Behind the Scenes with Ballet Shoes Set Designer Frankie Bradshaw

Behind the Scenes with Ballet Shoes Set Designer Frankie Bradshaw

Eleanor Binns   |   Posted on December 10 2025

More posts

The beloved Ballet Shoes adaptation is back on our Oliver stage. We spoke with Set Designer Frankie Bradshaw about their inspirations, creative process and play recommendations. 

The set design for Ballet Shoes is incredibly inspiring, unfolding into different environments throughout the play. What inspired you when developing the set design? 

There were so many different and inspiring worlds within our research for Ballet Shoes, that the really hard task was to settle on one main thing! But one of the most exciting and unusual of these worlds was the life of Great Uncle Matthew and his life as an explorer and paleontologist. We loved the idea that these three sisters lived in a house stacked full of fascinating artefacts, bones and fossils, and we decided to base the design on a cabinet of curiosities, in which we see all these wonderful scientific artefacts, but also from which anything can emerge unexpectedly, depending on what location we were in.

The images you have drawn for the postcards are reminiscent of educational posters from the 20th century and feature throughout the set, what was your creative process behind them? 

I spent a lot of time looking at both scientific illustrations and diagrams of fossils and animals, as well as looking at more abstracted artistic renderings of these amazing creatures, and tried to find a style that sits somewhere between the two. As Sylvia (who paints them in the play) says, the illustrations are 'too scientific to be art, too artistic to be science', so we really wanted them to feel quite hybrid.

Image: Nina Cassells, Sienna Arif-Knights and Scarlett Monahan. Photo by Alastair Muir.

Frankie's illustrated postcard pack

Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6
Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6

Ballet Shoes Dinosaur Postcard Pack - Set of 6

£5.95
£5.95
Sold out

Details

Discover the artistry behind Ballet Shoes production set with these playful illustrated postcards by set designer Frankie Bradshaw. 

  • Each postcard pack features six dinosaur postcards
  • Printed on 300 gsm semi-gloss card
  • Each postcard is A6 sized. 105 x 14 8mm
  • Illustrations by set designer Frankie Bradshaw for National Theatre's production of Ballet Shoes
  • Exclusively available at the National Theatre Bookshop

The sisters in Ballet Shoes are all at the beginning of their careers, finding out who and what they want to be. What piece of advice would you give to younger theatre makers about working in this sector? 

There are so many different avenues for working within theatre, which use so many different skill sets and talents. There is something for everyone, no matter what you enjoy and are good at. It's a tough but extremely rewarding industry, where no two days are ever the same. I believe the most important attributes in a good theatre-maker are a sense of curiosity, a strong work ethic, a collaborative approach and good communication skills. 

What have you enjoyed most about working on this show?

 I love how much this show is a celebration of the Arts, and a celebration of the many diverse ways in which people can succeed and thrive in life. It celebrates so many different personalities, and different forms of performance, art and science, that I feel anyone in the audience will recognise themselves and their interests somewhere in at least one of the characters.

The heart of the NT Bookshop is our playwall, if we could ask you to recommend a playtext that had an impact on you which would it be? 

The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh, was a play I read at university that really opened my mind to the truly extraordinary and imaginative worlds that can exist onstage. It's dark and disturbing but totally entrancing and a brilliantly inspiring and multi-layered world for a theatre designer to envisage.

Frankie's play recommendation

The Pillowman Playtext

The Pillowman Playtext

£10.99
£10.99
Sold out

Details

by Martin McDonagh

'The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story.' Or was it 'The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story'?

A writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders that are happening in his town.

Martin McDonagh's searingly brilliant play premiered at the National Theatre, London in November 2003. It was revived at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, in June 2023.