The Archive
Recordings from November 2004
Total Number of Recordings from this month: 15
- INTERVIEW: TIM ETCHELLS (2/2) The director considers Forced Entertainment's troubled relation with UK critics, and assesses its differing reputation at home and abroad. Dominic Cavendish quizzes.
“I think reports of how boring we are are a bit exaggerated!”
- Play: Bloody Mess
- Theatre: Forced Entertainment touring
- Recording Date: 05-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- INTERVIEW: TIM ETCHELLS (1/2) A major interview with the artistic director of leading experimentalists Forced Entertainment to mark the company's 20th anniversary.
“We want to make work where it's acknowledged that the audience are there...”
- Play: Bloody Mess
- Theatre: Forced Entertainment touring
- Recording Date: 05-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- FORCED ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL (2/2) Dominic Cavendish, Lyn Gardner, Andy Lavender and Andrew Quick continue to evaluate Sheffield's prime theatrical export.
“It's like watching kids raiding the dressing-up box - there's something immensely engaging about that.”
- Play: Bloody Mess
- Theatre: Forced Entertainment touring
- Recording Date: 05-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- FORCED ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL (1/2) Critics Dominic Cavendish and Lyn Gardner, plus academics Andy Lavender and Andrew Quick, reflect on 20 years of experimentation.
“Forced Entertainment are as convention-bound as any other type of performance - and they know that.”
- Play: Bloody Mess
- Theatre: Forced Entertainment touring
- Recording Date: 05-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- INTERVIEW: GORDON ANDERSON The director talks to Aleks Sierz about Rainald Goetz's Jeff Koons, as well as his early days with comedy phenomenon The League of Gentlemen. Sound quality: moderate.
“This is written in a theatre culture where ensemble companies have months to work on a play and get it right... ”
- Play: Jeff Koons
- Theatre: ICA
- Recording Date: 05-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- FORTY WINKS Kevin Elyot's latest at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Katie Mitchell, gets a rally of critical support from Heather Neill, Mark Shenton and Matt Wolf. Kate Bassett hosts.
“I'd read the poor reviews and dragged my heels but it has stuck with me in a way that many plays haven't.”
- Play: Forty Winks
- Theatre: Royal Court Downstairs
- Recording Date: 12-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- THE PRODUCERS Nathan Lane and Lee Evans are on coruscating form in Mel Brooks' musical, according to Kate Bassett, Heather Neill and Matt Wolf. Mark Shenton hosts.
“Oddly, the London production has heart, which the Broadway production simply didn't have.”
- Play: The Producers
- Theatre: Drury Lane Theatre Royal
- Recording Date: 12-Nov-2004
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- INTERVIEW: STEPHEN SEWELL The Australian playwright talks to Philip Fisher about his acclaimed war-on-terror thriller, Myth, Progaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany... and Contemporary America.
“The circumstances are now so dire that we really have to squawk as loudly as we possibly can.”
- Play: Myth, Propaganda and Disaster...
- Theatre: Orange Tree
- Recording Date: 12-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- FOCUS ON NEW YORK (2/2) Matt Wolf continues to muse on the theatre scene, and its hit musicals, Stateside. Geoffrey Marsh quizzes.
“The musical is deemed to be the commercial lifeblood of the theatre system there.”
- Recording Date: 18-Nov-2004
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- FOCUS ON NEW YORK (1/2) Geoffrey Marsh, head of the Theatre Museum, interviews Matt Wolf, London critic for Variety, about the Big Apple.
“There's been much talk recently about the plethora of one-person shows on Broadway.”
- Recording Date: 18-Nov-2004
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- BLITHE SPIRIT Differing takes on Thea Sharrock's revival of Coward's paranormal comedy from Heather Neill, Adam Scott and Charles Spencer. Matt Wolf hosts. Recorded live.
“For the first time, I was made very aware by this production of the amount of unhappiness in the play.”
- Play: Blithe Spirit
- Theatre: Savoy Theatre
- Recording Date: 26-Nov-2004
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- THE EARTHLY PARADISE Is Peter Whelan's latest play theatrical purgatory? Adam Scott, Charles Spencer and Matt Wolf seem to think so. Patrick Marmion hosts. Recorded live.
“It didn't strike me as faintly believable - the writing is alternately flat and over-ripe.”
- Play: The Earthly Paradise
- Theatre: Almeida Theatre
- Recording Date: 26-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
- DEBATE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PERFORMANCE ART? (2/2) Anne Bean, Manick Govinda and Laura Godfrey-Isaacs continue to reflect on the state of UK live art. Judith Palmer hosts. Recorded live.
“It was very utopian and idealistic back then, now it's much more hard-nosed.”
- Recording Date: 26-Nov-2004
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- DEBATE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PERFORMANCE ART? (1/2) Anne Bean, Manick Govinda and Laura Godfrey-Isaacs discuss the question. Critic Judith Palmer hosts. Recorded Live.
“The theatre actor's 'technique' seems so false compared to a performance artist.”
- Recording Date: 26-Nov-2004
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- INTERVIEW: MUSTAPHA MATURA At the 20th anniversary revival of his Trinidadian rewrite of The Playboy of the Western World, the playwright reminisces with Nicolas Kent, artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre. Dominic Cavendish quizzes.
“I think a lot of attitudes to black theatre have changed - it's not black theatre anymore, it's theatre.”
- Play: Playboy of the West Indies
- Theatre: Tricycle Theatre
- Recording Date: 29-Nov-2004
- Listen to this discussion NOW!
