James GRIEVE
Hello. Thanks for visiting.
I am a theatre director, artistic director and culture curator. I’m based in London.
As a freelance director my recent work includes the world premieres of Fisherman’s Friends The Musical which has played to 150,000 people on tour across the UK and in Canada, and Berlusconi: A New Musical. I directed a large-scale new production of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret for Gothenburg Opera in Sweden, the new musical The Assassination Of Katie Hopkins for Theatr Clwyd which won Best Musical Production at The UK Theatre Awards, a new production of Les Misérables for Wermland Opera and Brian Friel’s Translations for Sheffield Theatres, English Touring Theatre and The Rose Theatre Kingston which won Best Production at The UK Theatre Awards.
For 10 years I was Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough, the UK’s national theatre of new plays, alongside George Perrin. During our tenure Paines Plough produced 44 world premieres on tour to 291 places across the UK and internationally by playwrights ranging from debutants to Olivier, Tony and BAFTA winners, staged in historic proscenium arch playhouses and student union bars, at music festivals and The National Theatre, in village halls, Off-Broadway, on BBC Radio and televised on HBO. In 2014 we launched Roundabout, the world's first pop-up plug-and-play theatre to tour new plays to underserved places. For Paines Plough I commissioned, developed and directed new plays by some of the UK’s leading writers including Mike Bartlett, James Graham, Kae Tempest, Tom Wells, Penelope Skinner, Elinor Cook, Nick Payne, Anna Jordan, Brad Birch, Marie Jones and Sam Steiner.
I was Associate Director at The Bush Theatre from 2008-2010 and previously founded and ran the new writing company nabokov which grew from student bedroom start-up to international reputation for presenting theatre events everywhere from pubs to warehouses to music festivals to Off-Broadway. I was awarded an MBE in The Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2020 for services to theatre.
Alongside directing I do some other stuff too. I teach, run workshops and work with writers as a dramaturg. I host a podcast called GAME/SHOW about the surprising intersections between sport and art. I am working on a new idea for a theatre sauna called HEArT.
My spare time passions are books, restaurants, British IPAs, Spanish wine, sauna, travel and watching Manchester United and Folkestone Invicta FC.
