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Winsome Pinnock’s powerful new play Rockets and Blue Lights explores the continuing legacy of the slave trade by allowing the lost voices of the past to merge into our current re-examination of history and black identity. The play won the 2019 Alfred Fagon Award and was in preview at the Manchester Royal Exchange earlier in 2020 when the Covid pandemic cruelly closed our theatres. I’m especially honoured during Black History Month to talk with Winsome Pinnock about her wonderful play.

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Photo: Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman at the Young Vic (c. Brinkoff Mogenburg)

Arthur Miller’s portrait of an ordinary American family in post-war Brooklyn has become an enduring presence on stages around the world and in educational curriculums. The splintering of the Loman family became emblematic of the personal costs and challenges of the American Dream, but Miller’s play has also remained popular and relevant because of its innovative form and emotional power. We’re delighted to be joined by Dr Stephen Marino, founding editor of The Arthur Miller Journal to explore this dramatic classic.

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This episode is a recorded ragbag of selected extra Footnotes that we’ve compiled during the research and conversations from our first eleven episodes. You’ll hear trivial titbits of information in the best tradition of footnotes, as well as pithy observations on all of the plays that we’ve covered so far.

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Photo: Johan Persson

In David Eldridge’s wonderful two-hander we eavesdrop on a funny, poignant and potentially life-changing date between two people whose lives have not yet turned out as hope or promised. The playwright himself joins us to share with us where the play came from and review how the date unfolds

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Photo: Marc Brenner

Mike Bartlett’s major new play Albion is a funny and moving portrait of an individual family coping with grief and life’s big challenges, as well as a reflection on issues consuming the nation at the height of the Brexit debate. Joining us to review the reverberations of this rich play are the two leading players in its recent Almeida production: Victoria Hamilton and Nicholas Rowe.

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Nigel Slater’s Toast is an innovative dramatisation of the award-winning memoir of the same name, that described the life-changing events of the author’s childhood through his nostalgic diary of his favourite foods. Henry Filloux-Bennett’s funny and heart-warming play not only brings food to life in the theatre, it tells the inspiring story of a young boy who has the courage to follow his own recipe in life.

The two authors of Nigel Slater’s Toast, Henry Filloux-Bennett and Nigel Slater himself, join us to share the unlikely story of how a catalogue of childhood foods became a hit play.

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Terence Rattigan’s masterpiece The Deep Blue Sea was written off for more than 30 years as a dated melodrama until a landmark production at the Almeida in 1993 led to its reappraisal as a “modern classic”. The National Theatre at Home will broadcast their production starring Helen McCrory in the lead role as from 9th of July, and on the same day we will delve into the play in conversation with Dan Rebellato, the series editor of Rattigan’s plays for specialist drama publisher Nick Hern.

Photograph: Helen Maybanks

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A young couple navigate the age-old debate of whether or when to embark on having a baby. They are naturally worried about their personal responsibilities, but most topically they are also concerned about the impact that their adding to the global population will have on the world’s climate and future.

Duncan Macmillan’s award-winning play written in 2011, was revived at the Old Vic in 2019 with Claire Foy and Matt Smith conducting the debate. They will shortly reprise their roles via the Old Vic’s innovative in Camera live stream for a limited run from 26th June. Joining us to review the ongoing debate is George Spender, former editorial director at Oberon Books who publish Lungs and the playwright’s other plays.

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Pinter’s modern classic dissects the dynamics of betrayal in marriage, friendship and work. The ambiguities of the adulterous affair that is the core of the play are made all the more unsettling by the innovative chronology of the narrative: the play famously opens with the end of the affair and works backwards to its inception.
Joining us to mine the depths of Pinter’s compressed masterpiece is Mark Taylor-Batty, senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds and author of The Theatre of Harold Pinter (Bloomsbury 2014).