BP News

Artistic Director's Blog

As usual at this time of the year – Keith Crook and I are busy getting the new What’s On prepared. It’s a mammoth task twice a year to produce this thing which seems to be similar to assembling the troops and equipment for D-Day - a job with lots of bits to it. This year I’m trying an experiment and printing a 2-fold A4 leaflet with just the BP shows in it too. This is in addition to the proper What’s On and it’s cheap to print so I thought: why not? The bonus is that it has been much easier to put together than the booklet so I’ll have them all ready for the run of The Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream whereas the What’s On proper won’t be ready until August. Look out for them and tell me what you think!

Jon Brown has got his cast together for The Graduate and what a great cast it is. It was good to see so many at the auditions, new faces as well as familiar ones so the season seems to be off to a promising start. I love to see the Theatre busy with rehearsals going on all over the place – that’s the sign of a healthy Society. Charles has had lots of submissions for the Fringe too and the first two plays have been chosen: 100 which is based on the premise that you can choose one but only one memory to take with you into death and Radio Fun – The Golden Age of Radio Comedy which takes the audience to the Paris studios in London in 1958 and again in 1966. Two very contrasting pieces but that’s what the Fringe is all about. The directors are Peter Carter-Brown and John Addison respectively and they will be casting as soon as next season gets under way so watch this newsletter for details.

Finally – it has been nice too to feel the presence of John Gardiner in the QMT once more. Both Keith Swainston and I have commented on the fact that because The Shrew is so full of Gardiner-isms, all the silly business he put into his comedies that made them so funny and memorable, you sort of feel his hand gently on the tiller of the show. There will be a few more JG shows in the QMT over the next two or three years and let’s hope we can keep his great spirit alive in all our work.

Well that’s it – Blog ending. And so as they say in Radio Fun land - TTFN (and you all know what that means I trust!)