In this week’s edition of The Stage, we include our annual complete guide to UK Holiday Centres. This sector of the leisure industry, argues Mark Ritchie, is the natural successor to the traditional resort summer season. In the guide, Steve Donnelly, MD of The Production Associates, talks about the company and what they look for in performers. And we have our A-Z of leisure resorts, and reviews of the big holiday centre shows.
Also this week:
News Editor Alistair Smith monitors industry reactions to Gordon Brown’s overhaul of the ministerial team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
After the reaction to the 2012 London Olympics logo, Sofie Mason looks at the factors that can make or break a brand
Frances Anderson considers the implications of a possible extension to copyright on musical performance recordings
Dear John helps a performer interested in moving into the holiday centre market
Susan Elkin meets West End regular Gavin Wilkinson, who has established the successful part-time training academy, West End Workshops
Novelist, character actor, scriptwriter and co-creator of the League of Gentleman, Mark Gatiss talks to Nick Smurthwaite
Channel 4’s new psychological thriller, Cape Wrath, hits British screens next week after debuting in America (where it is broadcast as Meadowlands). Lead actress Lucy Cohu talks to Matthew Hemley about her role. Plus, we get some background to the show from Ecosse Films’ executive producer Douglas Rae.
When the script is by David Mamet, based on his own stage play, and William H Macy is the lead, why would a film have trouble attracting financing? Jeremy Austin talks to director Stuart Gordon about the difficulties of transferring Edmond to the screen
As the industry gears up for the annual trip to Edinburgh, we look at the heritage — and future — of the Gilded Balloon’s Cowgate site. The venue burned down in 2002, but is now set to be replaced by the seven-storey SoCo project. C Venues will be managing a series of performance spaces throughout the complex during the Festival.
Kevin Berry meets John Burgess, the man behind Nuffield Theatre, Southampton’s highly successful writers group, which has generated plays that have been performed around the world
In Backstage, we find out just what preparation has been necessary as Birmingham Rep create a production where the audience is in a canal boat, and the cast runs alongside…
Playwright Peter Nichols, approaching his 80th birthday, talks about his work and the way in which academic endorsement can make or break a career
And of course, there are our columnists (this week, Maggie Brown, Arthur Smith and Clive Barnes), as well Showpeople interviews with Pierre Marc Diennet, who has played detective dog Scooby-Doo live on stage for the last six years and stan-up comedian Shappi Korsandi.
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