This is an interview I did with an Austrian radio station about C Company, Meisner and lunchtime theatre.

Reclaim your lunch hour. Don’t sit at your desk dropping bits of sandwich in your keyboard – get out and about and explore your local area. You might end up watching a 45min version of Two Gentlemen of Verona.

That’s what happened when The Guardian’s Xan Brooks when he popped in to London’s Bridewell Theatre.

Time Out just published a review of the play I just directed, From Both Hips. It has some nice things to say about the direction: “There?s some imaginative direction from Aileen Gonsalves, who ratchets up the comic tension by making the scene-changes mini parodies of the classic Western shoot-out, with the hapless heroes frozen in gun-slinging stances as their respective suburban sitting rooms settle around them.” It concludes “this is smart, screwy, and very agreeable entertainment.”

I directed “From Both Hips” by Mark O’Rowe at the Old Red Lion.  Here is a review from the Camden New Journal.  For more information about the show visit C Company’s website.

“Lifelike and funny,” is how Hannah Glickstein describes Last of the Red Hot Lovers (the play I directed in 2006 at the Old Red Lion) in her review for the Camden New Journal.

“The jokes are witty and the plot works perfectly,” she adds.  “You won’t regret an evening spent watching it.”

I was assistant director on the RSC’s show. Here are some of the reviews.

The Times **** “It’s testimony to Judi Dench and the director Gregory Doran that her return to the RSC is no simple star vehicle but a company show.” – Ian Johns, Gielgud Theatre production

Aileen was responsible for the transfer to the Gielgud Theatre, London.

The Times ****  “Gregory Doran’s lucid, sensitive production”  – Benedict Nightingale, Swan Theatre production

The Guardian **** “Does Gregory Doran ever sleep? No sooner has his Othello opened in Stratford than his All’s Well moves into the West End. And, unlike many transfers from Stratford’s Swan, it sits comfortably in Shaftesbury Avenue where it looks a picture and retains its glowing intimacy.” – Michael Billington

The Telegraph interview with Greg Doran mentions me: “How on earth was he coping with supervising the opening of four different productions in just a few weeks, I asked. … ‘Well, I have a very good assistant,’ he says”

I was one of the singers taking part in Sing for Water.

This is a fund-raising event run every year on the South Bank in London.

It features choirs from across the country, and indeed, from around the world.

 Last year I was invited to a party at Number 10, Downing Street.

I was in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hecuba which starred Vanessa Redgrave. 

We opened in London and then toured to Washington and New York.

We played at the Kennedy Center in Washington and BAM in Brooklyn.

BBC Radio 4 commissioned me to write a pilot for a sitcom called “Church Ladies.”

This is a picture of the wonderful cast.

If I can figure out how to do it, I will put an MP3 recording of the show on the website.