Royal Exchange, Manchester

We had my case in the dance world.

We had some pretty massive scandals, complicated situations with theatres like Manchester Royal Exchange.

Roisin Murphy, I think, was very important.

She's an amazing pop star that's worked with us.

Amazing.

Blah, blah, blah, at the Manchester Royal Exchange.

And my dad came.

I said to... is my husband there, but it was my partner then, I said, should I invite my dad to press nine? He went, it's absolutely up to you.

Her next show for the RSC will be Coriolanus in spring 2027.

She has also directed Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing for Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, Queen Margaret at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare's Globe.

She has a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and is the co-author with Katie Brokaw of Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet and the co-author with Jeannie O'Hare of 100 Plays to Save the World.

And joining us again, Katherine Steele Brokaw is a professor of English at University of Texas at Austin and the director of Shakespeare at Wyandale at UT.

And today we are heading to Manchester.

I am joined on the line by Selina Cartmell, who has just unveiled the Royal Exchange Theatre Company season.

Featuring a variety of shows in the venue's main space and its newly opened studio space, which will be hosting a variety of new writing plays.

Kicking off next spring, Brian Friel's Faith Healer, which is directed by Emma Baggett.

No.

I, I did actually perform at the Royal Exchange Manchester in 1980 with Brian Cox.

We know Bro-- who Brian Cox is.

Of course, yeah.

Uh, it was called Have You Anything to Declare? It was a wonderful thing.

And I jumped ahead, and there was consternation as, um, actors came flooding in, uh, who were still having their cups of tea or their orange juices.

And the Royal Exchange Manchester is huge, and for anybody to travel the distance from the door into this sort of cockpit, which is the Royal, which is the actual Royal Exchange, it, it, it's enormous.

And in fact, one of the actors, John Phillips, while running on, and probably he cursed me, pulled his hamstring and was in an evil mood thereafter.

Before that, he completed an MA in conflict revolution at Georgetown.

His scholarship and art making have taken him from the Kennedy Center to Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.

With support from the Fulbright Program, the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, among others, his theater work has tackled subjects ranging from asylum seekers, imagined futures to the legacy of partition, to anti-Muslim hatred.

Today, we're talking about his new book, Making Muslimness: Race, Religion, and Performance in Contemporary Manchester, published by Routledge, a study of how British Muslims navigate identity, belonging, and public life through performance, drawing on two years of fieldwork in Manchester, including in the aftermath of the 2017 Manchester Arena attack.

So let's move on to The Producers.

Now, you did this at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, a theater which I love, and you played the role of Roger DeBris, a fantastic role to play in musical theater.

You've definitely collected some great roles in your time, with parts like this, Miss Trunchbull.

So how was it doing a musical like The Producers?