Review: Hotseating – The Drama Education Podcast

There is certainly space in the podcast market for drama education. Open Drama's Half Hour Call is a monthly podcast that offers conversations with theatre companies such as ‘Trestle’ and ‘Gecko’ as well as covering live events such as the ESU Public Speaking competition. Alongside this, there isn't a huge amount on offer, but ADEI (The Association for Drama in Education in Ireland) launched their own podcast, ‘Hotseating’ in November 2021.

The podcast covers interviews with various contributors to drama in education, some based in Ireland, some in the UK and others working internationally. Many of the interviewees work in university settings, with Carmel O'sullivan, a professor in education from Trinity College Dublin opening up series 2, for example. The episodes I listened to (Carmel O'sullivan, John O'toole and Cecily O'Neill) all mentioned the importance and influence of Dorothy Heathcote on their work, and all covered many years of experience of working in a range of settings. There were certainly crossovers with the content of the episodes, though perhaps the episodes I listened to were a little too similar in terms of the context and the backgrounds of the practitioners.