Ex-Take That member Jason Orange has left the cast of Gob, which looked set to be one of the sell-out productions of ths year's Fringe, just days after the official programme was produced. His agent has denied that he is to give up acting and explained that his attitude was that people take shows to Edinburgh to get them brought to London, wheeras Gob had already had a successful London run at the King's Head.
Britain's most artistically creative person
The artistic director of the Chicken Shed Theatre, Mary Ward, has been named as Britain's most artistically creative person in Arts and Business' (formery the Association for Business Sopnsorship of the Arts) awards scheme. She receives £100,000 to go towards running the theatre.
Rebecca Gilman and Mark O'Rowe have jointly won the George Devine Award for new writing. The £8,000 prize will be shared between them. Gilman was chosen for her play The Glory of Living and O'Rowe for Howie the Rookie.
Tristan Bates Theatre to be producing house
The Tristan Bates Theatre is to become the only producing fringe venue in the West End. It will run for siz months as a producing house, supported by the proceeds from being a receiving house for the rest of the year. According to manager Carolyn Mathers, it will be a "very experimental" season.
In addition to those mentioned in last week's news Page, other theatre-related awards made in the Queen's Birthday Honours were: