden beams.

The soundscape adds another layer, helping to create the illusion that this stationary ship might somehow have slipped its moorings.

The company as a whole also deserves considerable credit for the sheer physical challenge of performing here. Low ceilings, unforgiving beams, narrow stairways and steep ladders would complicate simply walking around the ship; incorporating them into a performance while an audience occupies the same spaces is another matter entirely.

Room for Improvement?

The impressively managed movement around the ship does come with an inevitable trade-off. A surprisingly substantial proportion of a 60-minute show is spent relocating its audience. Atmospheric as the journey is, I wondered how much more breathing room the play might have gained from fewer moves.

Reducing The Tempest to an hour is an enormous challenge. This version necessarily strips away great swathes of plot and character development. Those already familiar with Shakespeare’s play can fill in the gaps. I’m not so certain that a newcomer could.

The multi-roling occasionally adds to that confusion when the distinction between characters isn’t sufficiently strong. Sightlines can also be problematic: one exchange between Prospero and Miranda positions the pair opposite one another, leaving those seated behind Miranda looking predominantly at her back. In a space where visibility is already restricted, positioning becomes especially important.

Sound occasionally competes with rather than supports the actors. The production can’t control the considerable ambient noise of Bankside, but there were also a few moments when the show’s own soundscape made already difficult-to-hear dialogue harder still.

And the Award Goes To…

The Golden Hinde. The great achievement of this Tempest is the experience it creates around Shakespeare’s play: boarding after hours, ducking beneath beams, following Ariel into another compartment, squeezing alongside strangers and wondering where the story will take us next.

And perhaps there’s a great lesson in that for independent theatre-makers. A limited budget needn’t mean a limited theatrical imagination. Sometimes the most exciting piece of design available to you is finding somewhere extraordinary and asking: could we tell a story here?

In condensing the play so drastically, this production sacrifices a little too much clarity and character depth for it to fulfil all of its promise. But as an experiment in putting Shakespeare somewhere he isn’t usually found, it has genuine magic. I left wanting more - more space for the story to breathe, and more theatre-makers willing to look beyond conventional stages and imagine what might happen elsewhere. Just remember to mind your head!

🎭

Performed: 8th and 22nd September 2026
Adapted and directed by: Rebekah King
Venue: The Golden Hinde, St Mary Overie Dock, Bankside, London SE1 9DE
Running time: 60 minutes approximately

Note: The ship’s steep ladders, narrow passages, low ceilings and uneven floors may make the experience unsuitable for some visitors with mobility requirements. Further accessibility information is available on The Golden Hinde’s website.

Reviewed by Emma King-Farlow, Founder and Editorial Director, Exits & Entrances

Guildford Shakespeare Company are celebrating their twentieth anniversary year with an immersive murder mystery set inside a real working brewery. A Brew To A Kill takes over the entirety of Hogs Back Brewery in Tongham, Surrey this autumn.

It is the 1950s. The Gloucester family are relaunching their struggling brewery. There is a rival. There is a gangster. And just before the ribbon is cut on the refurbished Tap Room, there is a body. The audience does not watch. They move through the Hop Hanger, the Brew House, the Dutch Barn and a fourth undisclosed location, interrogating suspects, hunting for clues and deciding who to trust. Written by Eli Murton, who also wrote GSC’s previous murder mysteries, and is directed by GSC co-founder Matt Pinches. The previous productions sold out. This one looks set to do the same.

Running: 24th October to 15th November 2026 (33 performances)
Venue: Hogs Back Brewery, Manor Farm, The Street, Tongham, Farnham GU10 1DE
Instagram: @guildfordshakespeare

Book tickets here.

🎭

For Fed Zanni, touring with the musical Jersey Boys across the UK, being constantly on the road, is not a sacrifice. It is a conscious, passionate choice. There is no precise word for it. Only a deliberate understanding of what this kind of work demands. And here, he lets that weight speak for itself.

The tour is mid-run. The cast have settled into their rhythm.

“I’m noticing a flow now that wasn’t there at the beginning. I think it must be a combination of me knowing the show better and better, and the harmony that we’ve all found as a cast. It feels like there’s no break now between our life on and off stage. The show is just a continuation of the energy we share outside the theatre.”

Bonds are formed during rehearsals and strengthened on the road. But there is a life beyond the stage and its contagious energy. In musical theatre, to be a cover is perhaps the most selfless discipline, because it requires total preparation for a character you may never have the privilege of playing. You memorise every word, every note for a debut reliant on fate. But what happens if you’re on the wrong side of fate?

It came when he was in the West End production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Haymarket. He was understudy to Dominic West’s Eddie Carbone. That long-awaited moment never arrived. He did make it on though. Cover run. Not a consolation prize as 150 people attended. Fed was prepared either way. This is consistency. Discipline.

Reflecting on this particular experience, he recalls,

“For me it was a constant push and pull of ‘yes, let’s do this, I’m ready’ and ‘dear god, what am I going to do if I’m on tonight?’ You almost have to consciously jump from one to the other. Cover rehearsals stopped with a good chunk of performances still to go, so a lot of the work had to be done by ourselves, for ourselves. It pushed me to create structure when there was none. It’s good to know that you can do that, in any situation.”

The industry has its own specific guidelines and advice which appear at the outset, foolproof. Work hard. Stay focused. Be ready. Your moment will come. Fed believed in the dogma. Until he didn’t.

“I believed it fully when I started. Now not so much. Hard work and preparation certainly help, but I never fully understood how big a part luck plays in it. When it comes to external recognition, hard work beats talent, whatever that may be. But luck beats both.”

But in practice it’s not so easy.

“I wish I were able to go into every audition with a sense of ‘whatever the outcome, it was meant to be, ’ rather than ‘what do you mean I’m not right for the job?? You’re all wrong!’ But I still can’t, especially if I particularly love a show or a character. I feel I can only ‘trust the process’ retroactively, when I eventually get another job. Rejection would be much easier if I could find that trust to start with.”

This life is uncharted waters. He keeps pushing ahead. He finds a connection in Diana Nyad — the American swimmer who at 64 became the first to cross unaided from Cuba to Florida.

“When it comes to personal growth and your understanding of the world around you and yourself, hard work is still the key. It’s not about reaching your goal, it’s not even about the journey. It’s about the person you become through it. It’s just very hard to remember that.”

He has realised that mistakes on stage are not failures but lessons. If he cannot forgive himself, he cannot grow.

“I try to be as analytical as possible with regards to my performance, in terms of curiosity and accuracy. But freedom of exploration means that you can get things wrong. Maybe that’s the whole point. I’m learning how to let go of that and forgive myself more efficiently, otherwise I get stuck, especially in a show as quick as Jersey Boys, and I can’t be as open and receptive to my fellow actors. And that can be much more detrimental to the show than getting something wrong. Perhaps there’s a point where self-analysis becomes self-indulgence. I’m learning how to feel where that line is.”

He also writes. Currently he is working on two projects. For him, the page offers something the stage cannot provide alone.

“I feel like writing allows me to infuse the worlds I create with meaning, which is not something I can do as easily when it comes to the real world and also to the world of the characters I may experience as an actor. Perhaps acting gives me personal freedom up to a point, whereas the freedom I sometimes experience with writing is universal.”

For Fed, writing and acting complement one another. Complete expressions of the same creative drive.

However, touring is chosen, as he shares, and he fully embraces it. These brief interludes in different cities offer a particular kind of escapism. Occasionally they feel like home.

“I think it still feels like I’m suspended in a wonderful limbo. A couple of weeks ago we were in Llandudno and, because of the weather being cooler, the holiday vibe of the town and the fact that my beautiful digs smelled like cinnamon and spice, I felt like it was Christmas. When you love what you do as much as I do, the holiday is the work.”

He continues.

“It can still be tiring and draining. Even kids get tired and drained when they play all day. I’m trying to go back to London as much as possible in between venues, and that helps me remember that my personal life is not the same as my professional one. For me, that’s very important.”

It is a boundary he actively maintains.

Beyond the touring, beyond what this life exposes and demands, there is a far more definitive question that can only be answered personally: what would it look like if it were truly his to shape?

Fed and his wife Kat were walking past the Rose Theatre in Kingston when something on a poster stopped him.

“What struck me immediately was the fact that there was no mention of the actors appearing in it. Just the title. I thought it was quite refreshing, as nowadays it often feels like ‘who’ is more important than ‘what.’ That’s not to say seeing your name or picture on a poster is not thrilling. It definitely is. My massive ego loves that. But it was just nice to notice something different this time.”

🎭

Artist: Fed Zanni
Production: Jersey Boys — UK Tour 2026
Tickets and tour dates
Instagram
Disclosure: Maria Teresa Rivera-Schreiber previously interviewed Fed Zanni for neun Magazine in May 2026. Fed Zanni has previously worked with Shadow Road Productions Artistic Director and Founder, Emma King-Farlow.

Written by: Maria Teresa Rivera-Schreiber | Editor-in-Chief | Exits & Entrances

Interview date: August 2026

There are individuals who lose their ability to be amazed prematurely. Life steals it, covets it, slowly or immediately, and they deem it the price of maturity. But there are others who do not falter. They persist through life’s dead-ends, through fields of blossoms and carpets of thorns, and step out still capable of smiling at the sight which first made their gaze soften.

Melanie Hughes is one such spirit.

Theatre was her wonderland. A magnetic destination which she journeyed towards intuitively. She skipped school just to watch the legendary Laurence Olivier perform at the Old Vic, not out of rebellion, but for a recognition she needed to decipher. She described what she encountered there as “power.” Not the power of an impressive spectacle, but more a sensation which made her surroundings clearer to her. “An audience is a piece of clay. Unformed. It is up to you, as an actor, to tell the story of that character throughout the journey of the play.” Theatre, she would say, was “another world that helped me see my own world.” Not a distraction. A way of finally opening your eyes.

To study the art became inevitable. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama with John Jones. A man whom she described as “difficult but enormously gifted.” He imparted a metaphor to her which would outlive every role she would ever play: “People have their own music.” The cadence of their voice, the words they reach for, the silences they are unable to fulfil. Before inhabiting a role, one must first live the rhythm of that person’s life. Who they are. What they lived and saw. Scars are the buried voices of our very being. She described it as “mining.” Delving into the undergrowth to find the how, what, and most essentially, the why. She would take this method as her own. The spine to her every written word.

Ken Russell. Perhaps the most prolific, eccentric and arbitrary director of British film, she met him by chance. Some moments are never engineered. They just are. She was at a dinner party, seated next to him. He was never one for small talk. Perhaps what he perceived, looking beyond the conversation, was a woman who could unconsciously turn the tide and make a lapsing production surface. D.H. Lawrence was on his mind and they spoke at length. Later, she found herself on location for three months of Lady Chatterley, with its “Frankenstein” script, as she describes it, to salvage. Regardless of his temper, which could ignite without provocation, she was aware that she was in the presence of a genius who could and would, surprisingly, listen. A most humble quality which cannot be freely attributed but, without hesitating, in solemn reverence, she says: “possibly the most intelligent and imaginative human being I’ve ever met.”

Our experiences are moulded by some, inspired by others and sealed by few. Ken Russell was one. The first exposure came before, when she was younger, in a small role, in the presence of great names and bewitching rehearsals. Long before script edits and the novels that followed, there was the playwright Athol Fugard and his Dimetos.

It was no ordinary cast. That much is certain and for one so vulnerable it was extraordinary to have been granted that space. To witness Paul Scofield, Yvonne Bryceland and Ben Kingsley at work and under Fugard’s direction. She recalls that watching Scofield’s and Bryceland’s rehearsals was what performance would be to others. To breathe a role without a single restraint. No reservation. And to sense the earth move in utter surrender.

Audiences can be fickle. Some come wreathed in veneration while others judge without foundation, without knowledge. This is the ignorance of the spectator and the unacknowledged toils of an overworked cast. Dimetos closed after six or seven weeks. The venue was wrong. The West End was not for this calibre of production, nor for the intense reaction its subject matter could provoke. It deserved a stage where careful thought would override frivolity and an audience capable of human openness, deserving of its content, instead of drunk reviewers who would stagger out mid-performance. The devastation in Fugard’s eyes was something she would never forget. And so Dimetos failed. Not because of its formidable direction, but because of the mediocrity that artists are so often subjected to.

The significance of Dimetos, its content and the full weight of what it carries, sowed itself into her, each stitch a reminder of what silence can create if it is not broken. In her youth, she became acutely aware of the intricacies of human existence which would find their way into her future novels. W.H. Auden was her helm when reliving this moment: And each in the cell of himself. To exist while wrestling with emotions difficult to articulate and impossible to release is in itself a slow, internal death. To have lived it, felt it in all its inexplicable pain, demanded a place to let it rest. Words.

Nita, her mother-in-law, was the origin. A woman as extraordinary as the archive she left behind when she died. Countless diaries and letters which held an entire existence within their pages, a life immortalised in words. These were the ones which spoke to Melanie. Nita held onto everything, her love bound to India through marriage, deeply immersed in its cultural realm. She was withdrawn and secluded, which made her life on paper contradictory, as her life had been adventurous. She broke rules, challenged them, changed them only to break them again. A modern woman born into an erroneous era. A member of the clandestine India League, she travelled to India in 1943 and and four years later witnessed Partition, which swept through the whole of India and Pakistan. Lahore, as capital of the Punjab, was the eye of the storm, where riot and great bloodshed took place. She felt love intensely only to divorce and continue without asking for redemption. She fought for a liberated life, one which others could only take for granted when for her it was an oath.

In reading her words, there was an eclipse of revelations, jarring events which could only be softened by the forgiveness of a younger voice. The rare chance to materialise such richness came naturally because she had learned to transmit effectively, across a theatrical lifetime, voices onto the page. She recognised the grave responsibility to portray another person’s life in the literary sense, a wealth of emotional episodes which needed to be treated with care, precision and, most importantly, respect. To tell another’s story as though it were one’s own is a territory which calls for delicacy and requires caution. This is a language ingrained in her, an understanding forged through years of observation, which has given her the indisputable knowledge of what it takes to expose something so close to one’s very core to others, to allow it to be experienced in all its vulnerability. She says, as a promise: Comprendre c’est tout pardonner.

Delhi — City of Spies is an unresolved secret living within Nita’s undisclosed dimension. There was a murder. The investigation lasted twenty-four hours and was quickly buried. The report lacked substance, given the brutality it described. A life disposed of and conveniently stored in boxed files. Never mourned. Locked.

Like all novels, it has a scaffolding for context and atmosphere and this tale lends itself to being told, but beneath its historical setting, the Cold War and the political struggle between East and West, this is one about human beings, about individual faces remembered and yearned for, their lives snatched mercilessly from them and their truth reclaimed through justice.

How can you speak for one without words? How can you belong in a silence you never heard, a vision you never shared? How can you write and be authentically believed? Hetty Baynes, a gifted actress and friend, who married Ken Russell, gave her an image, a metaphor to articulate the unspoken. She said: “You have a plant, a flower. You think that’s just a flower. But if you look down, there’s a whole root system, spreading not only down but across.” The woman, brutally discarded, was not a case but a being who possessed scars, personal experiences without written record, a life undocumented, memories irretrievably lost. And yet to bring her to life on the page demanded understanding, compassion and the courage to give her resolution. Even in silence. Even for anonymous eyes.

For her, interpretation heeds compassion and writing asks for self-belief anchored in courage. The French writer, Colette, referred to the blank page as an incitement, a reproach which demanded and accused simultaneously. Writing has its own trepidations, its hounding demons and a constant jury conjured in one’s mind, answerable only to the writer’s own unforgiving expectations. “You don’t need anyone’s permission to be creative. It’s not collaborative. And that is its great strength.” The writer’s path is a solo one to walk with no companions to share the tension, shape the structure, resolve its errors and no immediate audience whose held breath is a unanimous response to a flawless portrayal. And yet there is attainable beauty in the silence of a room which witnesses the frantic scribbles of a soul in full creative flight, suspended between the realms of wonder and realisation, what she calls “heady, boundless and bliss,” a pure culmination of self-expression.

Actors. Writers. Why separate when creativity itself is innate. They dwell in each other as they enhance the intimacy that they both possess. These two arts fused in her. The page. The stage. From both she inherited life. For what is existence without what it gives. She does not need to choose because they both articulate through her cemented devotion to character and human nature, and she has thrived in both.

The looking glass is the enigmatic portal. What is it that makes her feel what to us, as spectators, we can only lean towards, dare to perceive:

“That wonderful, heart-catching moment when the lights go down before the stage lights go up. The earth moves for me. It always will.” — M.H.

🎭

Melanie Hughes is a former actress and novelist whose career has spanned stage, screen, and the page. Trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, she worked alongside some of the most distinguished names in British theatre and film before turning to fiction. Her fourth novel, Delhi — City of Spies, is published by Holand Press. On Tuesday, 20th October 2026, Melanie will be in conversation at a Tea & Talk event with Shadow Road Productions in Barnes, London.

Follow her on Instagram

Written by: Maria Teresa Rivera-Schreiber | Editor-in-Chief | Exits & Entrances

A riotous night of cheeky queer excellence, the 160th anniversary of Shoreditch Town Hall is both a celebration and an embrace of the acts it has helped to create.

Hosts Bourgeois & Maurice, cult cabaret legends, start the show with lightning-quick sly quips and lyrics. You’d worry that they’ve stolen the show already, but they’re simply setting the tone and bar for the rest of the evening.

What follows is a wild ride from the beautiful (Corali Dance Company in a wonderfully contemplative showing) to the bizarre (Fanny Bleach’s life drawing session has the entire audience screaming with laughter, delight and a bit of terror). Acts from the Cocoa Butter Club, performing hoop and pole respectively, are slick and stylish feats of incredible skill and physical control. Meanwhile Pecs Drag Kings treat us to three performances that pair comedy with vulnerability in perfect measures.

Riss Obolensky and Fabio Lezonli both bring out the King in Drag King, skewering toxic archetypes with hilarious physical comedy and visual gags. Operotica and Lavinia Co-op bring delicious cheekiness to their songs, and Midgitte Bardot and Travis Alabanza effortlessly keep the audience in stitches with sly faux-exasperation. Emma Frankland appeals to the queer awakening in us all with her joyful tribute to that k.d. lang photoshoot, and Frankie Thompson gives us a juicy taste of their acclaimed show, Horrible Things.

Live captioning is always a boon to any performance, provided well here by Nicola Dutton, and a word has to be said for the space itself. The grandeur of the concert hall is still looking similar to how it did a hundred years ago. Helen Taylor and Sylvia Pankhurst held speeches and demonstrations here, and, we’re breathlessly told by Bourgeois & Maurice after their billionth new outfit of the evening, Meryl Streep actually stood on some actual stairs that are actually here.

There was something truly special about being at an evening entirely made up of work that challenges the norm and finds community together. 16 Acts was the perfect, fabulously irreverent and loving birthday party to a space that has become vital to unique performance.

🎭

Reviewed by Alice Wilson

Alice (they/them) is a set, prop and puppet maker who moonlights as a performer and writer. Their work encompasses political comedy, magical realism and children’s theatre, with a deep passion for folklore, history and queer stories. They also just really love the Muppets and make weird little creatures. Their work can be found at andyaliceart.com, on Instagram and more writing at zoneoneclub.com

Production Details:

Presented by: Shoreditch Town Hall
Hosted by: Bourgeois & Maurice
Venue: Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT
Performed: Friday 9 October 2026
Running time: 180 minutes including two intervals
Age guidance: 18+

The Phoenix Arts Club, in London’s West End, is not a theatre. There is no set, no costume, no role waiting in the wings. This is where George Crawford stood up for his first mic night. He only agreed to it because someone asked him.

“I thought it was going to be mostly family and friends coming to support me: my mum, my stepdad and a couple of people from Legally Blonde. Everyone else were people who had paid to come and see me, and it sold out. It was really special.”

Currently he is playing the part of Emmett Forrest in Legally Blonde, on its UK and Ireland tour. The musical is inspired by the 2001 film: Elle Woods, a fashion-loving sorority girl, follows her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School and proves everyone wrong. Emmett is the kind, hard-working law student who believes in her before anyone else does.

George trained at ArtsEd in London. He has performed in Waitress and in The Great Gatsby at the London Coliseum. But it was Newsies that gave him the role he loves most: Jack Kelly, the lead, which he played as the alternate. Jack’s song, ‘Santa Fe,’ has become an integral part of who he is as a performer.

A mic night is different from a show. People go to a production for the whole experience.

“When you’re on stage, you’re a character. People aren’t expecting George. They’re expecting Emmett. I think people love mic nights because they let you peep behind the curtain and see who a performer really is, rather than a character.”

Songs are associated with roles. Yet they do exist as singular musical expressions.

“If the character doesn’t know they’re singing, there shouldn’t be any awareness of singing. You’re speaking, and the words aren’t enough anymore. You can’t get the emotion out, so it leads into a song. And when you can’t sing anymore, it leads into dance. I think it’s really important to always lead with the acting. Otherwise it becomes a self-indulgent kind of performance, instead of one that’s for the audience.”

The Phoenix did not ask for his stage persona. It asked for the man.

“Personally, I’d find it a bit strange if I went to a gig and someone gave a full-out performance of songs from shows they’d been in. So you have to find a level playing field. I’m George, with a hint of the character.”

There was one exception.

“There was only one song where I fell into a kind of performance, and that’s ‘Santa Fe,’ every time I sing it. It was a dream role, and I got to play it on Thursdays. Everything just goes quiet. I love it.”

He sang a duet with his wife, Aimée Fisher, who is a performer herself.

“We sang ‘Lucky,’ by Jason Mraz. It’s never going to be in a show, and it will probably never be sung again, but people got to hear something they wouldn’t have heard otherwise. What was nice about a night like that was being able to be myself, be a bit silly and sing some songs, with people there for me, not for a show I’m in.”

His mum was in the audience that night. Though long before, she had been on stage herself.

“My family were heavily involved in amateur dramatics. It was a real family affair. My mum and dad would play the romantic leads, my dad’s mum, my nana, would choreograph, and my mum’s dad would direct. So I was born into it, and it was completely normal to me. It’s all I’ve ever known. I was so surrounded by art, music and performance that it felt natural for it to become my career. And it’s very nice to have such a supportive circle, people who said: ‘If this is what you want to do, we absolutely support you.’”

The family moved from Manchester to Yorkshire when he was six. At school, he put it to one side.

“My high school specialised in sport, science and maths. GCSE Drama sometimes felt like a babysitting lesson, where some people saw it as the one hour they could just mess around. So I put performing on the back shelf for a while.”

College changed that.

“I went to a performing arts college and saw so many people who really wanted to be there. You were never laughed at for having an idea or for wanting to be creative. It completely re-sparked my love for theatre.”

Three years at ArtsEd, in London, sealed it.

But training is one thing; the real lessons live outside it.

“Every step of my training only allows you to get so far. It doesn’t have all the answers. A lot of those teachers have techniques and ideas that worked in the industry when they were at their peak. When you actually get into the industry, you realise how much more learning you have to do.”

What he has gathered since is reflected in his work.

“The first thing I do is read the script like a book, without any association to my part, so I can see how it flows as a piece of writing. After that, I read it from my character’s perspective, and I look at each scene I’m in and ask: what is he trying to achieve here?”

It’s not just about your role. It’s about how you fit into the narrative, and that demands complete immersion.

“If I just got a script and thought: where are my lines? Okay, here they are, that’s all I have to do, fine. Then I wouldn’t get a full understanding of the piece as a whole.”

However, to know from the start how events will unfold is a risk in itself.

“In my first scene, I don’t know what’s going to happen by the bows. So I try to be as present as I can in each scene, instead of thinking: well, I already know I’m going to end up in a good relationship with Elle. That’s not being truthful.”

True discoveries thrive in rehearsal rooms.

“My favourite part is getting on my feet and starting to play. That’s when I’m at my most creative and the best ideas happen. There’s only so much you can do at home.”

His current director in Legally Blonde, Nikolai Foster, is known for giving his cast that freedom.

“It felt like we had six weeks of rehearsals because of the space he gave us. You’d say: ‘I was thinking I might try that.’ And he’d say: ‘Just try it and see what happens. If it lands, we keep it. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter.’ That is the best kind of room you can ever be in. It’s how I felt when I was younger, aspiring to be in this industry: the uninhibited, creative, inquisitive child comes out to play, and the director says: ‘Keep that.’”

Rushing has no place before each and every performance. His first part taught him this. He was Ogie, a comic supporting role in Waitress, a musical set in a small-town American diner.

“He’s not on stage for the first 45 minutes. At the first performance of Waitress, the show had just started and I was already changed, mic on, costume on, sitting there ready to go. By the time I got on, my adrenaline was so high I felt like: what’s going on?”

This needed to change. And then came advice from Sir Trevor Nunn, co-director of Les Misérables, passed on to him by Matt Cole, his director on Newsies.

“Trevor Nunn said that if you just say your first line, the one you say as you walk on stage, and leave it at that, everything else will naturally follow. So I go to the side of the stage, get my things ready, say my first line, and that’s it. If I start overthinking what comes next, I’m not present. I’m already thinking about something that’s going to happen an hour from now.”

In spite of all that dedication, he approaches the work lightly. When he is asked what he brings to the stage, he laughs.

“A bit of cheekiness. And reminding ourselves, even while we’re doing a show, that it’s just a show. It doesn’t matter. It’s really fun. We get to engage, communicate, work opposite someone and be creative. And when things get tricky or go wrong on stage, having a glint in your eye that says: ‘Don’t worry, it really doesn’t matter.’”

It is the ability to take it all in your stride that keeps the energy alive.

“When you’re doing the same show day in, day out, you have to find ways to keep it engaging for the audience, but also for yourselves, without the audience ever knowing anything is different. Someone’s wig is on a bit funny, or something’s happened with their shoe. I love it when something goes wrong. And now we’ve got dogs on stage (in Legally Blonde), and they’re so unpredictable.”

But there is a fine line between keeping it light and turning it into a joke, which mustn’t be crossed.

“There’s nothing worse than watching a show where you can see people messing around. There is an art to being a bit cheeky and having a laugh without the audience knowing. And if you can’t do it, you shouldn’t do it.”

The balance is crucial.

“While we still have fun and have a laugh, it’s really important that we tell stories with conviction and truth. Legally Blonde is a really good example. It’s all fun, high energy, very pink, very loud. Then there’s one moment where everything comes down. It’s very truthful, and very difficult to watch. A man in the show takes advantage of Elle, and because she doesn’t act on it, he says: ‘Well, I’m going to fire you then.’ I think that’s very relatable, in the performing industry and the arts, but also in many workplaces around the world.”

Many plays and musicals abound in these complex and delicate themes.

“In Waitress, the lead character is in an abusive relationship, more verbal and gaslighting than physical. People have shared their own experiences with us: ‘I came to watch the show, and it made me realise what kind of relationship I was in. Something I probably knew, but was too scared to let myself think about. It allowed me to get out of that relationship, and I’m now in a very happy, stable place.’ That is why a lot of us perform. It’s our job, but for so many people it’s so much more than that.”

For the audience, it’s a reckoning with their own lives.

“To be able to say we played a small part in helping someone, potentially changing a life, is very special. But I don’t want to make a statement that we’re changing lives because we’re doing a show.”

No show is ever made alone. Watching others is an education in itself. In doing so, he has discovered what kind of cast member he wishes to be.

“Honestly, I think you learn the most from the people who get it wrong. The ones who are a bit rude, inappropriate or impolite. You think: that’s everything I don’t want to be as a performer. I find those lessons more useful.”

Others showed him how it should be done. On the Waitress tour, it was his co-star David Hunter, now starring in Beetlejuice in the West End.

“Something happened on stage; it was nearly a bad accident. He brought everyone into the green room together and said: ‘Tonight’s show isn’t going to go ahead until the right steps have been put in place to make sure everyone feels safe.’ He wasn’t giving attitude. He wasn’t being rude. He simply said it was really important that, as a company, everyone felt safe. I remember taking a mental picture and putting it in my back pocket. If there’s ever a situation where someone needs to step up, that’s exactly how you do it.”

Top billing brings its own unspoken duty.

“When you have the opportunity to be the leading man or the leading lady, you’re also the leading member of a company, making sure people feel there’s a voice that can speak for everyone. That’s not written in any contract.”

Everyone deserves respect. Whatever your job.

“It doesn’t matter what size your role is. Crew, ensemble, musical director: we’re all human beings, here putting on a show. It’s so important to lead from kindness, whether you’re the lead, a dresser or a cleaner.”

Even the biggest names on the poster are ordinary people deep down. In The Great Gatsby, Aimée, his wife, found herself working alongside one of the West End’s best-loved leading ladies.

“Aimée had looked up to Rachel Tucker for most of her performing life. And then we became best mates with Rachel. Because she’s not Rachel Tucker. She’s just Rachel. People say: ‘Oh my god, you’re in a show with that person! What are they like?’ And they’re fine. They’re normal.”

But having a name doesn’t guarantee stardom. An actor’s life doesn’t come with perks. The day before Legally Blonde was due to start at the Edinburgh Playhouse, George was on the move.

“I was lugging my suitcase from Chiswick on the Tube to King’s Cross, onto the train to Edinburgh, then up a hill and four flights of stairs to my digs. That’s the reality of being a performer sometimes. I think people imagine there’s a lot more glamour to what we do.”

The spotlight is ephemeral.

“I’m actually not that stagey. I love what I do. I love doing theatre, and I love watching and supporting my friends. But I don’t come home and put on a new musical soundtrack. I love being able to leave work at work, come home and talk about absolutely anything other than theatre. It’s really important not to let it become your whole life.”

George and Aimée married recently, and he has thought long and hard about what matters. He even said it out loud, in front of family and friends, at a very important moment.

“Weirdly, I actually spoke about this in my wedding speech. Being a performer isn’t my purpose. It’s something I really enjoy and I’m okay at, but I want to be a really good husband and a really good dad. That is my thing.”

🎭

George Crawford

George Crawford was born in Manchester and grew up in Yorkshire. He trained at ArtsEd in London, graduating in 2019 with a BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre.

He made his professional debut in the original UK and Ireland tour of The Book of Mormon, understudying both Elder Price and Elder Cunningham. He went on to play Ogie in the original UK and Ireland tour of Waitress, and joined the original London cast of Newsies at Troubadour Wembley Park, playing Morris Delancey and alternate Jack Kelly. At the London Coliseum, he played Mr McKee in the original London cast of The Great Gatsby, covering the roles of Nick and Gatsby.

He is currently playing Emmett Forrest in Legally Blonde The Musical on its UK and Ireland tour, directed by Nikolai Foster and produced by Curve and ROYO.

Tickets and tour dates:

Instagram

Written by: Maria Teresa Rivera-Schreiber | Editor-in-Chief | Exits & Entrances

Interview date: September 2026

Why we need to celebrate fringe theatre

Fringe theatre has always been one of the most exciting parts of our theatrical landscape. It is where new ideas are tested, emerging artists find their voices, established creatives take risks and audiences discover work they might never otherwise encounter.

Yet independent theatre can struggle to receive the recognition it deserves. Productions are often made with limited budgets, small teams and enormous personal commitment. A show might run for only a few performances in a small venue before disappearing. An exceptional performance, beautifully written play or innovative piece of design may be seen by a relatively small audience and then be gone.

That does not make the work any less valuable.

Having spent years working in theatre as a producer and through LAMBCO Productions, I have seen the extraordinary talent that exists throughout the fringe, as well as how difficult it can be for artists and productions to gain visibility.

This experience led me to establish the Fringe Theatre Awards (FTA) in April 2025. My aim was to create a platform celebrating excellence, giving outstanding work greater visibility and connecting artists, producers, venues and audiences across the independent theatre community.

Recognition should not depend on the size of your budget

Access to recognition should not be determined by how much money a production has available for marketing, publicity or awards submissions. Independent theatre operates under very different financial circumstances from larger commercial productions, and some of its most inventive work emerges from creatives challenging convention and finding imaginative solutions to practical limitations.

The FTA offers free show listings, free venue information and an interactive venue map. There are no membership fees, helping theatre-makers make their work discoverable without facing another financial barrier.

Our awards recognise achievement across writing, performance, direction, design, music, choreography and other production disciplines. Categories span cabaret, immersive theatre, puppetry, circus, dance, opera, family theatre and solo performance. We want to acknowledge excellence wherever it occurs, whether in a small fringe venue, at a festival or in an unconventional performance space.

Independent assessment matters

An awards scheme is only as credible as the process behind it.

The FTA works with accredited reviewer-assessors who attend productions and independently nominate work they believe deserves recognition. Our assessors remain anonymous, allowing them to approach productions as reviewers rather than as public representatives of the awards.

Nominations are based on what assessors see and experience. Producers and artists cannot simply nominate themselves to secure a place on the shortlist. Recognition should be earned through the work itself.

We also look beyond a production as a whole. Exceptional writing, a remarkable performance, inventive lighting design or an outstanding directorial vision deserve recognition alongside a show’s overall success.

Our People’s Vote gives audiences an opportunity to celebrate the work they love. Alongside our festival awards and EFFTA awards for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it allows us to recognise different kinds of achievement and engagement across the sector. Independent assessment provides professional scrutiny, while audience participation celebrates the relationship between artists and the people who see their work.

Building a platform, not just presenting awards

From the beginning, I wanted the FTA to offer more than an annual ceremony. Awards can provide a wonderful moment of celebration, but their value should not end when trophies or medallions are presented. Recognition can help productions reach new audiences, give artists meaningful achievements to include in their professional biographies and bring attention to work that might otherwise be overlooked.

Our website is a practical resource for the theatre community. Free listings help audiences discover productions and festivals, while venue information and our interactive map make it easier to explore independent theatre. We also want to strengthen connections between artists, venues, producers, reviewers and audiences.

This is particularly important for emerging artists, whose careers develop through training, opportunities, collaborations and experimentation. Acknowledging their work can build momentum and encourage them to continue developing their craft. The FTA cannot solve every structural problem facing independent theatre, but it can help create an environment in which good work is more readily discovered and celebrated.

What we have learned so far

Our inaugural season demonstrated the appetite for a platform that takes fringe theatre seriously. We nominated 256 productions, recorded 980 nominations across 123 venues, and presented 105 EFFTA awards for the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, alongside Special Awards recognising exceptional contributions.

These figures represent more than activity on a website. They reflect the breadth of work being created and the people making it happen.

Theatre is a collaborative art. A brilliant actor may be supported by an inventive director, a compelling writer, a skilled lighting designer and a team working largely out of sight. Recognising these contributions tells a fuller story of how a production comes together.

Excellence does not always arrive with a large publicity campaign or an established name attached to it. Sometimes it is found in a small venue, a short run or the work of an artist taking their first significant professional steps. That is why independent theatre needs recognition that looks beyond visibility alone.

We continue to develop the FTA, learning from the productions we encounter and the needs of the sector, while preserving our commitment to accessibility, independent assessment and artistic achievement.

The future belongs to the whole theatre community

Fringe theatre is essential to the health of the wider industry. It gives new writing a chance to be heard, allows performers and creatives to experiment, creates opportunities for emerging producers and enables audiences to encounter work that might never fit a conventional commercial model. It also gives established artists the chance to rediscover the spirit of experimentation that first drew them to theatre.

Success should not be measured solely by whether a production transfers to the West End. Some work is valuable because it takes risks; some because it speaks directly to a particular community; and some because it gives an artist the opportunity to do something they have never done before.

I want the Fringe Theatre Awards to help make that talent easier to find. Theatre-makers should feel their work matters, venues should feel their contribution is recognised, and audiences should be encouraged to discover productions they might otherwise miss.

Ultimately, the FTA celebrates the people who make theatre happen. Artistic ambition is not measured by the size of a venue, the price of a ticket or the scale of a marketing budget.

Fringe theatre deserves to be celebrated in its own right, not simply as a stepping stone to something else.

If the Fringe Theatre Awards can help more people discover exceptional work, give artists recognition for their achievements and strengthen the connections that make our theatre community thrive, then we will have achieved something worthwhile.

🎭

Richard Lambert is a theatre producer, lighting designer and arts entrepreneur, and CEO of Fringe Theatre Awards Ltd. He is also Director of LAMBCO Productions Ltd and has created and developed independent theatre venues, championing ambitious, thought-provoking work and emerging artists.

Through the Fringe Theatre Awards, he is committed to celebrating excellence, raising the profile of independent theatre and recognising the talent that makes the fringe scene so vibrant.

To discover productions, explore venue listings and stay up to date with nominations and news, visit fringetheatreawards.co.uk