The Royal Shakespeare Company is to release a new series of its in-house podcast Interval Drinks, with the first episode featuring Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell interviewed by the director of the RSC’s stage adaptation Erica Whyman.
New episodes will be available to download every Thursday at 11AM. The podcast “offers audiences a rare insight into the professional journeys of these RSC artists as well as a chance to explore the craft of modern theatre and discuss some of the biggest issues facing the theatre industry today”.
In episode one, O’Farrell and Wyman, the RSC’s former acting artistic director, discuss Hamnet the novel and the process of putting it on stage as well as Hamlet and autobiography in fiction, including the part Shakespeare’s son Hamnet plays in his work. It will be available to download from Thursday 22 June.
The stage production of Hamnet will transfer to London’s Garrick Theatre in autumn 2023 after selling out at the Swan Theatre, Stratford.
In episode two, Elizabeth Freestone, who directed the RSC’s 2023 production of The Tempest, speaks to chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society Dr Liz Bentley about the climate crisis and theatre’s place in it. Episode two will be available to download on Thursday 29 June.
Episode three features actor and learning practitioner Ibraheem Toure interviewing artistic director of Trybe House Theatre Philip J Morris about their own first encounters with Shakespeare and how they make those first encounters for young people. It will be available to download on Thursday 6 July.
In the fourth episode, Charlie Josephine, writer and director of the RSC’s upcoming production Cowbois, meets Chris Sonnex, artistic director and joint chief executive of theatre company Cardboard Citizens, to discuss theatre, class, identity and passion, including making theatre for and about people who have lived experience of homelessness, poverty and inequity. It will be available to download on Thursday 13 July.
In the final episode, Alexandra Gilbreath and Wellbeing in the Arts founder Adam Bamborough talk about mental health in the theatre industry, stage fright and getting help. Episode five will be available to download on Thursday 20 July.
Each episode is free via the RSC web site and other podcast platforms.