Meet Heroines of the Holocaust in new theatre online from Brundibár

“They describe themselves as ‘two ordinary lasses’, so the catchphrase of the piece is ‘two ordinary girls who do extraordinary things’”

(L-R) Brundibár founder Alexandra Raikhlina; Sarah Boulter, who plays Ida Cooke; director Eilish Stout-Cairns

The full programme of this year’s Brundibár Arts Festival, which is held each January to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day, has had to be postponed until 2022, but happily one theatre event is going ahead online: The Cook Sisters – Heroines of the Holocaust.

Director Eilish Stout-Cairns and actor Sarah Boulter talk to JR’s Judi Herman about the play, which streams on Monday and tells the intriguing story of a pair of unassuming opera-loving spinster sisters from Sunderland, honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Yad Vashem.

Under the pretext of attending opera performances in Germany and Austria, Ida and Louise Cook risked their lives to rescue 29 Jews from Nazi Germany. That Ida also wrote over 100 Mills & Boon novels under her pen name Mary Burchell is just the icing on the cake in this gripping tale. Discover their story in this new play, co-devised by Lewis Matthews, director Stout-Cairns and her cast, Boulter and Natalie Simone, who have also recorded an extract that forms part of the podcast.

Ida and Louise Cook

Judi also speaks to the festival’s founder and artistic director Alexandra Raikhlina about the resonance the play has for the festival, as well as the e-book Five Composers Who Disappeared by David Mulraney, which celebrates five composers lost in the Holocaust and is released Monday 25 January by Brundibár.

The Cook Sisters: Heroines of the Holocaust streams Monday 25 January. 7pm. FREE. ONLINE. brundibarartsfestival.com. The performance will be streamed live from Gosforth Civic Theatre on the Brundibár Arts Festival YouTube page, where it will be available to watch afterwards for those who miss it live.

Five Composers Who Disappeared is published as an e-book Monday 25 January. Visit brundibarartsfestival.com for further information.

In conversation: Alice Hamilton

“There’s exploration of power struggles, partnership, betrayal… but fundamentally it’s about the dynamic between these two men”

L-R: Shane Zaza, Alice Hamilton, Alec Newman © Helen Maybanks

Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, which had its premiere in 1960 at Hampstead Theatre as part of the theatre’s opening season, bears the signature hallmarks of the ‘Pinteresque’. An atmosphere of menace builds around Ben and Gus, two hitmen holed up in a basement, jockeying for position as they await instructions for their imminent next job; meanwhile they receive strange messages via the dumb waiter.

This early masterpiece from Pinter was last seen in London as part Jamie Lloyd’s ‘Pinter at the Pinter’ season in 2018. This 60th anniversary stand-alone production is directed by Alice Hamilton and stars Alec Newman and Shane Zaza as Ben and Gus. Hamilton spoke to JR’s Arts Editor Judi Herman about the challenges and fascination of working with Pinter, including the new resonances this drama has about being trapped.

The Dumb Waiter runs Monday 4 – Saturday 30 January 2021. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Thu & Sat only). £18-£37, £20-£25 seniors (matinees only), £10-£15 students/under-30s. Hampstead Theatre, NW3 3EU. hampsteadtheatre.com/the-dumb-waiter

Read our review of The Dumb Waiter on the JR blog.

In conversation: Little Wars

"There's a great deal of wit and laughter and joy in all of them, but they are all survivors in their own way”

Next week the Union Theatre plays virtual host for the most fantastical what-if dinner party imaginable and everyone's invited. Steven Carl McCasland’s female-fuelled drama Little Wars, streamed online, unites iconic witty literary figureheads Gertrude Stein, Alice B Toklas, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Agatha Christie, plus anti-fascist freedom fighter Muriel Gardiner. In a comedy that truly resonates today, these women of all creeds (Jewish, gay, straight…) find themselves round a boozy dinner table in wartime France as the Nazis invade. Ahead of the release, JR's Arts Editor Judi Herman spoke to playwright McCasland, plus cast members Linda Bassett (Stein) and Debbie Chazen (Parker) about the fascination of these women – for the audience as much as the playwright and cast – as wits, their loves and rivalries, and their feistiness and sheer bravery in very different times to ours.

L-R: Debbie Chazen, Steven Carl McCasland, Linda Bassett

Other members of Little Wars' star-studded cast include Juliet Stevenson (Hellman), Catherine Russell (Toklas), Sophie Thompson (Christie) and Sarah Solemani (Gardiner). Funds raised will be donated to the charity Women for Refugee Women.

Little Wars streams until Thursday 3 December. £12. ONLINE. www.littlewars.co.uk

Read our review of Little Wars on the JR blog.

In conversation: Steve Waters

“By keeping it quite individualised and quite localised that helped me not to get lost in the geopolitics”

This week sees the start of Steve Waters’ Miriam & Youssef, a podcast and radio drama series for BBC World Service, charting the turbulent decades leading up to the founding of Israel. The playwright spoke to JR's Arts Editor Judi Herman about the ambitious project, which is told from the viewpoints of two former neighbours: Miriam, a Jewish refugee who emigrates to Palestine, and Youssef, a Palestinian Arab. Set between 1917 and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, their lives are intertwined with real historical characters and events. The series co-stars Shani Erez as Miriam and Amir el Masry as Youssef. Listeners may remember hearing Israeli actor Erez speaking to Judi last year, when she played Shylock as a proud widow and mother in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s hugely successful reimagining of The Merchant of Venice for schoolchildren.

At the heart of Waters' ambitious project is the city of Jerusalem, seen during the three decades of the British Mandate. The drama also features real-life figures, including David Ben-Gurion, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and American intellectual Rabbi Judah Magnes, whose lives intersect with the core fictional characters.

Episode one of Miriam & Youssef is available now on BBC World Service.

In conversation: Stephen Laughton

"I spoke to people who have been hospitalised in attacks that came from a place of hate"

Stephen Laughton’s play One Jewish Boy, which enjoyed a sold-out run at Islington’s Old Red Lion Theatre, has now transferred to London’s West End. Laughton discusses with JR Arts Editor Judi Herman how he has welcomed the chance to develop this moving two-hander, which explores a young family’s struggle against fear, prejudice and the identity inheritances that haunt us. He also expands on how he's updated a play originally written from a place of genuine fear and as an urgent response to overt antisemitism – of which he himself has been the target – in light of the acceleration of hate crime incidents in the UK and elsewhere.

One Jewish Boy runs until Saturday 4 April. 7.45pm, 3pm (Sat only). £20-£47.50. Trafalgar Studios, SW1A 2DY. https://trafalgar-studios.com

Also listen to our interview with Robert Neumark-Jones (who plays Jesse) and read our 2020 review of One Jewish Boy.

In conversation: Peter Kavanagh

“It’s a document of two cultures in complete opposite gyres interacting, of the clash and the rich things that come out of it”

In Paul Kember’s award-winning comedy drama Not Quite Jerusalem, four young Brits flee grim divided London of the late 1970s for Israel, in search of sun and fun on a kibbutz working holiday. Except it turns out to be more hard work than holiday under the blistering Middle East sun. There's conflict, alienation and resolution, and at least one love story in store, as they get to know their kibbutznik hosts. The show broke box office records at the Royal Court Theatre, where it premiered in 1980 and revived in 1982. Now it’s the choice of Finborough Theatre to celebrate the 40th anniversary of both the theatre and the play. In a brief break from final rehearsals, director Peter Kavanagh spoke to JR’s Arts Editor Judi Herman about the play and about the UK and Israel – then and now.

Not Quite Jerusalem runs until Saturday 28 March. 7.30pm, 3pm (Sat & Sun only). £18-£20, £16-£18 concs. Finborough Theatre, SW10 9ED. www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Read our review of Not Quite Jerusalem on the JR blog.

In conversation: Blitz! cast Danniella Schindler & Jessica Martin

"It’s irrelevant that our family is Jewish, we’re all the same, stuck in that shelter; we all muddle in regardless of religion or race"

Danniella Schindler (left) and Jessica Martin (right)

Lionel Bart’s musical Blitz! is currently enjoying a well-deserved revival at London’s Union Theatre. This is Bart’s autobiographical love letter to the East End where he grew up, in which he pays tribute to the wartime spirit of the Londoners who lived through Hitler’s devastating aerial bombardment of the capital. JR’s Arts Editor Judi Herman spoke to Jessica Martin, who plays the indomitable Jewish matriarch Mrs Blitzstein (based on Bart’s own mother) and Danniella Schindler, who plays her eldest daughter Rachel Finklestein.

Blitz! runs until Saturday 7 March. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Sat & Sun only). £22, £20 concs, £15 under-18s. Union Theatre, SE1 0LR. www.uniontheatre.biz

Read our review of Blitz! on the JR blog.

'Our Hotel' sung by the Blitz! cast at The Theatre Cafe, London. Featuring Rosa Lennox (on accordion), Jessica Martin, Eleanor Griffiths and Caitlin Anderson.

In conversation: Scott Schwartz

“The burning bush is our entire ensemble; and they sing the voice of God so it’s many voices in one”

As The Prince of Egypt – the new musical based on the blockbuster film – opens in London, director Scott Schwartz took time out of rehearsals to talk to Judi Herman about what is essentially the story of Exodus. Two young men, raised together as brothers in a kingdom of privilege, find themselves suddenly divided by a secret past. One (Ramses) must rule as Pharaoh, the other (Moses) must rise up and free his true people, the Hebrews, and lead them out of Egypt. Scott elaborates on themes of the show and their relevance today, discusses the vision of the creative team, and reveals what it’s like working your father – in this case, three-time Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Godspell). Stephen has written 10 new songs for the show, including the love duet, ‘Never in a Million Years’, sung by Luke Brady (Moses) and Christine Allado (Tzipporah).

On her way out, Judi also stopped off at the costume department to gain fascinating further insight from one of the assistant costume supervisors, Lydia McDonald, who talked through some of the stunning design sketches by Ann Hould-Ward, as well as the materials and trims that go into the making.

The Prince of Egypt runs until Saturday 31 October. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Thu & Sat only). From £19.50. Dominion Theatre, W1T 7AQ. www.theprinceofegyptmusical.com

Read our review of The Prince of Egypt on the JR blog.

In conversation: Miriam Sherwood

"Over the course of making the show I feel like I’ve got to know him"

Theatremaker Miriam Sherwood tells Judi Herman the extraordinary story of her late grandfather, Jan ‘Laco’ Kalina – Slovakian Jewish satirist, joke collector, cabaret creator and radio performer – who survived the Nazis only to be imprisoned by the Communists. He died eight years before her birth, yet thanks to the treasure trove of writings he left behind, he is her collaborator on the show Rendezvous in Bratislava that she dubs "a grandad cabaret". Sherwood talks too about the highly original performance style and musical numbers created with and by her contemporary collaborators: jazz flautist, singer and composer Maria Rehakova, and composer/performers Thom Andrewes and Will Gardner. Listeners also get to hear an extract from the show, the satirical number ‘Socialism with a Human Face’, with words in both English and Slovak that they teach the audience.

Rendezvous in Bratislava tours the UK until Sunday 17 May; visiting Oxford (7 Feb), Berkshire (11 Mar), Greater Manchester (14 Mar), London (23-24 Apr) and Yorkshire (17 May). See JR listings for further details or visit rendezvousinbratislava.wordpress.com

Read our review of Rendezvous in Bratislava on the JR blog.

In conversation: Naomi Sorkin

“It was always the dramatic that appealed to me, as it did to Ida”

Actor, dancer and influencer from her teens, an acclaimed Cleopatra, impresario – and a Jewish star… This is an apt description of both the eponymous heroine of Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act, and Naomi Sorkin, the multi-talented performer who takes on the title role in this biographical drama. Rubinstein worked with the likes of Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Debussy, and commissioned Ravel’s Bolero! Famed to this day in Russia and her native Ukraine, she is all but forgotten in the West. But all that is about to change now that Sorkin is championing her in this multimedia show, combining text, movement, music, projections and film to evoke the shock of the new in early 20th-century performance arts.

In the auditorium of The Playground Theatre – one of London’s newest and the only theatre in White City, which she runs with her husband, fellow actor, director and impresario Peter Tate – Sorkin speaks to JR's Arts Editor Judi Herman about her own career, as well as the life and loves of Ida Rubinstein.

Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act runs until Saturday 16 October*. 7.30pm, 3pm (9 Oct only). £10-£22. The Playground Theatre, W10 6RQ. https://theplaygroundtheatre.london

*This show has been rescheduled from 2020.

Read our review of Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act on the JR blog.