Episode 19: Stephen Harper

A shared love of Aston Villa, the joys of improvisation and a late submission to the prestigious Bruntwood Prize which proved very fruitful. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring actor and award winning writer, Nathan Queeley-Dennis.

About Nathan Quelled-Dennis

Nathan is an award winning writer and actor from Birmingham, as a writer he is the winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022 with his Debut play Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe 2023 to widespread critical acclaim with Nathan being chosen by The Stage as one of the Fringe Five, Off Fest nominated, Playbill, WhatsOnStage and TimeOut's best shows of Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London.
 

As an Actor Nathan's credits include Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz (Royal Court); As You Like It (@sohoplace); Black Love (Kiln); A Taste Of Honey (National Theatre); Really Big and Really Loud (Paines Plough/UK Tour); Rebel Music (Middle Child); Little Baby Jesus (Birmingham REP); Pinocchio (Orange Tree); An Oak Tree (Francesca Moody Productions) and Doctors (BBC)" 

The inspiration of Footsbarn on his early theatre making, getting arrested at the end of the first ever Kneehigh show and not being a great believer in giving advice. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring founder and former Artistic Director of the celebrated Kneehigh, Mike Shepherd.

About Mike Shepherd
Mike Shepherd founded Kneehigh in 1980 and remained “roughly in the middle of things” for 40 years. As an actor, teacher and director, Mike has toured the world and is a pioneer of the Asylum; a large-scale mobile venue dedicated to a good night out! 

Almost embarking on a boxing career, wanting to be the Artful Dodger as a child and their recent critically acclaimed production of 'Cowbois' (which stars our AD Paul Hunter). All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring celebrated writer and actor Charlie Josephine.

About Charlie Josephine
Charlie is a writer, director and actor. Charlie’s 2023 work includes: Cowbois (Royal Shakespeare Company); I, Joan (Shakespeare's Globe); Flies (Shoreditch Town Hall); Birds and Bees (Sheffield Crucible); One of Them Ones (Pentabus). 

Amongst Charlie’s previous work, Bitch Boxer won the Soho Theatre Young Writers Award 2012, The Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh Season 2012, the Holden Street Theatre’s Award 2013, and the Adelaide Fringe Award 2014. Charlie’s play Blush enjoyed a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it picked up The Stage Edinburgh Award 2016, before touring nationally.  Their play Pops enjoyed a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival 2019 and then High Tide Festival. Charlie spent 2019 as a member of The Old Vic 12, and also wrote a new play Moon Licks for Paines Plough and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which was performed at The Yard in June 2022.

For screen work, Charlie won the inaugural BBC Screenplay First Award, and in March 2017 was named on the BBC New Talent Hotlist. They are currently writer-in-residence at Headlong Theatre.

From their first encounters as a ‘dude’ of a teacher with a trademark leather jacket, a ‘sophisticated’ student joining Middlesex Poly en route from a summer working in France and a ‘short bloke from Birmingham’, our three co-founders John Wright, Hayley Carmichael and Paul Hunter recount the last 30 years of Told by an Idiot. In this Christmas special of  Regrets I’ve Had A Few, expect discussions on the Idiot approach to theatre making, the importance of never being boring and Hayley recalling various hilarious stories involving issues with doors. 

Learning to do flips in the playground at school, his choreographic inspirations and playing Agent Smith in Danny Boyle's mind blowing stage re-boot of the Matrix. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring dancer and choreographer, Mikey Ureta. 

About Mikey Ureta

Mikey Ureta is a dance artist based in London. He has been working professionally around the world for the past 11 years and has been active in the industry as a performer, choreographer, teacher and mentor. His theatre credits include: Groove on Down the Road, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and Into the Hoods: Remixed (all ZooNation); Get Happy (Told by an Idiot, Beijing Comedy Arts Festival and Barbican); Blaze The Show (Expo 2016, Turkey); Chase The Dream: The Reboot (Flawless); and Pied Piper (Boy Blue). 

Other credits include: Finalist on Got To Dance with Boyband (Sky One); Finalist on Britain’s Got Talent with Boyband (ITV); appearances with Stormzy (Reading and Leeds, BRIT Awards, Glastonbury); and adverts for Google Pixel 4 and Gucci x GQ China. 

An unmatched admiration of Cats the Musical, the role of persona in her work and “having a good idea and doing it”. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring one of the UK’s most charismatic performers and theatre makers, Lucy McCormick. 

ABOUT LUCY MCCORMICK:
Lucy McCormick makes nightclub interruptions, cabaret interventions and extravaganza theatre shows, marrying interests in absurdity, feminism and the grotesque.  Her practice is cross-genre, taking inspiration from theatre, performance art, comedy and dance. 

Lucy is a Research Fellow at Queen Mary University, an associate artist of Hackney Showroom and the current artist-in-residence at Soho Theatre. She teaches and mentors regularly at universities and arts organisations including Central School of Speech and Drama, Roehampton University, Soho Theatre and National Theatre Studio.  

Lucy works as an actor and has appeared in several theatre plays and on screen. She recently starred as Catherine in Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights and the RSC production of Titus Andronicus at The Globe Theatre. She is currently in rehearsals for the RSC production of Charlie Josephine’s Cowbois.   

www.lucymccormick.com

The beginning of his career as Alan Rickman’s follow spot operator, being referred to as a grubby thruster by an Equity councillor and his tenures as Artistic Director at both the Bush Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth. All of this and more is discussed in our 30th episode of Regrets I've Had A Few, in our 30th year, featuring celebrated Director, Simon Stokes.

About Simon Stokes

Simon became an Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre in London from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s. A new play specialist, he developed and directed many of our now celebrated playwrights and performers.

The Bush also worked with a wide range of independent theatre companies including such as the People Show, Phantom Captain, Paines Plough, Hull Truck, the Women’s Theatre Group, Gay Sweatshop and Black Theatre Co-op.

In the 1990s he was Artistic Associate and Director of Development for Howard Panter’s Turnstyle Group, developing new plays for production in the West End.

As a freelancer, he directed in Germany, Switzerland, Israel and the USA as well in the UK.

As a director some of his most highly profiled work has included Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Bush with Simon Callow and Mark Rylance, When I Was A Girl I Used to Scream and Shout by Sharman Macdonald at the Bush; the Edinburgh International Festival and the West End with, variously, Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, Geraldine James and Dawn French; A Slip of the Tongue by Dusty Hughes with John Malkovich and Ingeborga Dapkunaite; The Green Man by Doug Lucie with Phil Daniels and Danny Webb; and Monster Raving Loony by James Graham at the Drum Theatre Plymouth and Soho Theatre.

As Artistic Director at the Theatre Royal Plymouth from 1998 to 2018 he turned the Drum, a large studio space, into another nationally noticed theatre, winning many plaudits. He again followed a programming strategy of mixing Drum productions with visiting companies and developed several distinctive coproducing relationships with companies like Frantic Assembly, Ontroerend Goed, Paines Plough and Told by an Idiot. 

Celebrating his 5th birthday with TV legends Sooty and Sweep, his interest in directing Tom Hanks on stage and his recent appointment as Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. All of this and more is discussed in this month's episode of Regrets I've Had A Few featuring award-winning Director, Justin Audibert.

The audition process for Kate and Koji, throwing custard pies at Latitude Festival and his dad's need for all electricity to be off overnight interfering with his brothers' need to record late night Jackie Chan films. All of this and more is discussed in this month's episode of Regrets I've Had A Few featuring stage and screen actor, Okorie Chukwu.

Learning about hard graft through working in a sweet shop in Elephant and Castle, coming second to the League of Gentlemen for a coveted Total Theatre Award and her preference of canal boats over caravans. All of this and more is discussed in this month's episode of Regrets I've Had A Few featuring the New Vic Theatre’s Olivier Award winning Artistic Director, Theresa Heskins.

About Theresa Heskins

Theresa Heskins is the Artistic Director of Staffordshire’s New Vic Theatre.

She grew up in London, studied at Oxford University, trained as a director at Birmingham Rep on the RTYDS scheme, and has lived and worked in the Midlands ever since.

In 1999 Theresa became Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre, touring new writing to the whole country from the company’s base on a Ludlow farm. Productions included White Open Spaces, asking ‘is there a silent apartheid in the countryside?’, co-created with BBC Radio Drama and nominated for a South Bank Show Award; and Silent Engine, in association with the National Theatre Studio and recipient of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First.

Joining the New Vic Theatre as Artistic Director in 2007, she has directed numerous productions in the round including Alecky Blythe’s verbatim documentary Where Have I Been All My Life?; Around the World in 80 Days which won London Book Week’s Best Adaptation and transferred to New York; The Snow Queen, which won Best Show for Children and Young People at the UK Theatre Awards.

In the West End she directed the Olivier Award winner The Worst Witch and Marvellous, the opening production @sohoplace.

Theresa also writes, including adapting Wives and Daughters and Lady Audley’s Secret for BBC Woman’s Hour.  Her adaptations of classic children’s literature including Alice in Wonderland have been revived all over the UK and the world.