“There is a special sense of care about a Mike Bradwell production, in dramas that penetrate deeply into the secret corners of the human heart.” Daily Telegraph.
Mike Bradwell trained at East Fifteen Acting School. He played Norman in Mike Leigh’s award winning film Bleak Moments and worked as an Underwater Escapologist and Fireater with Hirst’s Charivari and as an Actor / Musician with the Ken Campbell Roadshow.
He founded Hull Truck Theatre Company in 1971 and directed all their shows for 10 years including his own devised plays Oh What!, Bridget’s House, A Bed Of Roses, Ooh La La! and Still Crazy After All These Years. Hull Truck toured nationally and internationally and was the first British Fringe company to be invited to the National Theatre and to create work for BBC Television.
Mike has directed over 40 shows for The Bush Theatre where he was Artistic Director from 1996 to 2007. These include Hard Feelings by Doug Lucie, Unsuitable For Adults by Terry Johnson, The Fosdsyke Sagas by Bill Tidy and Alan Plater, Love And Understanding by Joe Penhall (also at the Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven), Dogs Barking by Richard Zajdliz, Dead Sheep, Shang-a-Lang and Little Baby Nothing by Catherine Johnson, Howie The Rookie by Mark O’Rowe (also Dublin and Edinburgh Festivals, PS122 New York, The Magic Theatre, San Francisco and European Tour)
Normal by Helen Blakeman, Flamingos by Jonathan Hall, Blackbird by Adam Rapp, Resident Alien by Tim Fountain (also New York Theatre Workshop, European and Australian tour) Airsick by Emma Frost, When You Cure Me, By Jack Thorne, adrenalin…heart by Georgia Fitch (also Setagaya Theatre Tram Tokyo), The Glee Club by Richard Cameron (also Duchess Theatre, Galway Festival and national tour), The Girl With Red Hair by Sharman Macdonald (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh and Hampstead Theatre), Crooked by Catherine Trieschman and Pumpgirl by Abbie Spallen (Edinburgh Festival)
Other work includes Mrs Gauguin and Mrs Vershinin by Helen Cooper (Almeida, Riverside and Kampnagel, Hamburg), Tuesday’s Child by Terry Johnson (Stratford East} The Cockroach Trilogy by Alan Williams (National and international tour), The Dalkey Archive by Flann O’Brien (Long Wharf Theatre) and productions at The Tricycle Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, King’s Head Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, The Science Fiction Theatre Of Liverpool, The National Theatre Of Brent,
The Rude Players of Manitoba and The Royal Court Theatre, where he was Associate Director. In addition Mike has written and directed for film, television and radio including The Writing On The Wall, Games Without Frontiers, Chains Of Love, Happy Feet, and I Am A Donut.
Mike’s 2010 production of D.C Moore’s The Empire at the Royal Court was nominated for both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards and won the TMA Award for best touring production. His book on alternative theatre, The Reluctant Escapologist was nominated for the Sheridan Morley Prize and won the STR Theatre Book of the Year Award. Mike’s new book on devising and directing, Inventing The Truth will be published by Nick Hern Books in Spring 2012.
Eamonn O’Dwyer – Composer & Musical Director
‘That this musical play is something special becomes clear from the very first few bars of music; its beautiful score delivers a piece of new theatre that establishes the reputation of Eamonn O’Dwyer as a [composer] to watch.’
Eamonn O’Dwyer trained at the Royal Academy of Music, and has worked as a composer and actor-musician in theatres all over the UK and the world. From 2008-2011 he played the pivotal role of the Song Man in the National Theatre’s multi-award winning War Horse in London’s West End, and in 2010 his musical The House of Mirrors & Hearts won the MTM Award for Best Original Score at the Edinburgh Festival and is currently in development for a London run.
Eamonn is a frequent collaborator at Sir Peter Hall’s Rose Theatre in Kingston, where he has written and arranged music for a variety of productions, including Stephen Unwin’s A Christmas Carol, and Ciaran McConville’s Hamlet and Our Town. He is also the Musical Director of the Rose Plus Choir, an exciting musical initiative designed to introduce choral singing to adults in the Kingston area.
Credits include: Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella directed by Alex Young at the Tabard Theatre; Liquorice & Smokerings (original score), a new play by Katie Bonna at the New Wolsey, Ipswich; Frankenstein: The Year Without a Summer (original score), for the Dorset Corset Theatre Company, directed by Helen Davis; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (original score), for the Barakura Festival Theatre in Japan – a production that was remounted for three consecutive years; Hamlet (original score), and Our Town (original score & lyrics), at The Rose in Kingston; The Massacre by Elizabeth Inchbald (original score), directed by Colin Blumenau at the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.
In 2012 Eamonn will be joining Les Enfants Terribles Theatre Company for their tour to the Adelaide Fringe Festival with their hit show The Terrible Infants.