Green door, what’s that secret you’re keeping?

According to the 1956 hit song, ‘there’s an old piano and they play it hot behind the green door’. It’s a tune that was running through my head as I approached a battered green door in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. However, rather than finding a smoke-filled speakeasy, I discovered an entirely different world of wonders: a

A Writer’s Life: The Joy of Research

For me, one of the great priviledges of being a writer is time spent doing research. In most walks of life if you rocked up on someone’s doorstep and asked to nose around, they’d most likely tell you where to go. Explain you’re a writer, however, and they’ll happily share their life story! What follows

Open Door at The REP

In 2013, BOLDtext Playwrights initiated discussions with Birmingham REP about presenting New Writing nights, and the OPEN DOOR initiative emerged. We pioneered it by presenting eight individual pieces of work-in-progress to a growing regional audience hungry for new work that reflected their lives. Click ‘continue reading’ or scroll down for older posts about the shows.

This doesn’t happen every day…

Liz John and Tim Stimpson don’t just write for BOLDtext. They also pen the ‘everyday story of country folk’ that is The Archers. Liz and Tim joined the rest of the cast and crew at Clarence House to celebrate the show’s 70th anniversary with the Duchess of Cornwall. Below Tim reflects on an unusual day.

Bolder, Better, Brilliant

We’ve come a long way since we started in 2014. Beginning in The DOOR at the Birmingham Rep, we’ve burst out onto the streets of Digbeth, into the garden of a mansion, and even taken over a jail. We figured it’s about time we wrote down what it is we do. Read our manifesto below.

Follow Me

In summer 2019 it was anounced that the Birmingham Weekender would be going ahead. Planned for the beginning of October, it left us with less than three months to devise, pitch, and produce a show for the festival. To find out what we came up with click ‘continue reading’ or scroll down for older posts.

Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up

Our first site-specific production, Behind Bars took place within the walls of a 130 year-old Victorian prison. Kicking off with nine performances in October 2018, the show’s notoriety got it sent back to the clink for a further twelve performances the following year. Click ‘continue reading’ or scroll down for older posts about the show.

The wheel of history

In 1804, Yorkshireman JOSEPH PRIESTLEY died in Northumberland… Pennsylvania. Of moving to the US, he wrote, “it is now only that I can say I see nothing to fear from the hand of power, the government under which I live being for the first time truly favourable to me.” An unsurprising comment given that he

To hug or not to hug…

I’m writing this on the day Boris Johnson decreed we could hug again. A little bit of me hoped I would open the shutters to see bleary-eyed commuters spontaneously embracing on the street, but sadly it wasn’t to be. If I’m honest, I’ve never been an enormous hugger – a combination of innate English reserve

Writing the future

I’m not one for New Year resolutions. It’s mainly because I’m useless at keeping them and I hate the feeling of failure that has normally set in by the end of the January. This year was no different. The world, however, seemed to have other ideas…. As Big Ben rang in 2021, the UK departed