Neal's Posts Archive - Birmingham Stage

I’ve been in literary heaven reading Barry Diller’s extraordinary life story – a man I’d never heard of who went from ABC Television to Chairman of Paramount Studios (to founding... read more

A moment’s escape from the noise

It’s almost crippling to be relentlessly battered by the ugly, simplistic and dangerous nonsense we have to put up with from the likes of Trump, Vance, Musk, Farage, and Jenrick.... read more

It’s a little bit funny

This evening I watched an eighty-two year old man perform a two and half hour, one man show, in Birmingham. At the end we all sang ‘Always look on the... read more

After a fantastic summer performing Barmy Britain with the amazing Emma Swan and Jack Ballard at the Apollo, this week I will be performing the last ever Terrible Thames tour... read more

I am in London performing with one of the loveliest and most talented companies – the same group I’ve been performing with for three years each summer and here we... read more

It doesn’t get better

Sometimes a great company of actors and stage/sound/wardrobe come along which makes you feel utterly privileged to part of – and to our great good fortune we’ve had two come... read more

This isn’t a typical entry for this blog, but I would like to publicly express my long held disgust and deep distrust of Ed Miliband. I’ve not expressed it before... read more

I didn’t know what to expect from Syria, but after performing Twelfth Night in Damascus in 2010, I stayed on to tour the country and fell completely in love with... read more

Looking back at a few posts, I realise they have been hugely nostalgic! So it’s probably no surprise that I am massively enjoying Tim West’s autobiography from 2001. Tim writes... read more

Peter O’Toole

Much as I love acting, it’s rare that I feel proud to belong to the acting profession, because it’s so often such a strange and brutal industry. But occasionally you... read more