matt-trueman

'Coolest night in town': the club where Phoebe Waller-Bridge created Fleabag

Once based in a rundown boozer, DryWrite nights encouraged risk and giddy game-playing – their spirit is felt in Killing Eve and across British theatre today

Matt Trueman

14, Aug, 2019 @5:00 AM

A light that never goes out: luddite rebellion returns to Manchester

Theatre company Kandinsky explore the city’s political identity and the legacy of luddism in our age of austerity and automation

Matt Trueman

15, Jul, 2019 @11:00 AM

Alan Ayckbourn at 80: 'He's up there with Shakespeare and Fawlty Towers!'

On his 80th birthday, actors Penelope Wilton, Ben Miles and Nina Sosanya celebrate an achingly funny playwright

Interviews by Matt Trueman

12, Apr, 2019 @5:00 AM

The really empty space: do you need actors to make theatre?

From Enda Walsh’s disembodied voices to a Royal Court escape room, experimental theatre is being made without performers

Matt Trueman

21, Mar, 2019 @6:00 AM

'A world to escape into': how theatre gives prisoners a way out

The show Inside Bitch, made by women with experience of the penal system, dismantles Bad Girls stereotypes, while new play The Jumper Factory explores fear behind men’s bravado

Matt Trueman

26, Feb, 2019 @6:00 AM

Ned Bennett: 'I want audiences to soil themselves and throw up'

He lit up An Octoroon, had a cult smash with Pomona and let loose deadly bunnies in Buggy Baby. Now the director is set to stun audiences with Peter Shaffer’s psychodrama Equus

Matt Trueman

04, Feb, 2019 @5:27 PM

Defacing Heart of Darkness: new plays tear down Conrad's colonialist tale

In two contrasting stagings of the novel, one renders it ridiculous while the other confronts the debate head on

Matt Trueman

18, Dec, 2018 @3:15 PM

Move over Ivo van Hove: Europe's hottest theatre directors

The Belgian director has blazed his way into the British theatre scene. Who’s next? A French marathon man and an Austrian politico among others

Matt Trueman

03, Sep, 2018 @5:00 AM

'Buildings tell stories': how the housing crisis inspired an Edinburgh show

Geoff Sobelle riffs on cramped city living in his festival production Home by building a two-up, two-down from scratch and inviting the audience inside

Matt Trueman

13, Aug, 2018 @3:00 PM

Sixty chase scenes in 60 minutes: Edinburgh show re-enacts movie pursuits

Created by film classifier and artist Ming Hon, Chase Scenes explores Hollywood action cliches

Matt Trueman

07, Aug, 2018 @9:00 AM

A bunch of amateurs? Playwrights' astonishing am-dram experiences

David Eldridge, Simon Stephens and Alecky Blythe have all been moved by watching non-professional productions of their plays. They explain the appeal

Matt Trueman

28, Mar, 2018 @1:29 PM

'You try to escape with a modicum of dignity': actors on their best and worst auditions

From a ‘cattle market’ Inbetweeners casting to a nightmare meeting with the Coens, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Don Warrington and others recall their nailbiting experiences

Interviews by Matt Trueman

19, Mar, 2018 @12:30 PM