Episode 56: Simon Startin

Understudying Noah in primary school, the celebratory moment of taking your shoes and socks off and running down the road, and the debut of a brand-new Idiot game: ‘How Well Do You Know Your Sibling?’ All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring celebrated performers, and The Three Musketeers cast members, Michael and Jasmine Elcock. 

A fear of the cows in Button Moon, deliberating his loyalties between Whitley Bay and Camber Sands and the development of his new play, Brock’s Mill. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring the award winning writer, and RSC Writer-in-Residence, Stewart Pringle.About Stewart PringleStewart is a writer and dramaturg from the North-East of England. His plays for the stage include The Bounds (Royal Court, Theatre Live) and Trestle (Winner of the 2017 Papatango New Writing Award), as well as plays for young audiences for the National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse. He is currently Writer in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his new play Brock’s Mill will open in April 2027.  Before the RSC, Stewart was Senior Dramaturg at the National Theatre, Associate Dramaturg at the Bush Theatre and Artistic Director of the Old Red Lion Theatre. He lives in Rye with his wife Lauren, with whom he occasionally writes audio drama, and their tortoise Sacher, who never lifts a bloody finger. 

The instinct to punch each other on stage, going to prison with your mother and playing the around-the-world sailor Ellen MacArthur. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring the award winning In Bed With My Brother.About In Bed With My BrotherIn Bed With My Brother is Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn and Kat Cory: three best mates based in Exeter, London and Margate, UK, making work together for over a decade. Their collaborations span theatre, performance, art, cabaret, music and nightlife, blending chaos, tongue-in-cheek humour and high-octane theatrical spectacle.​ https://www.inbedwithmybrother.com/ ​

Having nerves of steel, swapping a marketing degree for a career in lighting design, and Paul getting expert advice on his new kitchen light dilemma. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring Olivier Award winning lighting designer, Aideen Malone.About Aideen MaloneAideen is an award winning lighting designer. She first worked with Told by an Idiot on Napoleon Disrobed (Arcola Theatre and UK tour) and has since worked with the Idiots on Charlie and Stan (Wilton's Music Hall, UK tour, Queen Mary 2 and China tour) and The Cat and the Canary (Chichester Festival Theatre). She is also lighting designer on Told by an Idiot's upcoming co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company; The Three Musketeers.  Aideen's work includes:  Into The Woods (Bridge Theatre : Olivier Award winner/ Profile Award winner); Authenticator, Jane Eyre, Peter Pan (National Theatre); Atonement, Magic (Chichester Festival Theatre); Carousel, Twelfth Night, Fiddler On The Roof Olivier Award nomination (Open Air Theatre/Barbican); Kyoto (RSC/West End/Lincoln Centre); Death of A Salesman, Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, Hetty Feather , Worst Witch (West End); La Strada, 50 First Dates (The Other Palace); Outwitting The Devil (Avignon Festival); Hamlet (Young Vic); A Kind Of People (Royal Court); Road (Royal Exchange); Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning  (National Theatre Scotland: Profile Award nomination); Wonder Boy, You Bury Me (Bristol Old Vic); A Monster Calls (Old Vic); Duet For One (Orange Tree); A Raisin In The Sun, Talent (Sheffield Theatres); The Clothes They Stood Up In (Nottingham Playhouse); Running With Lions (Lyric Hammersmith); Old Bridge (Bush Theatre); Brighton Rock (York Theatre Royal); Ariodante, The Turn of the Screw, The Marriage of Figaro, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mary Queen of Scots, Così fan tutte, Jenufa and Tosca (English Touring Opera); Bird of Flight (Sovereign House, Brighton); Sadlers Wells East Foyer (Sadlers Wells East). 

Turning down his initial audition for Harry Potter, dreaming of scoring for Aston Villa over winning a BAFTA and things coming full circle; from watching his dad in Henry V at Shakespeare’s Globe as a child, to recently tackling the part himself at the RSC. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring celebrated actor Alfred Enoch.About Alfred EnochTHEATRE INCLUDES: Henry V (RSC); A Midsummer Night’s Dream {for one night only} (Shakespeare’s Globe); An Oak Tree (Young Vic); White Rabbit Red Rabbit (@sohoplace, West End); Pericles (RSC); As You Like It (@sohoplace, West End); Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe); Crave (Chichester Festival Theatre); What A Carve Up!, The Picture of Dorian Gray (online); Tree (Young Vic/Manchester International Festival); Red (Wyndham’s, West End); King Lear (Manchester Royal Exchange/Birmingham Rep); Coriolanus (Donmar Warehouse); Timon of Athens, Antigone (National Theatre). TELEVISION INCLUDES: Run Away (Netflix); Miss Austen, Trust Me, Troy: Fall of a City, Sherlock (BBC); The Couple Next Door (Channel 4); Foundation (Apple TV); How To Get Away With Murder (ABC); Mount Pleasant (Sky); Broadchurch (ITV). FILM INCLUDES: The Critic, This Is Christmas, Executive Order, Tigers, The Harry Potter series. RADIO INCLUDES: The Duino Elegies, The Kiss of the Spider Woman, Anna Karenina, Darkness. 

Taking early inspiration from Wayne Sleep and Les Dawson, relishing the art of mockery and the importance of being a constantly dripping tap. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring director, writer, performer and activist, Simon Startin.  

Meeting Paul in a field in Holland, the early days of working as one half of The Right Size and turning his hand to film directing. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring double Olivier Award winning theatre director and performer, Sean Foley.

Embodying the spirit of a tree on stage, notable music hall ancestors and claiming to be an unbeatable table tennis champion. All of this and more is discussed in this episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring theatre director and Complicité’s Senior Creative Producer, Tim Bell.

What ignites the beginnings of a design, taking inspiration from the grotesque to the world of film and the importance of mentors throughout your life. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring the three Naomi Wilkinson Award for Stage Design winners, Ioana Curelea (2019), Lulu Tam (2022) and Sonya Smullen (2025). About Ioana CureleaIoana (she/her), is a queer Eastern European set and costume designer based in London. She works across theatre and film, building visual worlds that are rooted in politics, psychology, and lived experience. She trained at Wimbledon College of Arts UAL (BA and MA in Theatre Design), and now teaches on the MA course there as well as Central Saint Martins and East 15 Acting School. She also runs guest sessions and creative workshops in places like the London Screen Academy. Teaching is an essential part of her practice—a two-way exchange that constantly recharges her creative approach. Most of Ioana’s work sits in devised and physical theatre, often circling themes like power, identity, displacement, and survival. She tends to gravitate toward projects that amplify marginalised voices and challenge conventional forms. Long-term collaborators include sanctuary company PSYCHEdelight, Open Sky, and Turtle Key Arts. About Lulu TamLulu Tam is a scenographer who likes to explore the relationship between materials, body, and space in performance. She trained on the MA Scenography at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and now she teaches Performance Design at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Theatre credits include: The Mountaintop (Curve Theatre); The Children’s Inquiry (Southwark Playhouse); Bindweed (Mercury Theatre); Showdown (Chamäleon Theater, Berlin); I Really Do Think This Will Change Your Life (Mercury Theatre); Woodhill (Edinburgh and UK Tour); The Killing of Sister George (Told by an Idiot at New Vic Theatre); Wáltsáil Abhaile (An Taibhdhearc); A Pretty Shitty Love (Theatr Clwyd); The Prince (Southwark Playhouse); This is Paradise (Traverse Theatre); Lit (Nottingham Playhouse/High Tide Festival); Seeds (Pleasance Theatre); Red/Chaos (ArtsEd); Invincible (Stephen Joseph Theatre, UK Tour, Off-Broadway Tour) and A Winter’s Tale (Les Kurbas Theatre, Ukraine).  Awards include: Linbury Prize 2015 (finalist); Taking the Stage, British Council (winner); World Stage Design 2017 (selected designer) and Naomi Wilkinson Award for Stage Design 2022 (winner). About Sonya SmullenSonya is a set and costume designer from Glasgow who graduated from Wimbledon College of Arts with a BA in Theatre Design in 2022. Her focus is to make exciting new work that celebrates playful and devised processes.  Design credits include: How Does Santa Go Down The Chimney? (Told by an Idiot / Unicorn Theatre); Three Sisters (WCA Theatre); Wasted (Lyric Hammersmith); The Poetry Brothel: I Spit Roses (The Century, Soho); Four Felons and a Funeral (Pleasance Theatre, Birmingham Hippodrome); Lose the Path, Find your Way (Arts Depot); Listen to The Forest (Tramway, Roxy Assembly); Speed Queen (Museum of Comedy, Soho Theatre); Callisto (Jermyn Street Theatre).

Living between cultures and the impact this has on theatremaking, navigating the pull between self-led work and collective creativity and a preference for Bolivian Salteñas over Coventry Godcakes. All of this and more is discussed in this month’s episode of Regrets I’ve Had A Few, featuring award winning theatre maker, Jennifer Jackson.About Jennifer JacksonJennifer Jackson is a Midlands-born, award winning British-Bolivian theatre-maker, movement director, choreographer, and performer whose work exists at the meeting point of performance and the excitement of a sports spectacle. With Jennifer Jackson Company, Jennifer creates exhilarating and empowering experiences for audiences and participants which invites them to dream into new kinships and cosmologies, and her performances encompass theatre, contemporary dance, live art, Bolivian folk dance, martial arts, and co-creation. Drawing from her mixed-heritage, Jennifer tells stories that speak to her diasporic heritage; exploring power & gender biases.Jennifer’s recent production, Wrestleladswrestle, features a gang of 30 local women and non-binary folk who are trained to playfight with her. Her solo work, Endurance, was shortlisted for the Stückemarkt at the Theatertreffen (Berliner Festspiele, 2022). She has been presented at Battersea Arts Centre, HOME Manchester, Sheffield Crucible, Cambridge Junction, The Lowry and The egg (Bath Theatre Royal). She was the inaugural artist to be awarded the Artist Takeover at Factory International, and has been supported by Britten Pears; Choreodrome (The Place, London); Theaterhaus Mitte (Berlin); Barbican Open Lab; Jerwood Arts; Leverhulme Arts Scholarship; Without Walls;  MGC Futures; The Lowry; The egg; Sheffield Theatres; and Oxford Playhouse. She was invited onto the ‘Scene Change Residency’ in 2023 by Battersea Arts Centre, HET Theater Festival, and Nederlands Theater Festival. In 2024, Jennifer presented at Caravan Assembly, and was selected to pitch Endurance at Manchester International Festival 2025.As a movement director, Jennifer’s recent credits include The Last Stand of Mary Whitehouse (Nottingham Playhouse); Bindweed (Mercury Theatre); Cowbois, Julius Caesar, and Two Gentlemen of Verona (RSC); as well as I, Joan, Merchant of Venice, and Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe).