In conversation: Ben Brown

“It was extraordinary that Himmler seemed to want to defend himself to a Jew, as if he was going to make Masur understand or sympathise”

The year is 1945 and playrwight Ben Brown takes us to the estate near Berlin, where Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Holocaust, meets in secret with a Swedish Jew and member of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur. The meeting is at the instigation of the estate’s owmer, Himmler’s Finnish physiotherapist Dr Felix Kersten, who has persuaded Hitler’s deputy to come without the Führer’s knowledge, to bargain for his life as it becomes clear that Germany is losing the war. The stakes are high, the freeing of thousands of Jews from camps is the bargaining chip, and the 'night' whose end is in sight in Brown’s tense, eye-opening drama is World War II and the Holocaust. Listen as Judi Herman speaks to Brown about his vital source material – both Kersten’s memoirs and Masur’s account written immediately on his return to Stockholm – and his fascination with vividly reimagining vital moments in 20th-century history.

The End of the Night runs until Saturday 28 May. 7.30pm, 3pm (Thu & Sat only). £18.50-£32.50, £16.50-£23.50 concs. Park Theatre, N4 3JP. parktheatre.co.uk. An online screening of the production will be presented by award-winning Original Theatre, keep an eye on our listings pages for dates, which will be announced soon.

Read our review of The End of the Night on the JR blog.

In conversation: Rebecca Taichman

“It was like two Trekkies finding each other. Paula was equally obsessed with God of Vengeance”

Rebecca Taichman won the Tony Award for best director for her production of Paula Vogel’s hit play Indecent, charting the controversy surrounding Yiddish playwright Sholem Asch’s 1906 drama God of Vengeance, a story of exploitation set in a brothel that also celebrates the passionate love between two women. It caused a furore when the English translation opened on Broadway in 1923 and the company were tried for obscenity. Happily, Indecent became one of the hottest tickets in theatre and Rebecca has been in London directing the UK premiere, now selling out at the Menier Chocolate Factory, where it opened to rave reviews. Before she returned to New York, Taichman spoke to JR’s Judi Herman about her fruitful, five-year collaboration with Vogel and their shared passion for telling “the true story of a little Jewish play”.

Indecent runs until Saturday 27 November. 8pm (Tue-Sat), 3.30pm (Sat & Sun only). £37.50-£47.50. Menier Chocolate Factory, SE1 1RU. menierchocolatefactory.com

Read our five-star review of Indecent on the JR blog.

In conversation: Victor Esses

"I grew up in a very Jewish religious Sephardi community in Brazil – our history is so embedded in migration, it exemplifies the Jewish identity"

What makes a home for you? Victor Esses answers this very personal question in Where to Belong, a one-man multimedia show that shares his exploration of his own rich identity as Jewish-Lebanese, Brazilian, gay and, as a result of the Lebanese crisis of 1975, a second-generation refugee. As the show takes on a poignant topicality in the current refugee crisis, Esses speaks to JR’s arts editor Judi Herman about how he discovered more about himself and his heritage to make this poignant show, which includes storytelling, music, photographs and – thanks to video – a moving appearance by his mother.

Where to Belong tours Friday 3 September – Thursday 14 October, stopping in London (3 Sep); Oxford (7 Sep); Harlow (9 Sep); Bedford (18 Sep); Cardiff (23 Sep); and Manchester (14 Oct). For times and prices see JR listings or visit victoresses.com/wheretobelongtour.

In conversation: Avital Raz

"If we think of ourselves as victims all the time, how can we be aggressors? I wanted to show that we’re both”

In 2013, Jerusalem-born Avital Raz released The Edinburgh Surprise, a song about a one-night stand between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. Stemming from this and the controversy it caused, My Jerusalem is her own story. Raz takes the audience through moments of her upbringing in tumultuous 1980s Israel and presents her nuanced exploration of the politics of division, using live music, projected images and storytelling. Although the national tour of the show was cut short due to Covid, it has now been filmed before a live audience in Manchester and is available to stream until Saturday 7 August. The documentary, Your Jerusalem, in which she interviews Israelis, Palestinians and people in the UK about the issues raised in the show, is also available to stream.

JR’s Judi Herman has watched both films and The Edinburgh Surprise and spoke to Raz about her Jerusalem and the experiences that led her to make My Jerusalem, a show that Judi hails as “personal, heartfelt, controversial, hard hitting and beautiful”.

My Jerusalem and Your Jerusalem are available to stream via Applecart Arts until Saturday 7 August and Sunday 8 August, respectively.

Warning: This podcast contains references to child abuse, which forms a small part of the narrative in My Jerusalem and The Edinburgh Surprise contains explicit sexual content.

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: 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.