Tony Marshall Archives - The Play Podcast

Tony Marshall

by Douglas Schatz | Jul 6, 2022 | Contributor

Tony Marshall

Tony Marshall has had a prolific career as a TV actor, in series such as Coronation Street, The Bill, All Quiet on the Preston Front, The Queen’s Nose, Only Fools and Horses, Doctors and Life on Mars. He is perhaps best known for his role as Noel Garcia in Casualty, which he made his own for 12 years until January 2021 when topically his character died of Covid19.

His film credits include: Learning to Breathe, The Flint Street Nativity, Getting Off, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Little Clumps of Hair.

His stage credits include Having a Ball and Bouncers at Royal & Derngate in Northampton, and most recently he played Fielding in the 2022 production of Jitney at the Old Vic

Podcast Episode(s)

049 - Jitney, by August Wilson

049 – Jitney, by August Wilson

by Douglas Schatz | Jul 5, 2022 | Podcast Episodes

Tony Marshall as Fielding and Wil Johnson as Becker
Old Vic Theatre 2022
Photo: Manuel Harlan

049 – Jitney, by August Wilson

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August Wilson’s play Jitney is set in the run-down office of an unlicensed taxi company in a poor black neighbourhood in Pittsburgh in 1977. The cast of characters is the crew of drivers, each of whom has a story to tell, and all of whom depend on the cash earnings from this underground business. Unbeknownst to everyone other than the firm’s boss, Becker, the building they occupy is under notice of demolition, and the business and their livelihoods are under threat. The social and economic challenges that these characters face in 1970s America resonate strongly today, and the relationships and hopes and fears of this ensemble of characters are certainly universal.

Jitney is one of August Wilson’s series of plays known as the Pittsburgh or Century Cycle, which comprise 10 plays about the black experience in America, each one set in a different decade of the 20th century. It was first written in 1979 and performed in Pittsburgh in 1982, but Wilson subsequently rewrote large parts of it in 1996, which led to multiple more productions around the United States, before it was finally produced in New York in April 2000. It received its British premiere at the National Theatre in October 2001, and as we record this it is being revived at the Old Vic Theatre in London in a vibrant, funny and topical new production.

I am delighted and privileged to be joined in this episode by two members of the cast from the staging of Jitney at the Old Vic: Wil Johnson, who plays Becker, the boss of the taxi firm, and Tony Marshall, who plays Fielding, a funny and poignant character with a fascinating back story.

I heartedly recommend the Old Vic production, directed by Tinuke Craig. It runs at the Old Vic until 9th July 2022, and then is on tour in venues in Worthing, Bath and Cambridge until 6th August 2022.

Wil Johnson

Wil Johnson has an extensive list of TV, film and stage credits, including many familiar TV series such as Cracker, Waking the Dead, Waterloo Road and Emmerdale. His stage appearances include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at this same Old Vic, Sweat at the Donmar and in the West End, a UK tour of Glengarry Glen Ross and Othello at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and King Lear at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, among many others.

Tony Marshall

Tony Marshall has had a prolific career as a TV actor, in television series such as Coronation Street, The Bill, All Quiet on the Preston Front, The Queen’s Nose, Only Fools and Horses, Doctors and Life on Mars. He is perhaps best known for his role as Noel Garcia in Casualty, which he made his own for 12 years until January 2021 when topically his character died of Covid19.

The Texts

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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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.