Amateur of Life and Death Podcast

02/05/2025

Our May episode, out now, features an interview with performer Mark Horne about his life and loves in amateur theatre, including his early days as a ‘Crescenteenie’ and his membership of the Crescent Youth Theatre.

Mark also tells us about his role in the Crescent Theatre’s forthcoming production of [title of show], Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen’s witty love-letter to musical theatre and the creative process.

https://podcast.crescent-theatre.co.uk/1811671/episodes/17082583-title-of-show

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14/03/2025

Our March episode is out now. It features an interview with actor and director Steph Urquhart about her life and loves in amateur theatre, as well as taking a closer look at Nora: A Doll’s House by Stef Smith, a radical reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, A Doll’s House, which Steph is directing at the Crescent this month.

We’ve also got some behind the scenes content from the cast of Nora: A Doll’s House, who discuss the challenges of playing their roles across the three different time periods in which the play takes place.

https://podcast.crescent-theatre.co.uk/1811671/episodes/16789429-nora-a-doll-s-house

14/02/2025

Our February episode explores James Graham’s award-winning play Labour Of Love. We find out how the Crescent Theatre Birmingham’s forthcoming production of the show has been a real ‘labour of love’ in more ways than one...

Our Studio Guest is actor Katie Merriman. Katie spills the beans on her life and loves in amateur theatre and talks about her role as straight-talking Labour constituency agent Jean Whittaker.

We also go behind the scenes of the production to find out more about the use of video in theatre and how video footage plays a crucial role in the show. Video director and producer Rod Natkiel shares his experience and thoughts on creating and using video in theatre.

🎧 https://podcast.crescent-theatre.co.uk/1811671/episodes/16613284-labour-of-love
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03/01/2025

New year, new season of the AMOLAD Podcast.

This month’s episode, The Effect, is out now. We’ve been chatting to actor Jason Adam about his life and loves in amateur theatre. We were also joined by Helena Lima, who is appearing with Jason in the Crescent Theatre’s forthcoming production of Lucy Prebble’s modern masterpiece, The Effect.

Jason and Helena are playing Connie and Tristan, two volunteers in a clinical trial who experience love as an unexpected side effect of the new anti-depressant being tested.

🎧 link in bio
📸 rehearsal photographs by

03/01/2025

We’re back for 2025 with more lives, loves and laughs from the world of amateur theatre.

Our January episode is out this evening, featuring actors Jason Adam and Helena Lima talking about The Effect by Lucy Prebble, which is coming soon to The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham.

Here’s a little preview.

18/07/2024

A hit, a very palpable hit! Congratulations to the cast of Red Velvet at the Crescent Theatre, which continues its run until this Saturday night (20th July).
You can hear our feature interview with Papa Anoh Yentumi, who plays the younger Ira Aldridge, in our latest episode.

🎧 Link in bio.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from Euan Rose of The Bromsgrove Standard!

And what a review it is! Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback we have received for our production of Red Velvet! The history of Ira Aldridge is a story that is criminally unknown and Chakrabarti's script reveals the truth in a beautifully complex manner.

Red Velvet is running until Saturday, and by the looks of it, you may miss out if you don't get your tickets now!

Check out the review here:
📰: https://bit.ly/3Y0Vwhi

And purchase your tickets here:
🎟: https://bit.ly/3qnVq57
📞: 0121 643 5858

12/07/2024

Our July episode, Red Velvet, is out today.

The episode focuses on ‘Red Velvet’, the 2012 play by Lo**ta Chakrabarti. Laura has been speaking to actor Papa Anoh Yentumi about his role as the young Ira Aldridge in the upcoming Crescent Theatre Company production of the play.

We also learn more about the play and the actor who inspired it, the American Ira Aldridge, who was the first Black actor in England to play Othello on the professional stage.

🎧 link in bio

28/06/2024

In this month’s episode, Am to Pro, John speaks with director Dewi Beryl Johnson, who’s recently been working in London’s West End theatres including as Associate Director on Simon Nye’s ‘The Crown Jewels’ at the Garrick Theatre, starring Al Murray and Mel Giedroyc, and as Assistant Director on Ben Elton’s stage production of ‘Upstart Crow’, starring David Mitchell.

Dewi’s journey from teenage director, to Drama School student, to West End associate director, took him through the Crescent Theatre (Birmingham), along the way. Here, Dewi’s also had amateur experience over the last 11 years including as an actor, costume designer, set designer, and of course director, most recently directing the Crescent’s 2019 production of Jessica Swale’s ‘Nell Gwynn’, set during the heart of the Restoration period in England in the late sixteen-hundreds. Dewi’s expertise in and love of the Restoration era theatre is an absolute gift to his cast and crew, and so, of course, to his audiences too.

🎧 link in bio

25/06/2024

From Sheepcote St to Shaftesbury Ave. Dewi Beryl Johnson reveals all, in this month’s upcoming Amateur of Life and Death Podcast.

22/06/2024

Incoming for June 2024. From Brum's West Side to London's West End, Dewi Johnson in his own words. The exclusive interview in full.

03/05/2024

Our May episode is out this evening. It features an interview with triple threat Jo Brookes about her life and loves in amateur theatre, and her role in the upcoming Crescent Theatre production of Gypsy.

We also go behind the scenes of another great American musical, Guys and Dolls, and speak to director and choreographer Emma Harley from Tinkers Farm Opera about the show and the history of the society.

🎧link in bio