The Stage

A Bird in the cage

Published Monday 23 August 2010 at 14:24

You find people from all walks of life producing shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - university students, Asian governments, Bill Kenwright.

This year, one can also find Julian Bird - the man who will soon be responsible for representing producers and venue owners across the UK.

Bird, who is currently chief operating officer at the Tate, is due to replace Richard Pulford as chief executive of the Society of London Theatre and Theatrical Management Association in November.

However, before then, he’s making his own producing debut up in Edinburgh.

Bird is (with the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford for whom he is a board member) co-producing The Cage at the Pleasance Dome.

The play, which is written by and stars actor Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, is an hour-long psychological thriller set on Christmas Eve.

“The audiences are loving it,” says Bird, “and we’ve had some very good reviews, as well as one stinker, but there you go.

“We’ve had lots of producers sniffing round it in Edinburgh and we’ve already had an offer to go to New York with it. We’ve also had interest from the Far East, South America, all over and some other European countries.

“We’ll see - there will be a 90-minute version that we’re going to try out and then I expect we’ll tour the 90-minute version eventually.”

Which all augurs well for when he starts at SOLT/TMA later this year.

The Cage runs until August 30 at the Pleasance Queen Dome at 3.50pm