PAUL FOSTER – Interview

Interviewer: Pat Hayward 19th May 2026

Paul Foster is the acclaimed Director of the first revival production of the hit musical Kiss Of The Spider Woman last seen on these shores back in the early 1990s and is now heading for Mayflower Studios in Southampton. Today Paul spent some time chatting with me about the show and why it is so special to him.

PH: Paul tell me about Kiss Of The Spider Woman

PF: It’s the story of two prisoners, Valentin, a Marxist revolutionary and Molina, a gay window dresser, who share a cell and the uneasy relationship between the two of them. Valentin can’t stand Molina and his theatrical fantasies about Aurora, an actress figure, but needs his care and attention due to the injuries suffered from periods of torture. From the bleakness of the confines of the prison cell to the extravagance of Aurora’s fantasy world the story develops and the relationship between the two prisoners takes on different perspectives.

PH: What attracted you to the musical in the first place?

PF: Well, I’ve always loved it, I was 16 when the original production opened in London and I lived near Liverpool so there was no way I could get to see it, but I did get the CD a few years later and I listened to it a lot. I studied Spanish when I was growing up, and one of the books that I read was the original novel in Spanish by the Argentinian writer Manuel Puig, who wrote it in 1976. I felt an affinity to the kind of Latin social background and the consciousness of those difficult days. These days it’s so easy to get associated with the typical touring musicals such as Grease, as wonderful as it is, they do seem to come along as ten a penny. And so to get a chance to look at a title that’s so rarely looked at, you just feel very fortunate to be asked. I don’t think Kiss Of A Spider Woman has been looked at seriously. It could be that the estate that control the works of Kander and Ebb are quite sparing with their licencing of it. I can only presume that and also, maybe, the subject matter. It’s not your classic boy meets girl, wears gingham dress, dances at the you know, social. It’s a really challenging, but I think ultimately uplifting look about the human spirit and just how much when a spirit is tested, when a human is tested, how much they can take. It’s about the survival instinct. It’s about fantasy versus reality. So it’s not your classic do it in schools show, but I think when audiences go on their journey with it, they feel changed. It was an opportunity to take a different approach to make the audience feel that they were in the cell with those two prisoners who make up the backbone of the story, but not too microscopic so that we couldn’t go big when we switch into the fantasy sequences with Aurora. So we wanted to be able to ricochet between the two worlds and show the scale of the two worlds and I hope that’s what we’ve achieved with with this production.

PH: How, how did it actually manage to get off the ground? Because as you say, it’s not, it’s not regularly performed.

I think it has a lot to do with Nikolai Foster and Chris Stafford who run Leicester Curve. And I do know that when they took over the management of the theatre about 10 years ago, this was on their bucket list of titles that they wanted to do. So I presume it has a lot to do with them saying, you know, we’d like to, we’ve got a track record of doing interesting new refreshing looks at titles. And I presume the US and British rights holders then went with them on that. So I think it’s the guys from Leicester, along with those from Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower Theatre, that we’ve got to thank for it. But as you will know it’s the audience reaction that is the ultimate test and I’m, I’m not just saying that kind of blindly. We’ve done some 47 performances now in Leicester and Bristol. I know from the box office that some people have returned seven, I’m not joking, 7 times to see this show sometimes travelling over distance. So I think it’s a combination of a title that’s rarely on offer here in Britain and hopefully that the potency of this production and particularly these performers, audiences feel that it’s time and money well spent. It doesn’t come around often and I’ve been doing this for some 27 years. And it’s the thing I’m proudest of. I think it’s such a spellbinding piece.

PH: I hope that the production has a future because it just seems very disappointing if it it just plays the three venues.

PF: From your mouth to God’s ears, Pat. I would love to. I would love it. I think all of us involved in would love it to have a future beyond Southampton. I’ve never had a post bag like I have for this. I mean, literally, people are writing care of my agents. They’re writing to their theatres. You know, I hope I don’t break a confidence when I say that somebody said that their teenager who has had some learning difficulties, was unwilling to move from the foyer because it was so busy. And the parents said, well, let’s see at the interval if you still feel the same way. And then when Molina came, comes down the staircase, apparently that teenager was just wrapped and now wants to go into the theatre. And then we’ve had other people who say, you know, it’s taken 34 years to see this again. And it means a lot that it has a lot of impact. I hope I know a bit about acting, you know, no expert, but I think the central 3 performances in this and that would be Fabian Sato Pacheco, Anna Jane Casey and George Blagden rank as three of the finest performances I’ve ever seen in musical theatre. The journey that they go on, the risks that they take, the calibre of their singing voice, the, amazing way that Anna Jane dances, Joe Goodwin’s choreography, I think it’s career best work for them personally. And yes, the audiences recognise it as the last note is played by the orchestra, they’re up on their feet, there’s something in it. I am sure it won’t be different in Southampton. So whilst I totally agree that it would be lovely to take the show to a wider audience, it’s been lovely to play it to the audiences that we’ve played to and that they’ve taken it to their hearts.

PH: How did you get interested in theatre?

As somebody who grew up between Manchester and Liverpool, I wasn’t reliant on London and the West End to see theatre. I saw stuff in my local area. And it’s because of the calibre of those productions that I’m in theatre and how it spiked my imagination. Do you know what I think looking back, because I’m not from a theatrical family, whatever that is. My dad’s a forklift truck driver, my mum was a school dinner lady and then worked in factories. So I wasn’t steeped in it or anything like that. But my secondary school had a good drama department and when I was in my third year, year 9 now, the 6th formers did a production of Blood Brothers and they managed to secure maybe five of the songs of the Willie Russell musical as well as the play. And I just remember being absolutely, you know, hypnotised by that because growing up, you know, half an hour drive from Liverpool to see a show that’s about, you know, that area and with those references and it’s such a simple story, it’s a bit like a fable, isn’t it, Blood Brothers. So I would probably say something like that. And then, you know, going to the theatre in Manchester and Liverpool they were glory years really. I mean, Marianne Elliott who directed War Horse and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, she cut her teeth at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in the 90s and I saw all those productions. So I was lucky where I grew up and that the school had a drama department that was firing on all cylinders. Of course we know with the cuts that’s harder for children growing up nowadays.

PH: How did you make the transition from school to developing a life in theatre?

PF: Well, I went to university. I did English to Spanish at Leeds University and the drama society there was very strong. And some of your readers might know Nancy Carroll, who is an Olivier award-winning actress and for many years been she was Lady Felicia in Father Brown on BBC One. She was in the year above me and she went to drama school. There were a few people that I looked up to that were taking the course and I was just on their coattails really. I acted for about 8 years. I went to Lambda, trained as an actor and then after about 8 years, I moved more into directing, first assisting and then associate and then making my own way. So it’s been what I’ve been doing for the last 27 years.

PH: So how did you make that transition into directing?

PF: Well, I tell this story. My wife and I, we had our first child when I was 30. And I remember my agent’s number showing up as an incoming call on my old Nokia handset and I ignored it. I felt that as somebody who’s going to be responsible for another human being, acting felt a very precarious thing for me then. And so I’d kind of done little bits of directing at drama school and at university. And so I began assisting and that that’s how I moved into it. And my first assisting job, I would say, was about 2006. And then I’ve stayed in it and I’ve worked in musicals and plays and radio, both straight plays and new writing. In fact, what I’m about to go into after I finish this call is the first time we’re going to hit the band for a new musical called Redcliffe that Jordan Luke Gauge has written, set in 18th century Bristol. And that will be at Southwark Playhouse. So, you know, you just go from one project to another, and you hope it kind of stitches together to make a career. I’m not saying it’s less precarious than being an actor, but I don’t regret making the move.

PH: I guess the thing is that if we look at the number of productions that you’ve actually been involved with, people would say you’ve had a very successful career.

PA: I’m not sure Nat West would say that. But yes, I mean, a nice variety of things. And I think if I didn’t know it then, I know it now that it’s about the people you work with. You’ve got to have quality writing, otherwise there’s no point. But it’s the associations that you work with, like those people who come and see Spider Woman, the set designer and the lighting designer. You know, we’ve done one, we’ve done 6 collaborations. One, I’ve done 7 collaborations with Anna Jane and we first worked together 20 years ago. So if you pull those threads through your career, you get such a great shorthand with people and that’s the bit that I love. I love the collaboration. Unless you’re doing monologues, you have to be interested in working with other people and making the collective whole. Better than the single.

PH: Does your wife share your passion for theatre?

PA: She’s a head teacher, she does, she loves it. She’s seen Spider Woman twice. She too is a French and Spanish speaker. And so she really responds to it. She went to see it in Leicester at Curve and then she went back to see it in Bristol and she’s coming to see the final Saturday matinee in Southampton. So yes, and I don’t think she’d waste her time if she wasn’t really interested in it. I think it’s a really knockout production with everyone firing on all cylinders. She’s totally supportive and we’ve got two children. My eldest wants to be a dancer, so God help us.

PH: Keeping an eye on the time Paul, I’d better let you get back to whatever you were doing before I interrupted you. Many thanks for your time today and I am looking forward to making the acquaintance of that Spider Woman in Southampton at Mayflower Studios from 2nd June.