• News

    Steeling the Turbine

    Kathy Burke will direct one-woman show Honest Amy at the Turbine Theatre (inside the old Battersea Power Station) from March to April next year. The self-deprecating and hilariously honest confessional is written and performed by Amy Booth-Steel and was a success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year – which Kathy also directed. It will run at the Turbine from March 24 to April 11, closing out the season. You can buy tickets online. Here’s the description of the show from the Turbine Theater’s website: Remember when I got cancer and had a breakdown in Tesco’s? Then literally went mental and posted some songs on Twitter? When anxiety was at…

  • Articles,  Media,  The Stock Da'wa

    Q&A: Kathy Burke

    The Guardian What is your earliest memory?Sausage and chips at Auntie Joan’s. What was your most embarrassing moment?In my 20s, walking past a building site and getting my first and last wolf whistle – I was so shocked I did the classic bumping into a lamppost. What would your super power be?Rendering a person speechless with a stony stare. What do you most dislike about your appearance?Happy with all of it – it’s other people who have expressed “dislike”. If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?Sammy Davis Junior. Who would play you in the film of your life?Beyoncé. What is your most unappealing habit?Smoking. What is your…

  • News

    (Not) Getting smaller

    Well, the reviews for Smaller are in (theatre of course doesn’t even exist outside of London, according to the media) – and it’s not good news. People don’t like it. The kindest has been three stars out of five; the cruelest one star. The FT gave it two stars but savaged it, starting with the line: “As dismal evenings in the theatre go, Smaller is not offensive – merely slow, obvious and banal.” The general feeling is that the writer – TV soap author Carmel Morgan – has extended a particularly traumatic episode into a full play. It left quite a few critics depressed – “remorselessly bleak” said The Telegraph. And yet, as ever, everyone praises Kathy Burke as director. It…

  • News

    Shepard’s delight

    The Quare Fellow has opened and is in the middle of its run. It’s got positive reviews in the FT, The Guardian and The Stage. Meanwhile, Kathy’s next play has been announced. She’ll be directing the European premiere of Sam Shepard’s The God Of Hell at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden, between 20 October and 3 December. The black comedy, described by Shepard as “a take-off on Republican fascism”, follows dairy farmers Frank and Emma, who led an uneventful life until a mysterious man starts hiding in their basement and a government official knocks at their door. Sam Shepard has written 45 plays (11 of which have won Obie Awards) including True West, Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind (Donmar)…

  • Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke
    Articles,  Media

    ‘I’d see her every day of my life if I could’

    Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke get on like a house on fire. But does he really want to make a blue movie with her? Rupert Smith meets them The Guardian “Do you smoke?” Kathy Burke is generous with her fags; she and Ray Winstone have both got one on the go, and she’s eager to thicken the atmosphere. “No? Well, you do now.” An interview with Burke and Winstone, the pearly king and queen of British acting, is an exercise in passive smoking. It also becomes clear, after a few minutes, that the fizzing liquid they are guzzling with such relish after a hard day’s rehearsal is not Perrier. The main ingredient…

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