Podcast shows and indie band nights: How Scottish theatres are diversifying to attract a new audience

Live stage versions of podcasts are growing in popularity - and booking out Scottish theatres

When theatre producer Sam Hodges first tried to book venues for his live tour of popular podcast show Uncanny Live: Afraid of the Dark two years ago, he had a lukewarm response from some theatres.

“There were certain theatres whose exact words were ‘this is not for us’,” says Mr Hodges, co-founder and artistic director of production company Tilted.

But times have changed. The producer is now bringing a third tour of the show to four venues in Scotland later this year. Another of his productions based on a popular podcast, Brown Girls Do It Too, is tipped to be one of the top shows of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Mr Hodges says: “They looked at how well it [the show] did, and said ‘yes, please’, second time around. And then the third time, they've asked for an entire week. I think the fact that it had more artistic value than perhaps they had assumed, and also the fact that it brought so many new people through the doors, was a big factor.”

Now live versions of popular podcasts are becoming an integral part of many theatres’ programmes, attracting new audiences into venues, with some selling out within hours of going on sale.

Mr Hodges says he believes the style of a live show based on a podcast has evolved since they began less than ten years ago, as “two chairs and a mic on stage”. He recalls what he labels the “OGs” of the live podcast show - No Such Thing as a Fish, created by the producers behind QI, and My Dad Wrote a Porno, hosted by Jamie Morton, James Cooper, and Alice Levine, which began live shows when he was artistic director of a provincial theatre in England.

He says: “I had nothing to do with making or producing them at the time. But we would programme them and they would sell out. They would do very well on the bar. Everyone was having a good time.

Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani, hosts of Brown Girls Do it Too podcast and stage version Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not to Come. | Tilted

“Fundamentally, people were there to see the people that they had ‘got to know’ through the podcast and were really excited to be in the same room as them. But at the time, I came away as a theatre maker feeling pretty underwhelmed from a creative point of view.

“I thought ‘surely there is something more that can be done here?’ Not least because you're taking a fan base who have consumed the podcast for free and are now being asked to pay for a live ticket. I wanted to give them a better experience.”

The result was the creation of his production company and ultimately touring shows of podcasts, which Mr Hodges says he thought lent themselves to a more creative form of staging.

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Both originating on BBC Sounds, Uncanny and Brown Girls Do It Too are attracting audiences who are not usually regular theatre goers. Mr Hodges says tickets sales showed that on the first tour of Uncanny, between 60 and 70 per cent of the audience had never been to that theatre before.

He says: “Unlike theatre fans, sadly, podcast fans are real fans. It's like music. Danny Robbins, who is the guy at the heart of Uncanny, likes to think of this live tour like a band tour.

“For some fans, Uncanny is like their favourite band and that creates an atmosphere in the auditorium of really excited fans. I want to give them is something completely surprising, not just replicate the podcast on stage, but give them something new.”

The producer says he believes live shows will not replace traditional theatre, but could bring a new element to an arts genre still struggling to re-establish itself after Covid.

Theatre show Uncanny Live: Fear of the Dark started out as a BBC Sounds podcast. | Tilted

Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani, hosts of Brown Girls Do it Too and stage version Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not to Come, which is playing at Fringe venue Cowbarn at Underbelly in August, say their shows bring British Asians to “the theatres we never went to growing up”.

They say: “A lot of them approach us afterwards, hungry for more representation and they tell us they recognise their own stories in ours. People who listen to the podcast know us and act like our mates and then they bring people along to the live show who didn’t think it was for them.”

Edinburgh Playhouse theatre director Gordon Millar confirms his venue is seeing a trend towards live shows based on both a social media following and popular podcasts - and that he believes the trend will continue to grow.

“There is a shift in terms of content that we present now,” he says. “Our bedrock, our musicals and week-long shows, will always be stable. But the live entertainment that we have that’s here for one or two nights at a time has changed. There has obviously been a shift in how people enjoy themselves and a lot of it now is about podcasts.

“During the lockdown period where comedians weren’t able to go out and perform live, they found their voice through podcasts. Those remain and are hugely popular and now we find there’s a wealth of podcasts on tour. It also goes beyond just comedians - sports stars, politicians and so on.

“Where I feel the shift has come is that audiences, as well as wanting to be entertained by fiction, really value the opportunity to have an authentic connection with a real person. They also have a deeper connection with people from podcast shows because you’re with them week in, week out. So they develop a relationship, in the way that you do with an actor who is in a musical, who you go to see because they’ve been on Strictly or in a film you’re familiar with.”

Tilted artistic director Sam Hodges is behind some of the UK's most successful live podcast shows. | Tilted

He points to a coming talk at the theatre featuring tennis legend Andy Murray, which quickly sold out, due, Mr Millar says, to the sportsman’s “connection” with people. Social media star Virtual Astro’s The Night Sky Show, which has only limited tickets remaining for its Edinburgh performances in June, is another example.

“There is a rise in popularity of informative productions that are entertaining,” Mr Millar says. “I think people are looking to learn through the digital content, but they also miss the live experience, so therefore they love the live version of this.”

The Playhouse has also recently diversified into hospitality, buying up an existing bar - originally part of the theatre building - next door, which it has refurbished and branded Little Picardy.

While the theatre has always had a restaurant offering, it has been restricted to use only by theatre goers ahead of the show. The new bar allows the theatre to create a community that attracts people onto the premises more regularly.

Gordon Millar, theatre director of the Playhouse in Edinburgh. | ATG

“People are here for a good time and with that, they want the whole experience,” says Mr Millar. “But we also want to serve the community and have the community come to the theatre. It is another opportunity for people to find out what we do.”

ATG theatres, which runs the King’s Theatre and the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, has also noticed a different kind of audience coming through its doors.

Mainly younger - although perhaps not as young as the Indie Inverclyde crowd - the audience for live podcasts is different to the regular, theatre-going audience - and ATG knows this from ticket sales data.

Cancelled Podcast: International Disaster, a live show based on the popular podcast hosted by Tana Mongeau and Brooke Schofield, sold out for its one night at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre earlier this week.

“In recent years, we have had the opportunity to broaden our show programming in Glasgow to include tour dates from podcasters, television and YouTube personalities, and musicians to name a few, with many of their audience members attending our venues for the first time” says theatre director James Haworth.

For Lesley Davidson and Karen Townsend, co-directors of the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, a regular indie night for local bands has proved a hit for getting more people through the doors.

The event, known as Indie Inverclyde, is billed as a “club” night, but is aimed at teens, whose parents are required to stay on the premises during the event.

“The 14 to 21-year-old age bracket is really hard to reach,” says Ms Davidson. “We run this along the lines of a club night and for us, it’s really bringing in a new audience. When we looked at the statistics of who was coming, we realised it was a 70 per cent new audience who came in specifically for Indie Inverclyde. In that age range, this was absolutely amazing.”

Lesley Davidson (L) and Karen Townsend (R) co-directors of Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock. Pic: Christopher Bowen | by Christopher Bowen

Ms Davidson says she and Ms Townsend attended the last gig and were interested by what they noticed.

“I clocked a lot of them picking up brochures on the way out and picking up leaflets and having a wee mooch around,” she said. “You could hear the odd person saying ‘I've lived in Inverclyde my whole life and I didn't know this place was here’.

“It takes the mystery out of the art centre. A lot of people who haven't been to an art centre before think it's not for them. So if you can get them to walk through the door, you've got them hooked. They realise it's not a scary place, they know that just normal people work here. Everyone's really friendly, they’ve had a good time.”

Ms Davidson adds: “One of the things that I felt when I was growing up in a very working-class, quite poor background, was that the arts were not for me because they were for people who had money.

“For me, personally, I just think it's so important for folk to feel that they can just walk in here.”