Adam James is one of the most recognised actors working in Britain today, with an extensive list of credits on both stage and screen. His stage appearances include Consent at the National Theatre, Bull at the Young Vic, and King Charles III at the Almeida, the West End, and New York…
Our Guests
Alan Brodie
Alan Brodie heads his eponymous theatrical agency Alan Brodie Representation Ltd, which works with both contemporary playwrights, and with trusts and estates of some of the greatest names in 20th century drama, including the Noël Coward Estate.
Andy Miller
Andy Miller is a reader, editor and author of books, most recently The Year of Reading Dangerously, as well as the co-host of the award-winning literary podcast “Backlisted”.
Arifa Akbar
Arifa Akbar is the Chief Theatre Critic for the Guardian newspaper.
Beth Steel
Beth Steel is the author of ‘Till the Stars Come Down’ and other plays.
Beth Wynstra
Beth Wynstra is the author of Vows, Veils and Masks: The Performance of Marriage in the Plays of Eugene O’Neill.
Carrie Cracknell
Carrie Cracknell is a theatre director, whose credits include Arcadia (Old Vic and West End); Medea, The Deep Blue Sea, The Grapes of Wrath, and Julie at the National Theatre., and many more.
Christopher Hampton
Sir Christopher Hampton is a renowned playwright and screenwriter whose plays have so far garnered four Tony Awards, three Oliviers, and five Evening Standard awards.
Christopher Haydon
Chrstopher Haydon is the Artistic Director at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, where inn October 2022 he directed the first major London production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle for twenty-five years.
Clare Lizzimore
Clare Lizzimore is an acclaimed director and playwright. She directed the 25th anniversary production of Patrick Marber’s Closer at the Lyric Hammersmith in the summer of 2022.
Conor McPherson
Conor McPherson is from Dublin and began writing plays as a member of the University of Dublin drama society. His early plays include St Nicholas, Shining City, The Seafarer, and The Weir, which opened at the Royal Court before transferring to the West End of London and Broadway, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Play for 1999.
Cordelia Lynn
Cordelia Lynn’s most recent plays include Sea Creatures, Love and Other Acts of Violence, and One for Sorrow.
Dan Rebellato
Dan Rebellato is a playwright, journalist and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Daniel Bailey
Daniel Bailey is a director, dramaturg and writer, is the Associate Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre, where he directed Tyrell William’s play Red Pitch.
Daniel Raggett
Daniel Raggett is an acclaimed director. His hilarious production of Dario Fo’s classic farce Accidental Death of an Anarchist was a smash hit in Sheffield and London.
David Adjmi
David Adjmi is the author of the Tony-award-winning play, ‘Stereophonic’.
David Eldridge
David Eldridge is widely regarded as one of the most important playwrighting voices at work today. His play Beginning premiered at the National Theatre in October 2017, before transferring to the West End.
David Ian Rabey
David Ian Rabey is Emeritus Professor of Theatre and Theatre Practice at Aberystwyth University, and the author of The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth.
Diyan Zora
Diyan Zora is a director and playwright.
Dominic Cooke
Dominic Cooke is an acclaimed director of stage and screen, including most recently the West End production of C.P. Taylor’s Good with David Tennant.
Douglas Rintoul
Douglas Rintoul is the Chief Executive of the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. He was the Artistic Director of the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch from 2015 to 2022.
Duncan Macmillan
Duncan Macmillan’s plays include Lungs, 1984, Every Brilliant Thing and People, Places & Things.
Eamonn Jordan
Eamonn Jordan is Professor in Drama Studies at the School of English, Drama and Film, at University College Dublin.
Edith Hall
Edith Hall is Professor in the department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University.
Elaine Aston
Elaine Aston is a Professor at the Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University, acclaimed for her work on theatre research and feminism.
Emma Parker
Dr Emma Parker is Associate Professor of English at the University of Leicester, and a Joe Orton enthusiast and expert.
Emma Smith
Professor Emma Smith teaches early modern drama at Hertford College, Oxford, with a special focus on Shakespeare. She has written widely on both early modern drama and Shakespeare.
Farah Karim-Cooper
Farah Karim-Cooper is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, King’s College London and Director of Education & Research at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
George Turvey
George Turvey trained as an actor and has appeared on stage and screen in many diverse roles. He co-founded Papatango in 2007 and became the sole Artistic Director in January 2013.
Graham Saunders
Graham Saunders is the Allardyce Nicoll Professor of Drama at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Love me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes, About Kane: the Playwright and the Work, and the editor of Sarah Kane in Context.
Greg Hersov
Greg Hersov was the Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 1987 to 2014, where he directed more than 50 productions, including plays by Wilde, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Miller, T Williams, Pinter, Mamet, Baldwin, Cartwright, and many more.
Henry Filloux-Bennett
Henry Filloux-Bennett is a writer and Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield.
Hester Lees-Jeffries
Dr Hester Lees-Jeffries is a Director of Studies in English at Cambridge University, where she specialises in Shakespeare and early modern drama.
Holly Race Roughan
Holly Race Roughan is a director at Headlong Theatre Company, and directed a new production of ‘A View from the Bridge’ that she talked with us about in episode 69.
Howard Sherman
Howard Sherman is the author of ‘Another Day’s Begun – Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century’.
Ivan Wise
Ivan Wise is the editor of The Shavian at the Shaw Society, and he has joined us in two episodes to share his knowledge of Shaw.
James Dacre
James Dacre has been the Artistic Director of the Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton since 2013. The Royal & Derngate is one of our outstanding regional theatres, commissioning and co-producing a consistently successful steam of new work that regularly tours and reaches the West End. Recent productions include TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, Alone in Berlin, The Worst Witch, Touching the Void, and The Lovely Bones.
James Graham
The playwright James Graham is one of our most prolific and popular dramatists, renowned for both his stage plays and TV dramatizations. He has carved out a niche in bringing contemporary political history to life, turning sometimes arcane events into lucid and compelling drama.
Jeremy Herrin
Jeremy Herrin directed the West End production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (episode 80) and People, Places & Things in 2015 and 2024 (episode 82).
Joe Dowling
Joe Dowling is an acclaimed director who was the youngest Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to North America and leading the prestigious Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis for nearly twenty years.
Joe Penhall
Joe Penhall is acclaimed as both a playwright and screen writer, having written a dozen plays, including Some Voices, Pale Horse, Dumb Show and Birthday, all for the Royal Court Theatre, as well as more recently Mood Music at the Old Vic and the musical Sunny Afternoon, which he wrote with Ray Davies of the Kinks and which won four Olivier Awards in 2015.
John Mitchinson
John Mitchinson is a writer and publisher, co-founder of Unbound, the crowdfunding publishing platform for books, and co-host of the award-winning books podcast, Backlisted.
John Tiffany
John Tiffany is the winner of two Tony Awards, an Olivier, a Drama Desk and an Obie award as a director, and his productions have earned countless other award nominations and wins. His recent work includes Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in both London and New York….
Jonny Donahoe
Jonny Donahoe is a writer, comedian and performer. He is the co-creator of the brilliant play, ‘Every Brilliant Thing’, with Duncan Macmillan.
Josie Rourke
Josie Rourke is an acclaimed theatre and screen director. She is the former Artistic Director of both the Bush and the Donmar theatres in London. Most recently she directed ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at the National Theatre, and is our guest in episode 63 about the play.
Justin Audibert
Justin Audibert is the Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre.
Justin Greene
Justin Greene is a director, writer and producer for theatre, television and radio. His writing credits include the musical Spend Spend Spend, which he wrote the book and lyrics for with composer Steve Brown, and also directed. The show won the Evening Standard, Critics Circle and Barclays Theatre awards for Best Musical and was nominated for an Olivier in the same category.
Karen Leeder
Karen Leeder is Professor of Modern German at New College Oxford. She joins us on The Play Podcast to talk about Frank Wedekind’s controversial play Spring Awakening.
Kirsten Shepherd
Kirsten Shepherd-Barr is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University.
Lindsay Posner
Lindsay Posner has directed Michael Frayn’s Noises Off twice, and he joins us to share his unique insights on this comic masterpiece.
Lisa Dwan
Lisa Dwan is an award-winning actress, director, writer and scholar. She is most well known internationally for her performances and adaptations of Samuel Beckett’s work, including multiple performances of Beckett’s Not I over the past 15 years at London’s Battersea Arts Centre , the Southbank Centre, and at the International Beckett Festival in 2012.
Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey’s credits as a director range from Shakespeare to modern classics, including a special affinity with the plays of Agatha Christie.
Lucy Kirkwood
Lucy Kirkwood is a playwirght and screenwriter. Her plays include Chimerica, The Children, Mosquitoes and The Welkin.
Lynette Linton
Lynette Linton is the Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre in London.
Margaret Perry
Margaret Perry’s latest play Paradise Now!’ received rave reviews during its run at the Bush Theatre in December 2022. Her previous plays include Porcelain and Collapsible.
Maria Delgado
Professor Maria Delgado is the author of Federico Garcia Lorca (Routledge, 2008).
Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson is a journalist, broadcaster, author and playwright.
Mark Rosenblatt
Mark Rosenblatt is the author of the award-winning play, Giant, as well as a director and screenwriter.
Mark Taylor-Batty
Mark Taylor-Batty is a senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at Leeds University. His key areas of interest include Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and twentieth-century French and British theatre.
Matt Beresford
Matt Beresford is a director, speaker, trainer and leadership coach. He spent fifteen years working in business, before re-training as a Theatre Director at RADA, followed by an MA at St. Mary’s, University of London.
Matthew Dunster
Matthew Dunster is a director, actor and writer. He has directed more than 50 plays in the past 15 years.
Matthew McFrederick
Matthew McFrederick is a theatre practitioner, historian and academic, and Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Reading, where he completed his PhD investigating the production histories of Samuel Beckett’s drama in London.
Max Webster
Max Webster is an acclaimed director.
Michael Billington
Michael Billington was the Guardian theatre critic from 1971 to 2019, and is the author of The 101 Greatest Plays – From Antiquity to the Present.
Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn is a bestselling and award-winning novelist, journalist, screen writer and playwright…
Monica Dolan
Monica Dolan is an Olivier and Bafta award-winning actor, whose work spans television, film and stage. She won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in the 2019 West End production of All About Eve, a Bafta Award for her unforgettable performance as Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult on ITV in 2011, and a Bafta nomination for Best Supporting Actress in A Very English Scandal alongside Hugh Grant.
Nadia Fall
Nadia Fall is the Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Nadine Holdsworth
Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. Her book English Theatre and Social Abjection: A Divided Nation published in 2020 examines how contemporary drama presents groups and issues that divide our society.
Neil Anthony Docking
Neil Anthony Docking is as a writer whose work appeared in press, television, radio and film, before he wrote his first play, the funny and devastatingly moving The Revlon Girl.
Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Rowe has appeared on many of London’s stages including in two productions of Mike Bartlett plays at the Almeida, Albion and King Charles III, which also transferred to the West End.
Nick Hern
Nick is the founder of Nick Hern Books, the play publishers who have led the UK in championing the best new playwrights for the past 30 years.
Nigel Slater
Nigel Slater OBE is the presenter of nine BBC television series, and the author of a collection of bestselling books including the classics Appetite two-volumes of Tender, as well as The Kitchen Diaries trilogy.
Nina Raine
Nina Raine is both a playwright and a director. Her own plays include Rabbit, Tribes, Consent, Stories and Bach & Sons.
Oliver Kaderbhai
Oliver Kaderbhai is an actor, director and producer. Hwe is the founder of the devising theatre company Delirium.
Oliver Soden
Oliver Soden is the author of Masquerade – The Lives of Noël Coward, the first new biography of Coward for thirty years.
Omar Elerian
Omar Elerian is a freelance director, dramaturg and theatre-maker.
Patrick Marber
Patrick Marber is a writer, director, actor and comedian. He is the author of a dozen plays including Dealer’s Choice, Closer, Howard Katz and The Red Lion, as well as adaptations of a number of classics.
Patrick Myles
Patrick Myles adapted and directed a new prodcution of Nikolay Gogol’s classic comedy ‘The Government Inspector’ at the Marylebone Theatre in London in May 2024.
Paul Prescott
Paul Prescott is an academic, writer and theatre practitioner specialising in Shakespeare.
Rory Mullarkey
Rory Mullarkey is an esteemed playwright.
Roy Williams
Roy Williams is one of Britain’s most important playwrights.
Samuel Bailey
Samuel Bailey began writing plays in Bristol and developed work with the Bristol Old Vic, Tobacco Factory Theatres and Theatre West. His play Shook won the 2019 Papatango award.
Sean McEvoy
Sean McEvoy is a Fellow in English at Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge, and the author of Class, Culture and Tragedy in the Plays of Jez Butterworth.
Simon Stephens
Simon Stephens is one of the most acclaimed and prolific playwrights of our time whose work has been originated at theatres around in the globe.
Sir Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Eyre is an acclaimed director of stage, TV and film. He was the Artistic Director of the National theatre from1987 to 1997.
Stephen Marino
Dr Stephen Marino is the founding editor of The Arthur Miller Journal, which features essays on all aspect of Miller’s life, work, and career.
Stephen Sharkey
Playwright Stephen Sharkey has adapted many classic works for the stage, including his translation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
Thomas Keith
Thomas Keith teaches acting and theatre at Pace University in New York, and joins us to talk about ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams.
Tim McMullan
Tim McMullan is one of our most acclaimed and recognisable actors. His career encompasses a number of iconic stage performances in Shakespeare, as well as innumerable other theatre, film and TV roles.
Tinuke Craig
Tinuke Craig is Associate Artistic Director at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Tom Basden
Tom Basden is a writer, actor and stand-up comedian. His hilarious adaptation of Dario Fo’s classic farce Accidental Death of an Anarchist was a smash hit in Sheffield and London.
Tom Kuhn
Dr Tom Kuhn is an Emeritus Fellow of 20th century German Literature at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, where he has translated and written extensively on the work of Bertolt Brecht.
Tom Littler
Tom Littler is the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Tony Marshall
Tony Marshall is perhaps best known for his role as Noel Garcia in Casualty. Most recently he was on stage in the Old Vic’s 2022 production of Jitney.
Tyrell Williams
Tyrell Williams is the award-winning author of Red Pitch, which premiered at the Bush Theatre in February 2022.
Victoria Hamilton
Victoria Hamilton is an award-winning actress of stage, TV and film…
Wil Johnson
Wil Johnson has an extensive list of stage, TV and film credits, including most recently in the Old Vic’s 2022 production of Jitney.
Will Tosh
Dr Will Tosh is the Director of Education at Shakepeare’s Globe theatre in London.
Winsome Pinnock
Winsome Pinnock is an award-winning British playwright of Jamaican heritage…
Index of Guests
Index of Guests
Our Guests
Adam James
Adam James is one of the most recognised actors working in Britain today, with an extensive list of credits on both stage and screen. His stage appearances include Consent at the National Theatre, Bull at the Young Vic, and King Charles III at the Almeida, the West End, and New York…
Alan Brodie
Alan Brodie heads his eponymous theatrical agency Alan Brodie Representation Ltd, which works with both contemporary playwrights, and with trusts and estates of some of the greatest names in 20th century drama, including the Noël Coward Estate.
Andy Miller
Andy Miller is a reader, editor and author of books, most recently The Year of Reading Dangerously, as well as the co-host of the award-winning literary podcast “Backlisted”.
Arifa Akbar
Arifa Akbar is the Chief Theatre Critic for the Guardian newspaper.
Beth Steel
Beth Steel is the author of ‘Till the Stars Come Down’ and other plays.
Beth Wynstra
Beth Wynstra is the author of Vows, Veils and Masks: The Performance of Marriage in the Plays of Eugene O’Neill.
Carrie Cracknell
Carrie Cracknell is a theatre director, whose credits include Arcadia (Old Vic and West End); Medea, The Deep Blue Sea, The Grapes of Wrath, and Julie at the National Theatre., and many more.
Christopher Hampton
Sir Christopher Hampton is a renowned playwright and screenwriter whose plays have so far garnered four Tony Awards, three Oliviers, and five Evening Standard awards.
Christopher Haydon
Chrstopher Haydon is the Artistic Director at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, where inn October 2022 he directed the first major London production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle for twenty-five years.
Clare Lizzimore
Clare Lizzimore is an acclaimed director and playwright. She directed the 25th anniversary production of Patrick Marber’s Closer at the Lyric Hammersmith in the summer of 2022.
Conor McPherson
Conor McPherson is from Dublin and began writing plays as a member of the University of Dublin drama society. His early plays include St Nicholas, Shining City, The Seafarer, and The Weir, which opened at the Royal Court before transferring to the West End of London and Broadway, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Play for 1999.
Cordelia Lynn
Cordelia Lynn’s most recent plays include Sea Creatures, Love and Other Acts of Violence, and One for Sorrow.
Dan Rebellato
Dan Rebellato is a playwright, journalist and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Daniel Bailey
Daniel Bailey is a director, dramaturg and writer, is the Associate Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre, where he directed Tyrell William’s play Red Pitch.
Daniel Raggett
Daniel Raggett is an acclaimed director. His hilarious production of Dario Fo’s classic farce Accidental Death of an Anarchist was a smash hit in Sheffield and London.
David Adjmi
David Adjmi is the author of the Tony-award-winning play, ‘Stereophonic’.
David Eldridge
David Eldridge is widely regarded as one of the most important playwrighting voices at work today. His play Beginning premiered at the National Theatre in October 2017, before transferring to the West End.
David Ian Rabey
David Ian Rabey is Emeritus Professor of Theatre and Theatre Practice at Aberystwyth University, and the author of The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth.
Diyan Zora
Diyan Zora is a director and playwright.
Dominic Cooke
Dominic Cooke is an acclaimed director of stage and screen, including most recently the West End production of C.P. Taylor’s Good with David Tennant.
Douglas Rintoul
Douglas Rintoul is the Chief Executive of the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. He was the Artistic Director of the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch from 2015 to 2022.
Duncan Macmillan
Duncan Macmillan’s plays include Lungs, 1984, Every Brilliant Thing and People, Places & Things.
Eamonn Jordan
Eamonn Jordan is Professor in Drama Studies at the School of English, Drama and Film, at University College Dublin.
Edith Hall
Edith Hall is Professor in the department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University.
Elaine Aston
Elaine Aston is a Professor at the Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University, acclaimed for her work on theatre research and feminism.
Emma Parker
Dr Emma Parker is Associate Professor of English at the University of Leicester, and a Joe Orton enthusiast and expert.
Emma Smith
Professor Emma Smith teaches early modern drama at Hertford College, Oxford, with a special focus on Shakespeare. She has written widely on both early modern drama and Shakespeare.
Farah Karim-Cooper
Farah Karim-Cooper is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, King’s College London and Director of Education & Research at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
George Turvey
George Turvey trained as an actor and has appeared on stage and screen in many diverse roles. He co-founded Papatango in 2007 and became the sole Artistic Director in January 2013.
Graham Saunders
Graham Saunders is the Allardyce Nicoll Professor of Drama at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Love me or Kill me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes, About Kane: the Playwright and the Work, and the editor of Sarah Kane in Context.
Greg Hersov
Greg Hersov was the Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 1987 to 2014, where he directed more than 50 productions, including plays by Wilde, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Miller, T Williams, Pinter, Mamet, Baldwin, Cartwright, and many more.
Henry Filloux-Bennett
Henry Filloux-Bennett is a writer and Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield.
Hester Lees-Jeffries
Dr Hester Lees-Jeffries is a Director of Studies in English at Cambridge University, where she specialises in Shakespeare and early modern drama.
Holly Race Roughan
Holly Race Roughan is a director at Headlong Theatre Company, and directed a new production of ‘A View from the Bridge’ that she talked with us about in episode 69.
Howard Sherman
Howard Sherman is the author of ‘Another Day’s Begun – Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century’.
Ivan Wise
Ivan Wise is the editor of The Shavian at the Shaw Society, and he has joined us in two episodes to share his knowledge of Shaw.
James Dacre
James Dacre has been the Artistic Director of the Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton since 2013. The Royal & Derngate is one of our outstanding regional theatres, commissioning and co-producing a consistently successful steam of new work that regularly tours and reaches the West End. Recent productions include TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, Alone in Berlin, The Worst Witch, Touching the Void, and The Lovely Bones.
James Graham
The playwright James Graham is one of our most prolific and popular dramatists, renowned for both his stage plays and TV dramatizations. He has carved out a niche in bringing contemporary political history to life, turning sometimes arcane events into lucid and compelling drama.
Jeremy Herrin
Jeremy Herrin directed the West End production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (episode 80) and People, Places & Things in 2015 and 2024 (episode 82).
Joe Dowling
Joe Dowling is an acclaimed director who was the youngest Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to North America and leading the prestigious Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis for nearly twenty years.
Joe Penhall
Joe Penhall is acclaimed as both a playwright and screen writer, having written a dozen plays, including Some Voices, Pale Horse, Dumb Show and Birthday, all for the Royal Court Theatre, as well as more recently Mood Music at the Old Vic and the musical Sunny Afternoon, which he wrote with Ray Davies of the Kinks and which won four Olivier Awards in 2015.
John Mitchinson
John Mitchinson is a writer and publisher, co-founder of Unbound, the crowdfunding publishing platform for books, and co-host of the award-winning books podcast, Backlisted.
John Tiffany
John Tiffany is the winner of two Tony Awards, an Olivier, a Drama Desk and an Obie award as a director, and his productions have earned countless other award nominations and wins. His recent work includes Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in both London and New York….
Jonny Donahoe
Jonny Donahoe is a writer, comedian and performer. He is the co-creator of the brilliant play, ‘Every Brilliant Thing’, with Duncan Macmillan.
Josie Rourke
Josie Rourke is an acclaimed theatre and screen director. She is the former Artistic Director of both the Bush and the Donmar theatres in London. Most recently she directed ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at the National Theatre, and is our guest in episode 63 about the play.
Justin Audibert
Justin Audibert is the Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre.
Justin Greene
Justin Greene is a director, writer and producer for theatre, television and radio. His writing credits include the musical Spend Spend Spend, which he wrote the book and lyrics for with composer Steve Brown, and also directed. The show won the Evening Standard, Critics Circle and Barclays Theatre awards for Best Musical and was nominated for an Olivier in the same category.
Karen Leeder
Karen Leeder is Professor of Modern German at New College Oxford. She joins us on The Play Podcast to talk about Frank Wedekind’s controversial play Spring Awakening.
Kirsten Shepherd
Kirsten Shepherd-Barr is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University.
Lindsay Posner
Lindsay Posner has directed Michael Frayn’s Noises Off twice, and he joins us to share his unique insights on this comic masterpiece.
Lisa Dwan
Lisa Dwan is an award-winning actress, director, writer and scholar. She is most well known internationally for her performances and adaptations of Samuel Beckett’s work, including multiple performances of Beckett’s Not I over the past 15 years at London’s Battersea Arts Centre , the Southbank Centre, and at the International Beckett Festival in 2012.
Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey’s credits as a director range from Shakespeare to modern classics, including a special affinity with the plays of Agatha Christie.
Lucy Kirkwood
Lucy Kirkwood is a playwirght and screenwriter. Her plays include Chimerica, The Children, Mosquitoes and The Welkin.
Lynette Linton
Lynette Linton is the Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre in London.
Margaret Perry
Margaret Perry’s latest play Paradise Now!’ received rave reviews during its run at the Bush Theatre in December 2022. Her previous plays include Porcelain and Collapsible.
Maria Delgado
Professor Maria Delgado is the author of Federico Garcia Lorca (Routledge, 2008).
Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson is a journalist, broadcaster, author and playwright.
Mark Rosenblatt
Mark Rosenblatt is the author of the award-winning play, Giant, as well as a director and screenwriter.
Mark Taylor-Batty
Mark Taylor-Batty is a senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at Leeds University. His key areas of interest include Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and twentieth-century French and British theatre.
Matt Beresford
Matt Beresford is a director, speaker, trainer and leadership coach. He spent fifteen years working in business, before re-training as a Theatre Director at RADA, followed by an MA at St. Mary’s, University of London.
Matthew Dunster
Matthew Dunster is a director, actor and writer. He has directed more than 50 plays in the past 15 years.
Matthew McFrederick
Matthew McFrederick is a theatre practitioner, historian and academic, and Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Reading, where he completed his PhD investigating the production histories of Samuel Beckett’s drama in London.
Max Webster
Max Webster is an acclaimed director.
Michael Billington
Michael Billington was the Guardian theatre critic from 1971 to 2019, and is the author of The 101 Greatest Plays – From Antiquity to the Present.
Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn is a bestselling and award-winning novelist, journalist, screen writer and playwright…
Monica Dolan
Monica Dolan is an Olivier and Bafta award-winning actor, whose work spans television, film and stage. She won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in the 2019 West End production of All About Eve, a Bafta Award for her unforgettable performance as Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult on ITV in 2011, and a Bafta nomination for Best Supporting Actress in A Very English Scandal alongside Hugh Grant.
Nadia Fall
Nadia Fall is the Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Nadine Holdsworth
Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. Her book English Theatre and Social Abjection: A Divided Nation published in 2020 examines how contemporary drama presents groups and issues that divide our society.
Neil Anthony Docking
Neil Anthony Docking is as a writer whose work appeared in press, television, radio and film, before he wrote his first play, the funny and devastatingly moving The Revlon Girl.
Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Rowe has appeared on many of London’s stages including in two productions of Mike Bartlett plays at the Almeida, Albion and King Charles III, which also transferred to the West End.
Nick Hern
Nick is the founder of Nick Hern Books, the play publishers who have led the UK in championing the best new playwrights for the past 30 years.
Nigel Slater
Nigel Slater OBE is the presenter of nine BBC television series, and the author of a collection of bestselling books including the classics Appetite two-volumes of Tender, as well as The Kitchen Diaries trilogy.
Nina Raine
Nina Raine is both a playwright and a director. Her own plays include Rabbit, Tribes, Consent, Stories and Bach & Sons.
Oliver Kaderbhai
Oliver Kaderbhai is an actor, director and producer. Hwe is the founder of the devising theatre company Delirium.
Oliver Soden
Oliver Soden is the author of Masquerade – The Lives of Noël Coward, the first new biography of Coward for thirty years.
Suggest a play
We’re always open to suggestions about plays to talk about, so if you’d like us to discuss a favourite of yours, please email us at plays@theplaypodcast.com. Let us know why you think we should cover it, and if you know anyone who’d be excited and qualified to talk about it with us (even yourself if modesty permits!).



































































































