Lynette Linton Archives - The Play Podcast

Lynette Linton

by Douglas Schatz | Dec 4, 2023 | Contributor

Lynette Linton

Lynette Linton is the Artistic Director of the Bush theatre in London, where she has been leading a ground-breaking program of new work that champions all types of diverse voices. We’ve been lucky enough to cover two of their acclaimed recent productions on the podcast, Tyrell Williams’s Red Pitch and Margaret Perry’s Paradise Now!

Lynette was previously Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar, where in 2018 she directed the UK premiere of Sweat, for which she won the Best Director award at the Black British Theatre Awards. Before that she was Associate Director at the Gate theatre. Her long list of directing credits includes Blues for an Alabama Sky at the National Theatre, for which she won Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards for Best Director, as well as Richard II at the Globe theatre, which was distinguished for being the first ever company of women of colour on a major UK stage. She has directed or assisted on shows at the Bush, the Donmar, the Gate, the Theatre Royal Stratford East, the Royal Court and the West End.

Photo by Bronwen Sharp

Podcast Episode(s)

071 - Clyde's, by Lynn Nottage

Recommended Play(s)

Lynette recommended two plays that are returning to the stage at the Bush theatre in early 2024:
Shifters by Benedict Lombe, and,
The Cord by Bijan Sheiban.

071 – Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage

by Douglas Schatz | Dec 4, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

The cast of Clyde’s
Donmar Warehouse
November 2023
Photo by Helen Murray

071 – Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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. But the eponymous proprietor, Clyde, has not offered these ex-cons a second chance out of the softness of her heart. Despite her stern style, the characters who wash up here in Clyde’s discover some unexpected hope for their futures in their communal sufferings and support.

Lynn Nottage is very well known in America, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for Sweat. Clyde’s was first produced on Broadway in November 2021, and according to American Theatre magazine it was the most-produced play in non-profit theatres in America in 2022–2023.

As we record this episode a new production of Clyde’s is on stage at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London, directed by Lynette Linton, who also directed Sweat at the same theatre back in 2018. The stories and characters of both this play and Sweat are based on extensive research Nottage carried out with local people, and the plays certainly have the stamp of lived reality.

I’m delighted to be joined by the director Lynette Linton who, having directed both of these great plays, is the perfect guest to talk us through Clyde’s.

Lynette Linton

Recommended Play

Lynette recommended two plays that are returning to the stage at the Bush theatre in early 2024:
Shifters by Benedict Lombe, and,
The Cord by Bijan Sheiban.

Photo by Bronwen Sharp

Become a Patron!

Since I launched The Play Podcast in April 2020, I have managed to eschew any form of advertising or sponsorship, and I would like to continue to produce the podcast without doing so. I therefore invite you to help me to continue to make the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Additional benefits available to Patrons include Footnotes on the plays covered in the podcast, as well as early access to The Play Review.

For details click here

Thank you very much for listening and for your support.
Douglas

The Texts

If you are interested in buying the play text or other related books, we’d be delighted if you choose to purchase them from our selected partners Bookshop.org and Blackwell’s. Not only will you be supporting independent booksellers, we will also earn a small commission on every book you purchase, which helps to keep the podcast going. Click on the cover to buy from our chosen partner. Thank you.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 21, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

Published 24th August

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.

As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.

112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet

Jul 27, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.

As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.

To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.

111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht

Jul 2, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.

As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.

I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.