ITV Central has featured Steve Orme’s first play What’s Your Poison? on both its West Midlands and East Midlands channels.

Hannah Kings went to a rehearsal, interviewing Steve, Jodie Garnish who plays Lucy and Pavan Maru who takes the role of Adam. She also went to Rugeley and interviewed a historian. Here’s the piece:

The tour got off to a fantastic start at the Rose Theatre, Kidderminster.

A full house were enraptured throughout, with an appreciative audience bursting into rapturous applause at the amazing performances by John Goodrum as William Palmer, Jodie Garnish as Lucy and Pavan Maru as Adam. They were ably assisted by Karen Henson and David Gilbrook behind the scenes.

Jenna Goodwin, the historian featured in the ITV Central piece, went to see the play at Stafford Gatehouse. “It was fantastic. We had a great evening,” she commented.

What’s Your Poison? has also played Sudbury and Runcorn. Chris Dignall who was in the audience at Runcorn commented: “It was a fabulous show, full of mixed emotions of deep sadness, distress, laughter and a potential miscarriage of justice. Congratulations to all involved. I would advise anyone to go and see this.”

Another audience member at Runcorn enthused: “Brilliant show! Loved the alternative viewpoints.”

The two shows at Derby Theatre in Steve’s home city both sold out soon after going on sale. Matthew Slack who was in the audience for the evening performance said: “Excellent night watching Steve’s brilliant production of What’s Your Poison? Proud as punch of you, Steve. For those of you still able to get tickets on the UK tour . . . please do.”

Sarah Pegg commented: “That was fantastic. I was gripped throughout. It was so well written. I loved the way the story was told. The actors were fantastic too. I loved it.”

Here are pictures from the first night taken by Simon Marper.

Radio stations have lapped up the story of the Rugeley Poisoner. Here Steve is chatting to Scott Makin of BBC Radio Tees previewing the show at Middlesbrough Theatre:

Steve and John appeared on Lee Blakeman’s show on BBC Radio Stoke to talk about the Stafford Gatehouse show:

Susan Hanks from BBC Radio Derby interviewed Steve on her afternoon show theatre spot about What’s Your Poison? going to the Winding Wheel at Chesterfield:

Here are the dates for the rest of the tour: