Tag: #interview

#Interview with Off-Westend- Managing Director – Denholm Spurr – Celebrating 20 years of the Offies #offiesaward #Theatre #londonoffthewestend #TheOffies

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 Hold The Line, about NHS 111, nominated Offies 2026 play from a call handler, Touring from 22nd April 2026 #TheatreInterview by Lou #HoldTheLine #NHS111 #Play #Theatre

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

You can watch the trailer on the link HERE. 

Tickets are available HERE.

‘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

Check Out New Streaming Platform, Vilpa Max, How to Watch, How to Get Your Film Shown in this interview with Alejandro Vilpa conducted by Lou #StreamingService #Streaming #StreamingPlatform #Films #Movies #VilpaMax

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.

#Interview with Wednesday and Knives Out Actor, Riki Lindhome by Lou about her new comedy stage show, Dead Inside, tickets Available Now @rikilindhome #DeadInside

Interview with Riki Lindhome about Dead Inside
By Louise Cannon
photos by ©Elisabeth Caren 2024

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?

RIKI LINDHOME ©Elisabeth Caren 2024 All Rights Reserved

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.

#Interview with singer, songwriters Melanie Crew and Ross Palmer set music scene alight with new album Some Other Stories, gigs, radio and more… #SomeOtherStories #Music #Accoustics #Singers #Songwriters

Interview with Melanie Crew and Ross Palmer
on Album Some Other Stories, Behind the Music Scenes, Gigs, Radio and more…

Interview by Louise Cannon

Earlier in the week, I invited Melanie Crew and Ross Palmer to feature on my blog. Two normal down to earth people making big waves on the music scene with their new album Some Other Stories.
They have been composing their own songs and singing them for a number of years together and on solo work. BBC Radio 6, BBC Essex, BBC Kent, local radio stations and community radio station all support this duo from London and their unique brand of folk music and occasional songs with a sea shanty vibe too. You can also find them across all streaming platforms.
They also perform at various gigs in London and across the country when they aren’t doing their “day jobs”. You can find gig details for April and September within the interview.

Some Other Stories, available now. The album is highly relevant and mixes fun with thought-provoking, poignant lyrics that gently touch the heart and mind. The songs, coupled with their rather sweet, melodic voices makes the album easy to listen to in the car or when out walking. I have a link to their album near the end of the interview.

Please give a warm welcome to Melanie and Ross who have both answered questions below with fascinating answers so you can get to know who they are and take a little sneaky peek behind the music scene too.

  1. Who or what inspired you to sing and play folk music and why does this particular genre of music attract you to perform it?

Ross: Speaking personally, the initial attraction when I was in my late teens was the guitar playing.

I started to listen to people like Bert Jansch and Davy Graham, and slightly more singer-songwriter-y types who came out of the 1960s folk scene in the UK, like Nick Drake and John Martyn. Hearing their virtuoso fingerpicking styles and alternate tunings absolutely knocked my socks off! You just didn’t hear that style of guitar playing in contemporary music at the time – not in pop or rock, anyway.

Once I started listening to them, I started hearing these songs that were part of the tradition of folk music, centuries-old ballads that have fantastic stories to tell and have been kept alive through the folk process and mostly sung unaccompanied.

2. Melanie and Ross, you write your own songs and compose your own music. What is your creative process?

Ross: We tend to write separately for the most part, then we bring our songs to each other to start playing, working out harmonies and extra instrumental parts. We do a lot of the recording at home, and it will usually start with a guitar and vocal performance by whoever wrote the song, which we’ll then add to with extra guitars or harmonies, and sometimes bass and drums.

If we need an instrument neither of us play, we dip into the network of people we know from the London folk and singer-songwriter circuits. We’re lucky enough to know some fabulous musicians like pianist Nick Frater, double bassist Adam Beattie and violinist Basia Bartz, all of whom are writers and singers and multi-instrumentalists themselves and bring a songwriter’s ear to their instrumental parts.

3. You have been featured on Radio 6. What was that like and what was the impact, especially since you not only write music, you also have rather ordinary jobs in the mix.

Melanie: A few songs from my solo EPs were played by Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music, and since then we have both played live on BBC Essex, and Ross has played live on BBC Kent as well. We’re really grateful for the support we’ve had from local radio, not just the BBC but many other local and community-run stations.

This year, for the first time, some of our songs were played on radio shows in the US which was really nice – we recorded a live performance for the Great American Folk Show, which was broadcast on National Public Radio. Shows like this help us reach more people. However, our everyday lives haven’t changed all that much: we both have full-time jobs, and this means we are a bit more limited in how much time we’re able to spend promoting our music.  

4. How do you agree what to keep and what to discard?

Ross: If one of us has a song we think the other will like, we’ll try playing it together and if we feel like it works we’ll record it. There are occasions when we’ll finish a recording but decide it’s not quite right for the album or EP we’re making, in which case we’ll hold it back and see if it finds a home later.

5. You create images within the lyrics, especially in Take a Picture where there are reminisces of the past in scenery, the younger self and present feelings. What inspired and experiences did you draw on to write this song?

Melanie: This song, and another song called Look Back on Before which is also on the album, are both about looking back on past experiences, whilst also trying to ‘be present’ in the current moment and not letting life pass you by. Look Back on Before is a slightly more personal song – there is a line in it about having a ‘personal archive in a drawer’, which refers to a drawer I have at home full of all the diaries and notebooks I have kept over the years. Take a Picture has a similar theme of reminiscing but for this one I imagined a scenario where someone was thinking of a past relationship/friendship and happy times they spent with that person by the seaside. With lyrics, usually I have a very general concept or idea and then build something around that. 

6. Making Lists, the title of a song, is something lots of people do. You turn it on its head, almost getting people to look at them and ask deep questions about finding advice and that human thing of validation, seeping into that sense of wellbeing. When you wrote this song, what impact did it have on you both and listeners who make all manner of lists?

Melanie:  I love a good list! My phone is full of lists I have made (places I want to go, exhibitions I want to see, TV shows I want to watch, books I want to read). I also keep a list each year of all the things I’ve done. These lists help me keep track of things, and not forget stuff.  As someone who likes to plan, rather than do things spontaneously, they are very helpful! The song Making Lists is about trying to plan ahead and bring some sense of order to everyday life, but not getting too hung-up on things, by overthinking decisions or seeking external validation all the time. 

7. Close the Book is another philosophical book of when people are captured at their best, a guilty man taking the stand and when the book is closed on life and all is brushed aside. What influenced this song?

Ross: When I started that lyric, I had an image in my mind of a musician being filmed playing on stage in a TV studio, with a big clock on the studio wall. It made me think about how everything in a mediated world gets turned into a kind of performance for public consumption, even the act of being an artist. So the images in the lyrics all came out of that: being on stage or being photographed, while simultaneously feeling like a condemned man about to be executed and then forgotten.

I guess the song is about the futility of the images that we construct of ourselves for the consumption of others. Not just celebrities or influencers or performers, but basically all of us create a version of ourselves for the public that we want to be thought of as really being like.

8. Blindly Through the World and Our Captain Cried All Hands has a light sea shanty vibe in the music, a bit different from some of the other songs that have a folk music vibe. How did you find changing up the tempo and sound of the songs?

Ross: Our Captain particularly was a tricky one! The melody was “collected” by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1909 and is also used for a couple of more famous pieces: a folk song called The Blacksmith and a hymn called To Be a Pilgrim (or He Who Would Valiant Be), which we sang all the time at my Catholic secondary school.

It’s in a slightly knotty time signature of 7/4, so there’s one beat fewer than you expect, which made playing the drums on it a challenge. What’s lovely about that song is how differently it’s been interpreted by the people who have sung it. Granny’s Attic recorded a beautifully slow and melancholy version of it a few years ago, just voice and concertina, while an American freak-folk group has a very droney, modal arrangement of the song for four voices.

9. Have you got any gigs coming up and what’s next for you both in your music career?

Melanie: Yes, we have a couple of shows in April – we’re playing at Redbridge Music Lounge on 10 April, and then we’re playing at a new songwriters’ event at the Ignition Brewery in Sydenham (southeast London) on 25 April. Later in the year we’re really looking forward to returning to St Edith folk club in Sevenoaks on 25 September.

In terms of what’s next, we are planning on re-recording some old songs to give them a bit of a fresh update – then hopefully releasing those, along with a couple of new songs, on an EP. 

10. Where can people find you and listen across social media and streaming services?

Melanie: You can listen to our music on all the usual streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube music, Apple music, Amazon music. You can also find us on Bandcamp at https://melaniecre wandrosspalmer.bandcamp.com/ album/some-other-stories.

On social media you can follow us on Instagram (@melaniecrewandrosspalmer). For general updates (e.g. on gigs) you can sign up to our mailing list on our website at https://melaniecrewandrossp almer.com

#Interview with Comedian, Director, Actor Stuart Laws on new tv series, directing comedy specials and more… #StuartLaws #Comedian #Actor #Director #TVDrama #Stage #Patience #Channel4 #ComediansTakingPenaltiesWithChloePetts #StandUp

Interview with Comedian, Director, Actor Stuart Laws
conducted by Louise Cannon

Stuart Laws is known for his stand-up comedy, directing well-known comedians James Acaster, Rosie Jones and Nish Kumar and is highly respected amongst many other comedians too. I was given the opportunity to interview him on Bookmarks and Stages where we covered what it was like to direct the aforementioned comedians, his latest projects, including acting in channel 4 drama, Patience, Comedians Taking Penalties with Chloe Petts, a new web game show, Is It A Bone?, his inspiration to do these many jobs and being neurodivergent in the tv world, for him it’s autism. After the interview you can also discover his latest live shows for February and March 2026.
Welcome Stuart Laws to Bookmarks and Stages and thanks to PR, Julian Hall for creating this opportunity. Now, let’s begin our interview…

  1. You’ve done stand-up comedy, appeared in dramas, directed, it’s a great achievement. What spurs you on?

A desperate desire to prove my enemies wrong. Also, I do find it funny to not see a friend for 3-4 months and then when they ask – “oh what have you been up to?” to be able to provide a list of genuinely surprising new developments. I love watching TV, comedy, film and so to be any part of it fills me with excitement. As long as I can I will keep doing as many different, fun things until it’s very clear I’m not good at those things. VERY CLEAR. It’ll have to be VERY CLEAR.

  1. Who or what inspired you to act, direct and do comedy?

When I was a kid it was films like Jurassic Park and Back to The Future or stand up comedy like Lee Evans or Harry Hill’s Channel 4 show, then I got older and it was things like Twin Peaks and Arrested Development. Once I had started doing stand up comedy and was making short films I was really inspired by new acts that I met on the circuit and loved watching perform and made me want to be better. Chuck in enough arrogance to believe that I could help them be even better and bam, it all started to coalesce.

  1. You’re appearing in Channel 4 drama, ‘Patience’, can you tell us a little bit about the character you play?

Alex is a member of the adult autistic support group that Patience Evans, the lead character played by the brilliant Ella Maisy Purvis, attends and so I get to stretch my acting muscles by playing an autistic adult. When the audition came in I remember being excited because I don’t get a huge amount of scripted and definitely very little drama auditions so I knew I wanted to nail it. Because the show has a strong sense of humour running through it I knew I wanted to lean into that, especially knowing the character was across multiple episodes – it’s a good chance to have a think about the wider context and life of your character. Saying that, it’s not a huge part but a delight to play and the production team so good and the first series of the show so compelling and fun to work that I knew I wanted to be involved and to be able to add whatever details and experience I could.

  1. You’re a go to director for comedians, James Acaster, Rosie Jones and Nish Kumar, what is your process to direct other comedians and have you got any favourite moments when directing these comedians in-particular?

Directing a comedy special is a lot about just getting the cameras in and making sure the lights look nice and the comedian is as good a mental space as possible to do their show as well as they can. I’m there to put out fires, be a sounding-board and to ensure the crew all are supported and can do what they do best. The next level up is a chance for me to work with the comedian, watch the show in advance, suggest structural tweaks or new lines, to eventually know it inside out, know the vibe of the comedian and talk about themes, tone and style they’re looking to achieve and what of my ideas are interesting to them – it could be to do with the style of how the cameras move, where they’re positioned, what the lighting is like and how we want the audience to feel while watching. Then I get to have conversations with heads of department about the best tools for those ideas and prep the crew as best as possible about how they can make the plan a reality. We recently shot Nish Kumar’s new one and we discussed dutch angles, 70s directors and Stop Making Sense, for James Acaster we talked about wrestling, 3:2 open gate aspect ratio and creating a sense of perpetual motion so that the cameras all cut together smoothly in the full 360 degree audience set up. That’s the fun of it for me, knowing that there’s certain things a stand up special needs to have but to also know that there’s wiggle room to express what makes the comedian brilliant, to make the jokes and the themes land even harder.

  1. You have a new SO TV series of ‘Comedians Taking Penalties with Chloe Petts.’ What are your football skills like and is there a particular football team you support?

I’m a Spurs fan and a Gotham fan and played for Goldhill FC for 23 years. I’m not a good footballer but I’m pretty solid and I think I’m happy with that, let’s put it this way – there is one cup final that my team played in that’s called The Stuart Laws Final – and I’m pretty happy with that. When I met Chloe on the circuit we immediately bonded over football and both being absolute lads so getting to write on and be in this series is a real dream come true. What is less exciting is the physical toll of playing football for 10 hours straight, two days in a row on the hottest days of the year. I think it took a couple of weeks for my body to recover and I can absolutely tell in some of the penalties that I haven’t dived because my brain refused further injury.

  1. What was your favourite moment of ‘Comedians Taking Penalties with Chloe Petts?’

Harriet Kemsley being on any TV is a promise of a good time and in her episode I suggested that she do a run-up from the halfway line for her last penalty. She of course immediately ran to the halfway line to do it and after a 15 second run-up she kicked the ball and it went so far wide that science still doesn’t really understand it. It was so funny and such a perfect denouement. Aside from that, it really was the team – they were so welcoming and supportive and that was all from Chloe and Andy at the top. They had brilliant ideas and worked so hard to turn the concept from a fun summer kick about into a genuinely funny and charming series that I HOPE HOPE HOPE gets a second series.

  1. You’ve created new web game show series ‘Is It A Bone?’ It sounds intriguing, with it involving a different sense: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.. How did you come up with the idea?

I was at dinner with comedian Chloe Radcliffe and she asked for her bone marrow dish to be boxed up to take with, it was served on a bone and they put that into the box and dropped it down on our table. Chloe said “IS IT A BONE???”. I laughed and then said that it was a game show and then immediately started laying out what I saw as the format. I then mentioned it to Rhys James and he said yeah of course that’s a show and we riffed more, then I took it to Al & Nick at my production company and they both had their own great ideas. Then we got Ben Mumford on board as a producer and he brought even more ideas. That got us to shoot day where Sam Lake the host and all the brilliant guests brought even more of their own ideas to it – that’s what I liked the most, creating a set up for the comedians to be funny and do what they like, knowing we could get them back onto the format when appropriate.

  1. . For ‘Is It A Bone?’ How did you choose your contestants?

I texted a bunch of people “Would you like to be a contestant on a game show I’ve developed, it’s filming at my office studio, you’d be in two episodes and it’ll take a couple of hours?” And they just all said yes. Like, didn’t even ask for more details about the show or what they’d have to do. Which means that each of them is genuinely reacting in the moment to what’s happening. How did I choose who to text? I went through my phone and thought who is damn funny and would team up well with others? I’d say that’s 35% of my address book to be fair, so more people will be getting texted for series 2 in 2026.

    12.You’re autistic, what advice would you give to other people who want to enter showbiz who also autistic?

It’s becoming more welcome and accepting of neurodivergence, which is handy considering the percentage of people in the entertainment industry who are neurodivergent is probably higher than the average population. It can be tough, it isn’t necessarily guaranteed that every project, location, team will be open or aware or able to make adjustments but it is becoming more common. Hopefully through my increasing awareness of it and trying to be vocal and supportive where I can I can play a part in it becoming more normalised in conversation. I’m aware that I’m privileged in being white, straight, able-bodied, low needs and therefore that makes my path smoother in disclosing. I know of a good number of people who are reluctant to disclose because they feel the discrimination is palpable or it makes them feel less secure. Hopefully that is changing.

   14. Where can people follow you and your work on social media?

You gotta get on instagram, though I am now trying to crack on with building my mailing list – I send out semi-regular updates with exclusive stuff and links to tickets and other cool things before they go public. Sign up at www.stuartlaws.com

Latest Live Shows

10th February @ Pleasance London
Comedians Beer Mat Flipping Championship 
6th March @ Pleasance London
Stuart Laws as Michael Caine Saying Never for One Hour