Red Pitch at The Bush Theatre
September 2023
Photo by Helen Murray
067 – Red Pitch by Tyrell Williams
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Tyrell William’s debut play, Red Pitch, is set on an inner-city football pitch in South London, which is surrounded by scaffolding recently erected to build new blocks of flats. The pitch and the neighbourhood are on the brink of change from urban regeneration, and the three teenage boys who we meet on this pitch are facing displacement from their homes as well as their own life-defining choices. Red Pitch is a coming-of-age story, with young men fighting to believe in their dreams, and to find a way up, and perhaps out, of their changing community. It is a universal story of hope and ambition, friendship and family, set in a community that has traditionally seldom been portrayed or celebrated in our theatres.
I’m very excited to have the opportunity to talk in this episode with the author of Red Pitch, Tyrell Williams, and the director of the award-winning production of the play currently on stage at the Bush Theatre in West London, Daniel Bailey. The play had a wonderful reception when it was first performed at the Bush in February 2022, when it won the Off West End Award for Best New Play, as well as several awards for Tyrell, including the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards for Most Promising Playwright, as well as the Stage magazine Debut Award for Best Writer. The current revival runs until 30th September 2023.
Tyrell Williams
Tyrell Williams is the award-winning author of Red Pitch, which premiered at the Bush Theatre in February 2022. The play won the Off West End Award for Best New Play, as well as the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards for Most Promising Playwright, as well as the Stage magazine Debut Award for Best Writer.
Tyrell previously co-created, co-wrote and directed the viral web-series #HoodDocumentary, which has had over 4 million YouTube views, and went on to be commissioned for BBC Three. Tyrell is currently on attachment to the National Theatre Studio, and a screen adaptation of Red Pitch is in the works, as well as other TV projects.
Recommended Play
Tyrell recommended Misty by Arinzé Kene.
Daniel Bailey
Daniel Bailey is a director, dramaturg and writer, is currently the Associate Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre, where he directed Tyrell William’s play Red Pitch. Daniel has previously been the Associate Director at Birmingham Rep Theatre, Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio, Associate Artist at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre.
Recommended Play
Daniel recommended A Season in the Congo by Aimé Cesairé.
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071 – Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage
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Lynn Nottage’s play Clyde’s is set in a truck-stop diner on the outskirts of Reading, Pennsylvania. This is no ordinary diner though, because the short-order cooks that make the sandwiches that the diner is famous for are all ex-cons. The eponymous proprietor, Clyde, has not offered these characters a second chance out of the softness of her heart, but they discover some unexpected hope for their futures in their communal sufferings and support.
Lynn Nottage has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama twice, and as we record this episode the European premiere of Clyde’s is on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in London. I am delighted to be joined by the show’s director Lynette Linton, who also directed Nottage’s last play Sweat at the same theatre in 2018.
070 – King Lear, by William Shakespeare
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The poet Percy Shelley called King Lear “the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world”. It is a prodigious play in every sense. There are ten major roles, it has multiple significant plot lines, an elemental stormy setting, intense domestic conflict, and acts of war and violence which roll on with a propulsive tragic energy and conjure a challenging philosophical vision.
As we record this episode a new production directed by and starring Sir Kenneth Branagh arrives in London’s West End.
I am very pleased to be joined in this episode by Paul Prescott, who is an academic, writer and theatre practitioner specialising in Shakespearean drama.
069 – A View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller
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Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge tells the tragic story of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman who works on the docks under Brooklyn Bridge. Eddie lives with his wife Beatrice and 17-year old niece, Catherine, whom they have cared for since she was a child. But Catherine is no longer a child, and her natural desire to pursue her own life will tragically rupture the lives of this family and the close-knit immigrant community of Red Hook.
As we record this episode a new production of A View from the Bridge is touring the UK, and I’m delighted to talk with its director, Holly Race Roughan, about this powerful play.
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