JUSTIN BUTCHER - writer & performer
Justin read Classics Greats at Oxford, trained subsequently at Drama Studio London, and has worked all over the world as director, writer, actor and musician in a vast range of roles and productions in theatre, television, radio and film.
His epic play Scaramouche Jones, starring the late Pete Postlethwaite, has been touring the globe since its premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival 2001, has won and been nominated for several awards, translated and produced in five languages. In 2003 his anti-war satire The Madness Of George Dubya, hailed by The Guardian as the catalyst for the re-politicisation of British theatre, received unprecedented global media coverage, played to packed houses for five months in London's West End, and along with its sequel A Weapons Inspector Calls, earned Justin the Fringe Report Best Political Dramatist Award. The third in the trilogy, Guantanamo Baywatch, was produced in the West End in the run-up to the November '04 US Presidential election.
His comic update of the Phaedra/Hippolytus legend, Breaking Strain, was a major hit at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, hailed by The Scotsman it as a 'modern classic'. Other recent directing credits include: The Red Room (Union Theatre, London); The Winter's Tale (Creation Theatre, Oxford); the Trade Justice Vigil, a huge multi-media event at Westminster Abbey for the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Pete Postlethwaite, Damian Lewis, Ronan Keating, Beverley Knight and Jools Holland; His own re-working of the Mystery Plays, The Millennium Man (Theatre Royal, Bath & UK tour) and his own commedia-style passion play, King Of Fools (Westminster Abbey and five UK tours); Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy (Colorado Festival of World Theatre, USA); Child Of Biafra (Contact Theatre, Manchester). He has also written five plays for BBC Radio 4: Chukwudebelu - Preserved Of God; The Man On The Pillar; The Seven White Masks Of Scaramouche Jones (starring Warren Mitchell), The Patience Of Mr Job and Escape From Gaza.
In August '08, he gave a highly-acclaimed run of Scaramouche Jones, directed and produced by Guy Masterson/Theatre Tours International, at the Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe. This production toured the UK throughout 2009 and played the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia, 2010 and 2012, nominated for the Bank SA People's Choice Award.
His play, Go To Gaza, Drink The Sea, co-written and directed with Ahmed Masoud in response to the invasion of Gaza in January 2009, generated critical acclaim and controversy and transferred to the Assembly Rooms at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe. His adaptation of Stanislav Stratiev's Cold War satire The Roman Bath (Arcola Theatre, Apr-May '10) was praised by Michael Billington in The Guardian and Michael Coveney in The Independent for introducing UK audiences to the work of a major Eastern European satirical writer. In Dec '09 - Jan '10, he performed in and directed the music for Phil Porter's Cinderella at the Unicorn Theatre for Children. His first book, Jimmy - A Legacy Of Peace, the biography of Jimmy Mizen, published in May 2013 was described by The Guardian's Erwin James as 'One of the most moving books I have ever read.' His latest stage plays are Childhood In Berlin, a dramatisation of German-Jewish memoirs of pre-war Berlin, and The Last Great Quest, commissioned by the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, to mark the centenary of Captain Scott's Antarctic Expedition, scheduled to premiere in 2015, followed by UK and international touring.
Most recently, he has produced and curated the hugely successful Bethlehem Unwrapped festival at St James's Church, Piccadilly, over Christmas 2013, working with Nigel Kennedy, the Tallis Scholars, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel, and a glittering programme of Palestinian, Israeli and British artists in a contemporary celebration of the life and culture of Bethlehem, to festival audiences of nearly 30,000 people and global coverage on television, radio, internet and social media.