Unlicensed is released on Apple TV, Amazon and YouTube. Links can be found after the interview. Unlicensed is a boxing movie, but not your typical boxing movie. This delves deeper into a character called Danny Goode, an insider trader and he has just been released from prison. Viewers get to follow his story, but has he learnt anything? In the interview we talk about Danny Goode, how this is a very different type of film from other boxing movies, gambling, toxic masculinity and more… You can also see links after this interview as to where to find the film. I viewed the film before composing the interview and even if you aren’t totally a boxing fan, Unlicensed is still a very interesting, good, thought-provoking film, exploring worldly issues and second chances.
Welcome to Bookmarks and Stages. Mark Hampton.
What got you into making short films?
I started making films at a very young age – my dad bought a video camera when I was maybe 8 years old, and I’d seen tv shows abut the making of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, so I was intrigued about how it was all done. A lot of those early efforts involved Lego! Then in my teens I remade Hollywood movies with friends after school – but I began in earnest a little over ten years ago, when I decided I needed to develop my skills as a story-teller. My first real short, A Walk in the Woods was a drama with a kind of fantasy flashback and almost no dialogue. I wanted to see if I could tell a story almost entirely visually.
Unlicensed is a film that takes a different look at boxing films, what inspired you to put a spin on things and look at secret gambling addictions?
It really came from a desire to see a different kind of protagonist in a boxing movie. Instead of the classic ‘working-class lad does good’ scenario, I wanted to take a character who’d had everything and lost it, and put him into the boxing ring. Danny was a successful trader on the surface but his addiction destroyed everything. His career, his family, his reputation. Gambling problems are common in the city – the high-stakes, adrenaline fuelled lifestyle is almost designed for addictive personalities, and addicts can be incredibly devious in the way that they hide their addictions.
There seems to be a plethora of gambling ads on tv nowadays and a large range of ways to gamble, instead of less as successive governments had promised, what impact do you feel this has on society and how have you fed this into your film to create a strong message?
Governments of all persuasions have been delinquent in their responsibilities to ordinary people, especially those who are vulnerable to gambling addiction. The gambling industry is incredibly lucrative – the CEO of Bet365 is the richest woman in the UK. A multi-billionaire. With that kind of money at stake the industry spends a fortune lobbying government to water-down regulation and prevent the gambling platforms from being held accountable for the damage they do. With Unlicensed I wanted to show the insidious effect of addiction – there’s one scene where everything that’s been hidden suddenly become apparent – that’s the nature of addiction, and the gambling companies keep getting richer because of it.
Danny Goode is an insider trader who becomes disgraced. How did you research a trading industry that is partly overt in its actions, but also partly hidden away from public view?
I worked as an auditor for one of the big accountancy firms and I used to audit a brokerage firm, so whilst I haven’t lived the life, I’ve literally seen the receipts. The wining and dining, the bars and clubs – it all part of the lifestyle and is expected of them to maintain their networks. The amounts of money being splashed around are eye-watering, and it’s not surprising that they get this sense of entitlement. I was an auditor around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, and it was shocking that these traders all made fortunes when the going was good, but it was ordinary people that suffered when it all came crashing down.
The film cleverly shows the juxtaposition of lives between those who have moved on whilst Danny was in prison and Danny who thinks he can re-enter his family, friend’s, work colleague’s lives a though everything will fall into place, almost where he left off. How important do you feel it is to create such raw realism?
When we first meet Danny he’s just coming out of prison, but you can tell just by the look on his face that he hasn’t learned anything. He’s still got that city-boy cockiness and wants to pick up where he left off. Finding out that he can’t do that is a rude awakening and big part of his journey – which is to ultimately realise that there are more important things than himself.
Danny hooks up with Jon, who gives him a job in his restaurant and shows him his boxing community. How important do you think it was to show Danny being given opportunities against the odds to rebuild his life after his criminal past?
Jon, played brilliantly by Mark Tunstall, is a true friend, possibly the only one Danny has. He knew Danny before he became the hot-shot city boy, and he was never impressed by any of it. He’s just Danny’s mate and he’s there through thick and thin, an it’s only with Jon’s help that Danny is able to finally admit to his gambling problem. But as well as supporting Danny, Jon shows him a different view on what makes a fulfilling and happy life.
Danny has a lot to prove as he builds a new reputation for himself, how do you hope this impacts the audience, that he doesn’t just walk into jobs and has to really work to get to a new place in his life?
It was critical for Danny’s journey that he is forced to face up to the things he’s done and the consequences of his actions on those around him. They say ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’, and for Danny, the enemy is reality. His early confidence is quickly eroded as his options dry up and he ends up washing pots in Jon’s restaurant for some cash-in-hand. The fall from grace had to be huge enough to make the prospect of stepping into the boxing ring seem like his only way back, and even then it’s not an easy ride – Danny takes a few bruises on the journey to the big fight.
You show, in what is almost a side plot, attitudes of some successful men, such as a boxer, who thinks he can practically buy women with his wealth and expect something back with flash tips. What do you feel about men like this and how do you feel these attitudes should and could change?
Nicky Miller represents a kind of toxic masculinity and Jack Newhouse brought that to life superbly. Nicky’s views on women are wildly outdated and offensive but they’re the kinds of views that are being presented to boys and young men on social media all the time. What I think is important is that toxic influencers are exposed as a con and that we celebrate more examples of good, caring men and make them the models of masculinity.
Society can be quite materialistic at times, but how do you feel this affected Danny and what inspired you to show a change in him to focus on other priorities in his life?
Danny’s life before Unlicensed begins is really all about material things. He defines himself by what money he can make, what designer things he can have, and it doesn’t matter the cost. He starts breaking the rules to maintain the veneer of success but it eventually catches up with him and he loses everything. From the moment we meet him, he’s on a journey where he’ll have to let go of that old version of himself and realise the value of friendship, of family, of real work.
What do you hope audiences will take away from the film?
I want audiences to believe in second chances and that people can change. I want them to feel like they’ve been on the journey with Danny, and seen that with people who care around you, there’s nothing you can’t overcome. I also hope they feel like they’ve seen a great boxing movie.
Where can people watch Unlicensed and what’s next for you?
Unlicensed is now available in the UK and Ireland on
I’m working on release plans for Unlicensed in other territories and starting to think about my next film, which is a high-octane heist movie called Five Cars.
Interview with Alistair Train on short film – Pearls
Interview by Louise Cannon
Alistair Train is a film director who has created 7 films, some of which have qualified for major awards such a the BAFTA’s, more about that later. For those of you who remember The Bill on ITV/STV, for Pearls, he has a major cast member appear in it, find out more as to who, in the interview.
Pearls takes film fans into the life of a couple who’s desire it is to start a family. It doesn’t go as planned as things start to occur. It’s a film, in a short space of time, is thought-provoking and capture your attention in different ways.
In the interview we talk about the highly bold and relevant themes it carries, such as masculinity and not confronting issues, emotions surrounding fertility, achieving certain effects and flashbacks in the film, a prestigious cast member, awards, next project and more… You also get a peek behind the scenes in some of the official photos, passed to me by Tom Brumpton PR.
Let’s welcome Alastair Train to Bookmarks and Stages. Thank you very much for the opportunity to interview you.
1. You’ve now created 7 films, some of which have qualified for the likes of BAFTA, what or who inspired you to become a film-maker and what’s it like knowing that what you’re creating is of a high calibre to capture the attention of people who are part of prestigious awards?
I’ve always wanted to tell stories, but when I was younger, I wasn’t sure what the right medium was. That changed when I watched John Carpenter’s The Thing at probably too young an age. Seeing a film that visceral, with such a bleak tone – shocked me in a profound way. From then I knew that I wanted to make films that would create that same feeling in other people.
Knowing that some of my shorts have gone on to qualify for major awards is an amazing feeling. It validates that the films you’re making are sticking with people, and it’s a great motivator topush you forward onto the next project.
2. What was it like to direct someone as prestigious as Mark Wingett who is fondly remembered for The Bill amongst my generation and of course many other films?
It was such an honour to get the chance to work with Mark. He was so kind, generous, and brought something truly special to the role.
The best thing about working with actors like Mark is that they don’t just listen to your ideas – they provide their own. They know how to shape the character and give you what you’re looking for, but then take it a step further, bringing something new and unexpected. It’s amazing to collaborate with people like that.
3. The idea of Pearls was sparked by a strange encounter your brother had with an oyster. What was this encounter and how did this click for you, giving you the idea of this film?
The idea came from a rather disgusting oyster that my brother once ate. He described it to me as “thick and foamy”, which is not a particularly reassuring way to describe an oyster.
When I researched it, I found out that if an oyster is thick and foamy it means it’s fertile, and the foam that my brother ate was… well, best to leave that to the imagination.
The moment I had that horrific image in my head, I knew I had to find a way to include it in a film.
4. You explore toxic masculinity and the extremes people will go to in order to avoid confronting their problems. What inspired you to have this as a major theme and how important do you feel it is to have them depicted in modern day films?
I think it’s fair to say that most people go through life with some issues they’re not confronting, but what stuck out to me was how these issues are being used to sell products to you online. When I was researching oysters and their historical use as “aphrodisiacs”, I started to notice how the adverts on my feed changed – pills, creams, supplements, “are you losing your hair?”, “low testosterone?”, “do you have erectile dysfunction?”
You feel almost attacked by these products, and from a male perspective it’s clear these “cures” are marketed in a way that targets your masculinity. They give you the option to preserve your pride instead of doing the right thing – talking to a doctor, a therapist, your partner. That felt like a natural fit with the horrific oyster imagery I wanted to create.
I think that if you have a story that can naturally incorporate these issues into it, then you should go and make it, but it’s important that your film takes people on a journey and isn’t just about that one theme. I made Pearls because I wanted to make a body horror about oysters, and the themes fell into place. If you’re too obvious, it can undercut what you’re saying and start to feel preachy.
5. How did you, creating the film, and the actors, draw on the emotions needed to be authentic when the conversations in the film were about fertility issues?
The key was creating an open environment from the start. I was honest with Rory and Helen about the tone I wanted and why this story mattered to me. While fertility is the surface issue, Tony and Linda are really a couple who’ve lost the ability to be honest with each other – so the emotional core we needed to access was that sense of distance and unspoken resentment between two people who love each other but can’t communicate.
Having an intimacy coordinator was invaluable here. There’s a misconception that they only help with physical scenes, but what ours really did was create a safe space for Rory and Helen to inhabit this fractured relationship. That safety allowed them to go to vulnerable places without it feeling exploitative or overwhelming. When actors trust the process, authenticity follows.
6. What gave the inspiration for the flashback after tasting the oyster and how was that filmed to show all the images in the manner which they are?
That was one of my favourite sections to film. I knew while I was writing the script that I wanted to have a “vision” scene, and it was a lot of fun imagining how it could look. Visually, it was inspired by the body-switch scene from Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor – it was so visceral and ethereal that I knew I wanted to create a similar sensation in Pearls.
We filmed most of that section using a special vintage lens from the Astro Berlin Pan-Tachar series that we nicknamed “oyster vision”. It helped us create that dreamy look I was hoping for, and we looked for as many opportunities as possible to use it.
A lot of credit has to go to my editor, Iñigo, who had to make sense of all that material – I think he made something truly memorable.
7. There are a few silent moments, what was your intention and what do you hope the audience draws from them?
I wanted to give the audience a chance to sit in silence with the characters’ decisions. It helps build the tension and gives people space to think about whether they’d do the same thing. Like in real life, people aren’t just walking around talking to themselves all the time – so to me those moments of silence make the characters more believable and easier for the audience to connect with.
I love it when you get to imagine what the characters are feeling rather than having them explain it, and when you’re working with actors like Rory, Helen and Mark, their faces can tell you so much without them saying a word.
8. What appealed to you to use the horror genre to convey the themes you do?
Body horror has always appealed to me because the best ones are cleverly disguised dramas, with horrific imagery that lets your audience not just see but also feel the transformation the characters go through. The audience isn’t being told something – they get to experience it.
9. How did you achieve the special effects when the film turns full horror?
From the start, I knew that I wanted the effects to be done practically – the challenge was figuring out how to make it happen. That was until my producer introduced me to our production designer, Olavo. He brought in an incredible SFX and prosthetics team who worked tirelessly to bring the transformations to life.
The attention to detail was amazing – they scanned real oysters and used them to create the flesh textures for the actors, and 3D-printed the giant shells. It was incredible to see it on set, and I hope that shows in the film.
10. Where can people watch the film and what’s your next project?
The film is on its festival run right now, so it won’t be publicly available for at least another year. However, you can catch it next at the Bay International Film Festival in early January 2026.
As for what’s next, I’m developing two feature films – My Life, about VR and escapism, and Coming Home, an action horror about a murderous cult in the English countryside – and another short ‘Let it grow’ about hypochondria.
Inteview with Off-Westend Mangaging Director – Denholm Spurr Celebrating 20 years of the Offies
Interview by Louise Cannon
I recently had the privilege to interview the Off-West-End Managing Director – Denholm Spurr, thanks to Gingerbread Agency. He is celebrating 20 years of this prestigious organisation, championing independent theatre on London’s Off-The-Westend stages. He has gone on from being an Executive Producer to Managing Director. He discusses grassroots theatre, award nominees and what it means to be nominated or win an award and the impact that may have, increasing accessibility and more… What emerged was some fascinating insights that the public do not see and may not be aware of and more… Please welcome Denholm Spurr to Bookmarks and Stages and discover our Q&A as you scroll down this page.
Denholm Spurr, as Off-West-End Executive Producer, what is it like to now be celebrating 20 years of the organisation, championing independent theatre in London’s Off-West-End scene?
It feels quite extraordinary, because very few grassroots cultural institutions survive this long, let alone stay relevant while the landscape around them keeps changing. OffWestEnd was founded in 2006 and set out to create a unified banner for the incredible independent theatre being made across London. Today, the phrase Off-West End is ubiquitous in describing our sector, and leading the organisation that helped define that is a huge honour.
And talking of survival, it’s also hugely significant for me personally. Ten years ago, I was only just emerging from years of homelessness. Going from street urchin to Managing Director is about as dramatic a glow-up as I could have imagined. I am deeply grateful to the people who believed in me when I had very little reason to believe in myself, but I am proud too. What I survived in my early twenties was brutal, and I could never have imagined that I would end up here: leading an organisation that has helped define the very sector in which I rebuilt my life.
What or who inspired you to take over OffWestEnd, an organisation you’ve been part of for at least 12 years now, and what have you brought to the role of Managing Director since Geoffrey Brown stepped down almost two years ago?
I was lucky enough to be selected for the Olivier Awards judging panel at a very young age, and that was one of the first times I really encountered the breadth of Off-West-End theatre properly. I served specifically on their Affiliate panel, covering some of our best-known venues, and I realised almost immediately that this was the theatre I loved most: up close, alive, risky, sometimes rough around the edges, but in the best possible way, and far less beholden to mainstream conventions.
Then there were the people. Sofie Mason, our founder, was a huge influence. She had that rare ability to make you fall in love with both her and her vision: to believe that a scrappy, under-resourced organisation could stand shoulder to shoulder with major arts institutions and still be worth fighting for. She also gave me opportunities to flex my own creative vision at a time when very few other gatekeepers were doing that — including trusting me to devise the world’s first cyber ceremony on Twitter in 2015. Geoffrey, in a different way, was equally inspiring through the sheer graft of what he built: developing the community, accessibility and scope of the organisation, often from his home office, for no pay, simply because he believed the sector deserved a champion. OffWestEnd has always relied on its leaders and core volunteers giving far more than they ever should have had to, frankly, because they believed independent theatre deserved better.
What I have wanted to bring to the role is a mix of lived experience and structural ambition. I spent more than a decade making theatre Off-West-End myself, so I know first-hand how broad, exciting and precarious this sector is. I did not want OffWestEnd just to be a yearly pat on the back. I wanted it to be more rigorous, more useful, more future-facing, and more honest about the fact that independent theatre does not need admiration alone. It needs infrastructure. And my geekier self came with a bunch of tech skills that made me feel I was the right person to lead the organisation through a serious phase of modernisation.
The goal is to honour the last twenty years and the people who gave so much to this organisation, while also being radical about what comes next: building something finally self-sustaining. A regular, reliable income stream would allow OffWestEnd to respond to the next twenty years in a way the last twenty rarely made possible. That is my vision for OffWestEnd 2.0, and I am excited by the progress we are already making.
This year’s nominees bring together emerging grassroots talent and well-known performers from stage and screen who consistently return to independent venues to create new work. There are a lot of shows to watch and choose from – how are nominees chosen as you increase fair recognition?
Rachael Bellis The Sea Horse by Edward J. Moore Golden Goose
One of the things I love about OffWestEnd and the Offies is that they practise a kind of open gatekeeping. It is one of the few parts of the industry where genuinely emerging artists and very established names can still meet on common ground, often in small rooms, taking real creative risks. That feels healthy to me. It is one ecology that is both grassroots and a destination in its own right. I often say Off-West End is not just a decorative fringe of the industry, but unique, purpose-made couture. The Offies ceremony is the sector’s annual catwalk to show that off.
As for how our recognition process actually works… well, it is a gargantuan undertaking, I can tell you. The Offies are one of a kind: a rigorous three-stage peer review in which the people making the decisions are not only of the community — industry professionals and experts in the field — but have all seen the work first-hand. Doing that at the scale we do, when the turnover of productions is so high and run lengths are so short, is nothing short of Herculean.
That said, there were some leaky pipes in the process when I took over. Early on, I spent months talking to venue leads, creatives, critics, assessors and others across the sector, because I did not want to redesign the model based purely on my own instincts. Two things came up again and again: too many categories, and a creeping sense that everyone seemed to be nominated. So the key challenge was to make the process broader in what it could see, but more exacting in what recognition actually meant. Because if recognition means everything, it starts to mean nothing.
So we rebuilt the framework. We moved away from a rigid category system into broader Areas, supported by specialisms — elevating artforms that are often marginalised, like theatre for young audiences and experimental work — and by stronger expert oversight, including the return and expansion of our critics’ panel of national theatre critics. We also carried out a diversity and equality overhaul of our large assessor cohort, making sure we had the broadest possible range of perspectives assessing work across the sector, so that work is not just watched, but properly understood in context.
The aim is not simply to spread recognition around like confetti. It is to make sure that when work is recognised, it feels fair, meaningful and genuinely valuable: the kind of recognition that can help sustain careers rather than just decorate a poster.
What is the overall impact for those involved in the industry to be nominated in an Area and, if lucky, win?
Megan Prescott – Really Good Exposure – Soho Theatre
The impact depends on where you are in your career, but it can be huge. For an emerging artist or company, recognition can be the difference between momentum and disappearance. It can change confidence, visibility and the seriousness with which people take your work at exactly the point where that work is still vulnerable, while significantly increasing chances of re-runs and transfers. For a venue, it drives audience awareness, helps demonstrate impact and reinforces that what they are platforming matters beyond the room. For more established artists, it is often about peer recognition in the part of the industry where the real risk is still being taken.
But I think the deeper point is this: by the time something is obviously a success, it often no longer needs the same kind of advocacy. The recent Olivier Awards were fabulous, and rightly back on prime-time television, but they are celebrating work that has already arrived. The Offies do something rarer and, I would argue, more vital: they recognise work while it is still building, still scrappy, still trying to find its audience. One of the things the Offies have done consistently is spot quality early, before consensus catches up, while also giving creatives in an often thankless profession a moment to feel genuinely valued and seen.
And that matters politically as much as culturally, because the ecology loop in this country is broken. We have far too few mechanisms that genuinely support grassroots theatre, sustain it over time, and feed value back into the part of the industry where so much of the risk, innovation and talent development actually happens. The Offies are one of the few structures doing that. So for me, they are not just an awards ceremony. They are part of the infrastructure trying to stop the grassroots being treated as unpaid research and development for the rest of the industry.
You have been working to raise the bar on nominations and increase ceremony accessibility. How have you achieved this?
Those two things are connected, actually. I have already touched on this above, but when I took over we were issuing roughly one nomination per show — around 500 a year. While that was, on one level, a great publicity tool for us, it was undermining our core purpose. If almost everyone is nominated, nomination stops carrying real weight. We have brought that right down to fewer than 200 this year, which means we now have much clearer and more universal standards for what nomination actually signifies.
Crucially, that also allowed us to get rid of the slightly confusing finalist stage, where nominees were later whittled down again simply because the ceremony could not accommodate them all. Instead, if you are nominated, that should mean something in and of itself — and it should mean you can actually be in the room at the end of the year. For me, that is both clearer and fairer. It raises the bar on recognition while also making the ceremony more accessible to the people whose work we are there to celebrate.
jamie-hale-transpose-pit-party-subverse-barbican
Increasing ceremony accessibility has been both practical and philosophical. Practical, in the sense that we have thought much more carefully about format, communication, reach and how the ceremony functions as a showcase for the sector. Philosophical, because I do not think the Offies should feel like a closed room full of insiders congratulating each other. It should feel like a genuine meritocracy, where being nominated is a win in and of itself.
This year’s ceremony was probably the clearest expression yet of where we want to go. Divina De Campo brought so much wit, warmth and proper occasion to the room, but what mattered most was that the ceremony felt expansive enough to reflect the breadth of the sector itself. We switched from nominee videos to winner videos so we could spend longer actually showing the work, we packed the night with live performance, and for the first time the full ceremony was broadcast live. That was a major step forward, because the future of the Offies cannot just belong to whoever happened to be in the room that night. It has to be about showing the sector off to the wider world, so people can see just how incredible and important it really is.
If you missed the ceremony, go and watch it on The Theatre Channel, then share it with your friends, colleagues and anyone who still underestimates what independent theatre is capable of. The more people who see us properly, the stronger our sector becomes.
You are trying to encourage risk, experimentation and innovation. What does it take to get this across to both the general public and those in the industry so it carries forward in people’s work, viewing habits and in the way the OFFIE Awards operates?
Rowan Armitt-Brewster – A Brief Case of Crazy – Riverside Studios
Part of it is language. We have to stop talking about independent theatre as though it is simply smaller, cheaper or somehow less finished than commercial work. Very often, it is where the most original thinking is happening. It is where new theatrical languages emerge before the rest of the industry has worked out how to package them, and shifting that mindset starts with the words we choose to describe it. It is easy to take the term for granted now, but Off-West End was barely used before our organisation was established twenty years ago. We have helped lead the charge in making sure independent theatre in this country is seen not just as patchwork fringe, but as a unified identity of exceptional work.
Part of it is model. If you want to encourage risk, you have to build systems that can actually recognise it. That is one reason breadth matters so much to the Offies. If your awards only reward the kinds of work that already resemble mainstream plays and musicals, then you are not encouraging innovation at all; you are rewarding proximity to existing power. Our new Innovation and Industry Areas are about responding to that, and the flexibility of the broader Areas allows us to recognise new artforms, new practices and new kinds of practitioners as soon as they emerge.
And part of it is culture. Audiences, critics and industry figures all have to get more comfortable with the idea that some of the most exciting work will be messy, hybrid, hard to categorise, and sometimes even unsuccessful. That is not a flaw in the ecology. That is how artforms move forward. OffWestEnd can absolutely be a pipeline to commercial success, but it is also a destination in its own right. For twenty years our slogan was “All Theatre Starts Here”, but as we mark this anniversary we have moved beyond that, because it does not just start here — it lives, breathes and thrives here. Our new slogan, “Let’s Show Off”, is about making sure people sit up and take notice.
What are the challenges of staying relevant and future-proofing the awards for both everyone within the industry and the general public?
Futures Theatre Argos Archives Omnibus
The biggest challenge is that you cannot future-proof an awards body just by making the ceremony shinier. Plenty of people can throw a glamorous night out. That is not the hard bit. The hard bit is making sure the structure still reflects the sector it claims to represent.
Independent theatre is changing all the time. Rising costs are changing what is viable. Audience habits are changing. Reaching people is getting harder. Certain forms are more vulnerable than others. So relevance comes from usefulness. Are we recognising the right work? Are we helping people understand why it matters? Are we building pathways rather than just moments? Are we creating visibility that lasts beyond a single press cycle?
That is really what OffWestEnd 2.0 means to me. It is not just a rebrand or a shinier website. It is shorthand for the next twenty years: taking an organisation that has already helped define and champion the sector, and building it into something more robust, more digitally effective and more infrastructural. I do not want OffWestEnd to be mistaken for an awards brand with a side hustle in advocacy. I want it understood as a representative body that uses awards as one of several tools to build leverage for the sector. That representative impulse has always been there at the heart of what we do, but for too long we lacked the financial stability to do it consistently, ambitiously or at the scale the sector deserves.
OffWestEnd 2.0 is about changing that. It is about harnessing data more intelligently, strengthening our platform, and earning a bigger seat at the table in conversations about theatre’s future, so that independent theatre is not merely celebrated once a year but properly advocated for all year round. If the last twenty years helped prove the value of this sector, the next twenty have to be about converting that value into visibility, leverage and long-term sustainability.
That also means being clear-eyed about technology. Automation and AI are going to reshape every part of cultural life, including ours. I do not think the answer is to pretend those tools are not coming, or to leave them entirely to the biggest institutions and commercial players to exploit first. We need to harness them conscientiously, in ways that create more public good: freeing up capacity, improving access, making our systems smarter, and helping a small organisation do more for the sector it serves. But we also have to stand up for the little guys, because if AI only ends up benefiting those already at the top, it will simply deepen the same inequalities independent theatre has always been fighting against.
And frankly, the stakes are bigger than an awards ceremony. If we get this right, OffWestEnd will not just keep pace with the next twenty years of change — it will help shape them. My ambition is simple: that the sector we have spent two decades defining becomes one we can finally sustain, strengthen and show off to the world with the confidence it deserves.
Interview with Sam MacGregor on OffFest (Offies) nominated show, Hold The Line
Interview by Louise Cannon
Hold The Line sits at the juxtapositions of comedy and getting across a really serious job and matter. This is a chance to see behind the scenes from Sam MacGregor’s real life experiences as an NHS worker on the front-line working as an NHS 111 call hanlder.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Sam MacGregor about NHS 111, what the public don’t always see and about how he has brought his real life experiences together to create and star in his critically acclaimed theatre show, Hold The Line. There’s more to it than meets the eye and what he has to say is fascinating and important…
The play, that debuted successfully at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on tour from the 22nd April. Links to tickets and a trailer can be found at the end of the interview.
“Most people think of NHS 111 as the number you call for minor ailments – a twisted ankle, a high temperature, a late-night worry – but for the people on the other end of the line, the stakes can be just as high as those faced by paramedics and emergency responders. This hidden, high-stress side of the job – where even a ‘routine’ call can become a life-or-death crisis – is at the heart of Hold the Line, revealing the unseen strain of a role that asks people to absorb trauma in real time, with no time to process, pause, or recover.“
Set over the course of a single, nightmare shift in a London call centre, the play takes audiences into the rarely seen world of the unsung heroes of healthcare – the call handlers who juggle relentless targets, limited resources, and human lives on the line.
When Gary, a health adviser and unlikely everyman, picks up a routine call from a panicked son whose father is slipping into a diabetic coma, a normal shift suddenly spirals into chaos. With escalating stakes, impossible decisions, and the constant pressure to keep the lines moving, Gary is forced to confront the emotional and moral toll of a job that demands constant composure – even when lives hang in the balance.”
Without further ado, let’s welcome Sam MacGregor to Bookmarks and Stages.
Hold The Line is based on your real-life experiences working within NHS 111. What made you decide to create a show and how did you decide what life stories and experiences to portray on stage?
It wasn’t until a few years into the job that I realised there was potential for a story to be made here. I’ve seen enough medical dramas such as Doctors and Scrubs to know what would be interesting to the public. I knew that there was nothing like this in terms of NHS 111’s exposure to the public, so I wanted to make some kind of story. I thought long and hard about what stories to use, as there are a lot of complex and potentially interesting angles to look at. In the end I decided on there being two main patient/caller storylines that I thought would be a good story to follow. We have one call handler who deals with multiple medical calls on shift and two of them are particularly complex and are the bulk of the story we encounter.
How did it feel writing and knowing you were going to perform your experience of working in the NHS. Did you get something out of it and what do you feel at the end of each performance?
I think it’s quite empowering telling this story. I always get a rush when I perform on stage, but there’s extra satisfaction knowing it’s something you’ve written yourself, especially when it’s about a subject you have a personal connection to. I also think the audience appreciates that, as there have been times (at the Edinburgh Fringe for example) when people would be pleasantly surprised when I told them I had also written the show they had just enjoyed watching. Each performance can be different, so how I feel at the end can change every time. Usually I have a sense of pride in not only myself but my co-actor on stage (Gabi).
Have your colleagues seen it and what do they think of your show?
A fair few of the office staff came and watched it last year during our Edinburgh Fringe previews and had nothing but good things to say. For some staff it was the first time they had ever stepped foot in a theatre, so that is also lovely to hear!
People have called NHS 111 for all sorts of ailments, what the public aren’t shown is what happens behind the scenes when things turn from minor to serious and suddenly there’s a life or death situation. How does the responder handle this change?
If you’re an experienced call handler, and if a call goes from mundane to serious very quickly, you know what you have at your disposal. There’s a nurse and a supervisor, or even colleagues, who can step in and offer any assistance if need be. It’s a matter of keeping calm, remembering to breathe and just focusing on the patient’s needs for the duration of the call.
There’s both humour and tension in your show. How did you keep that balance and why do you feel it’s important to portray the highs, the lows and unexpected twists in what can happen in a single shift?
Most good comedies walk the line well between drama and comedy and I think Hold the Line does this well. The job itself is very up and down in terms of the types of calls you can get and the people you encounter, so I wanted to do it justice. There are parts of the play that hit quite hard, so I knew that there needed to be some light comic relief after these moments.
NHS 111 call handlers are under more pressure and stress than the public may realise. How do you deal with that and how do you portray the effects of mental health on stage so the audience really understands what is going on with some call handlers internally and externally?
Essentially you deal with it by finding a good balance between taking lots of calls but taking breaks, keeping hydrated and having lots of snacks. We usually have to remind the public how busy we are due to demand, and most of the time the public is very receptive to hearing this from us. I think frustration, tiredness and low moods are the main feelings expressed throughout Hold the Line between the staff in the play.
You expose the contradictions of a workplace where “productivity is key” – targets must be met, calls must be answered, and efficiency is always under scrutiny – yet where the fundamental mission is to keep people safe and well. How do you feel about that within the NHS and how do you portray this in your show?
It’s a tricky one because on the one hand I don’t think its helpful putting such a subjective and personal thing in strictly just an objective/numbers and data based way. However, if you didn’t keep an eye on these things then who knows what the NHS might look like. In our play, in the world in which we meet Gary (health adviser) we are constantly reminded of how busy the service is. The audience is privy to the data and numbers side of the job at the same time seeing how this effects not only Gary but the patients/service. I want people to understand Gary’s frustration and be affected by how this causes issues within the story. I don’t want it to be too jargon heavy and too obvious for the patients at how inundated the 111 service gets, but I think the play walks the line well between explaining enough but not too much so that the audience feels like its exposition heavy.
What does when human emotion collides with institutional indifference, how does it affect call-handlers who have more calls to take and whole shifts to do? What do you feel needs to change to make the institutional indifference attitude better?
There is always time for reflection or some downtime if your shift is getting particularly hard or upsetting, but the calls always keep piling up, and you are always reminded of this. There is always someone higher than your line manager who has to keep an eye on the quantitative side of things, like a pyramid of hierarchy. So despite being great at your job, if you take lots of breaks or maybe you aren’t hitting certain targets, you will be reminded about this.
What do you hope audiences take away with them?
Hope. Hope for a better and more productive NHS service. I want people to understand the humanity of the play, to care for a stranger if you have to, to listen and show understanding.
Not to get too political, but to really take home how precious the 111 service is as well as the NHS. People who probably use private healthcare are making important decisions that affect those who use public services, a service which they themselves (the politicians) don’t use.
Where can people follow across social media?
Instagram- @holdtheline_play
Instagram- Writer/performer- @samhazamacg- Sam Macgregor
Instagram- Performer- @gchanova- Gabriel Chanova
Instagram- Director- killeenmesoftly- Laura Killeen
‘While the theme is deadly serious, shards of humour lighten the darkness’ ★★★★The Times ‘Gripping and thoughtful production’ ★★★★★ LondonTheatre1 ‘Thoughtful, well-performed and quietly damning’ ★★★★ One4Review ‘Sharp, darkly comic episodes and poignant moments combine for a heartfelt drama’ ★★★★The List
Interview with Alexjandro Vilpa New Streaming Service, Vilpa Max
Interview by Louise Cannon
Streaming Services/platforms, we are all very familiar with them and watch from the likes of Netflix, Prime, Now TV, BBCI Player and more… Now there’s a new one to explore called Vilpa Max. Alexjandro has worked from the best award-winning producers, including those involved in blockbusters such as James Bond. The service is said to be already having a positive impact on the film and streaming industry from its launch earlier this year, 2026.
Here, in this fascinating interview, you can discover how you can access Vilpa Max and how you can get in touch if you work in the film industry and would like to consider it as a platform for your film. You can also follow on YouTube, Instagram, Tik-Tok, all of which you can find details of at the end of the interview.
Let’s now welcome Alejandro Vilpa to Bookmarks and Stages to tell you more…
Vilpa Max is your new platform and has the aim, firstly in the UK, North Africa and the Middle East, to provide short filmmakers from around the world an opportunity to present their work to a global audience. How did you come up with this idea and can you say a little more about the process of seeking out the filmmakers?
The idea came from my own experience as an artist. When I finished making my first short film, The Undertone of David Jansen, I faced the question of how to bring it to the market, and that’s when I realized there was a significant gap between emerging voices and the industry. So I decided to build a bridge — a space where emerging filmmakers and top-tier, award-winning cinema could coexist as equals. That’s how Vilpa Max was born.
We normally scout emerging filmmakers at festivals, and many of them also reach out to us directly. They all go through a curating phase, and if they meet the quality criteria, we offer them a place in our catalogue.
You already have short films set to be featured as Vilpa Max launches, including Oscar-winning short “The Mozart of Pickpockets” from writer/director Philippe Pollet-Villard, the Oscar-nominated “The Red Suitcase” from director Cyrus Neshvad, and Palme d’Or winning “All the Crows in the World” from writer/director Yi Tang.
What was their reaction to Vilpa Max and its aims?
They were very excited. I’ve been very fortunate to work with major producers in the past, such as the producers behind the James Bond films, so bringing Oscar-winning cinema to my app was not a new path for me.
What is the process for a filmmaker to get their work on the streaming platform?
They have to send their films to our email: business@vilpafilms.com. Then our team reviews them and gives an answer. If it’s positive, they get a place in the catalogue; if it’s negative, they are entitled to receive feedback explaining why their film didn’t make it into the catalogue. It’s important to mention that the number of submissions we are receiving is reaching our full capacity, so we might introduce a submission fee very soon.
One of the aims is to empower new voices by giving them opportunities to gain international visibility and positioning as they continue building their careers. What impact on both filmmakers and audiences do you feel Vilpa Max will have on their careers?
Vilpa Max is already having a positive impact on the emerging voices in our catalogue. All of the emerging filmmakers currently featured on the platform already reach hundreds of thousands of people through our social channels. This is something we constantly track and provide evidence of.
On the other hand, they have gone from not having their work on streaming platforms to being streamed alongside Oscar- and Cannes-winning films. This gives them a badge of credibility and a level of positioning that no other player in the industry could offer them.
Who will the filmmakers be able to show their production to?
To the audience we have in MENA and the UK, which is typically people between the ages of 22 and 55 who appreciate high-quality cinema. To give an example, we reached 11,000 subscribers in just six days of operation. This gives a good sense of the potential reach their work can have if they become part of Vilpa Max.
What genres of films can people expect to find to watch?
We have a wide variety of genres, including drama, horror, comedy, coming-of-age, and short documentaries. One of the audience favorites, however, is animated films. For example, we have Waves ’98, which won at Cannes in 2015 and is very interesting to watch. We also feature an emerging filmmaker, Arseniy Oleinik, with his animated film Cafe, and both are receiving a wonderful response from audiences.
You, the founder of Vilpa Max and Vilpa Films are an internationally published author in Mexico, Latin America, and Spain. You also work with Oscar-winning and Cannes-acclaimed films, are on the Forbes Business Council and have previously contributed to the script development team at Caledonia Productions, the U.S. branch of Eon Productions, the producers of James Bond. With all this experience, can you pinpoint that gives you the edge in the competitive nature of streaming?
Yes, the only reason I was able to create Vilpa Max is because I learned how to market content from some of the best producers in the world.
Where can both filmmakers and audiences find Vilpa Max when it launches on Saturday 31st January?
You can find us at www.vilpamax.com and also on the App Store as Vilpa Max. We are launching the Android version very soon. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok as @vilpamax, and on YouTube for previews and trailers under the same handle.
Riki Lindhome is perhaps best known for the film franchise, Knives Out, Wednesday, The Big Bang Theory and more, that will be mentioned later. Among her fans is Michelle Obama. Even with all this, she remains grounded and explains later how that is. Currently, Riki Lindhome is appearing in theatre (see details after the interview), starring in her show, Dead Inside. A comedy hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, now touring, it tells about the life journey of fertility, freezing eggs, surrogacy and adoption. We talked about this, resilience and hope, being one half of comedy music duo Garfunkel and Oates and of course being part of popular major film/tv/streaming franchises.
Let’s welcome Riki Lindhome to Bookmarks and Stages as she tells us her fascinating, insightful, authentic answers. Thank you to Gingerbread Agency for connecting us.
What or who inspired you to become an actress?
I remember being six years old and seeing a girl who looked like me in a bubble gum commercial. I felt such palpable jealousy every time that commercial came on that I turned to my mom and said, “That’s going to be me someday.”
You are most widely known for Knives Out” and “Under the Silverlake” and major hit shows “Wednesday”, “The Big Bang Theory”, “Brooklyn 99” and most recently “The Muppets Mayhem”. How does that feel to be part of hugely popular shows and how does this impact your career when you go off to do other types of shows such as your new comedic one-woman musical “Dead Inside” that originated at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has now transferred to Soho Theatre, London?
I felt so lucky to be a part of those projects. There’s something very special about being involved in work that people connect to on that scale.
What’s interesting is that something like Dead Inside is almost the opposite experience. It’s much more personal and much more exposed. When you’re part of a big show, you’re one piece of a larger machine. With this, it’s just me, so the connection with the audience is very direct.
I think the two sides actually support each other. The larger projects give me a platform, and then something like Dead Inside lets me define my voice more clearly.
Dead Inside addresses infertility and delves into freezing eggs, embryo implantation, pregnancy loss, undiagnosed medical conditions, surrogacy, adoption. How important do you think this is to be portrayed on stage and how did you go about infusing it with comedy?
I think it’s important because it’s something so many people go through, but often very privately. There’s still a lot of silence around it, which can make it feel even more isolating.
For me, comedy was the way in. It allows you to talk about something that might otherwise feel too heavy or difficult. I wasn’t trying to make light of the experience, I was trying to make it shareable. If people can laugh, they’re more open, and that creates space for the more emotional aspects of the story as well.
You have dug into your own life experiences to bring to stage, how did you feel doing this did you have support, if you wanted some?
It was definitely a process. At the beginning, it felt more vulnerable, because I was still very close to the experience. Over time, it became more about shaping the story than reliving it.
I’ve been very lucky to have supportive collaborators and friends who helped me develop the show. My director, Brian McElhaney, said he wanted to direct the show before I even wrote it. I just told him about the idea and he was like, “I want to be a part of that.” Then, Zach Zucker from Stamptown and Alchemation helped me bring it to Edinburgh (also before they saw the show). So I’ve felt very supported in this whole journey, honestly right from the start.
You emphasize resilience and hope within your show. What does that mean to you and how do you feel it comes across to your audiences so far?
For me, it’s less about a clean, inspirational version of resilience and more about continuing even when things are uncertain or don’t go the way you expected. The experience I went through didn’t follow a straightforward path, and I think that’s true for a lot of people in different areas of life.
I think what audiences connect to is that it’s not presented as a perfect or resolved journey. It’s more about navigating something complicated and still finding moments of humor and joy within it.
You are one half of musical comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates and have toured the world. Michelle Obama is a fan and you have amassed over 100m hits on YouTube.
How do you stay grounded and how do you use each success to propel you into doing a new show, such as your current one, “Dead Inside”?
It’s been very easy for me to stay grounded because I’ve experienced far more failure than success. But I have been lucky to be a part of so many amazing projects and hopefully, each thing I do makes me more equipped to do the next one.
Where can people find more info about your show, social media and You Tube channel?
You can find information about the show, tickets, and updates on my website rikilindhome.com, my Instagram, TikTok and Facebook @rikilindhome and my YouTube channel @rikilindhomesongs
Riki Lindholme will be performing Dead Inside at Soho Theatre from 31stMarch – 18th April. Tickets available HERE.
Bookmarks and Stages by Lou 