The Inquiry By Harry Davies
Justin Audibert and Kathy Bourne Photograph by Peter Flude
Festival 2023 Welcome to the third world premiere, and last production, of Festival 2023: Harry Davies’s The Inquiry. The fact that tickets flew out the door from the moment they went on sale in March – so much so that we were pleased to be able to add an extra week of performances to satisfy demand – is ample evidence of our audiences’ appetite for new plays, and political dramas in particular. So we are delighted that Harry chose to open his new – and, indeed, first – play in Chichester. As he explains in his Q&A with director Joanna Bowman in this programme, while his work as an investigative reporter at The Guardian has shaped the drama, it is Harry’s theatre background which has birthed this grippingly pertinent exploration of the corridors of power. Joanna makes a hugely welcome return to the Minerva following her staging of Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads last year. We’re also
privileged to see the return of distinguished actors Deborah Findlay, who last appeared at Chichester in 2009’s Separate Tables, and Malcolm Sinclair, well known to audiences here for productions including This House and Pressure; and to welcome John Heffernan who makes his Chichester debut after many leading roles for the National Theatre and in the West End. They head a superb company, and we wish them all a very enjoyable run. Soon, our Winter season will be in full swing with a packed programme of classic dramas, sparkling comedies and family entertainment. And with Christmas coming ever closer, don’t forget to check out our stockingful of fabulously festive offerings for the whole family. A big thank you for your support throughout Festival 2023; we hope you enjoy today’s performance and to see you again in the near future.
Justin Audibert Artistic Director
Kathy Bourne Executive Director
A Voyage Round My Father By John Mortimer
Festival Theatre 7 – 11 November Tickets from £10 Book at cft.org.uk
Rupert Everett and Julian Wadham star in John Mortimer’s celebrated autobiographical play about the delicate relationship between a young man and his father, a brilliant and eccentric barrister, directed by Richard Eyre.
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‘Breath-taking. Roar it out: this is a hit’ Sunday Times
Life of Pi Adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti from the novel by Yann Martel
Festival Theatre 16 November – 2 December Tickets from £10 Book at cft.org.uk
Winner of five Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards, this five-star ‘theatrical phenomenon’ (Telegraph), directed by Max Webster, is the hugely popular story of an epic journey of endurance and hope. Ages 8+
Asphaleia Asphaleia is an organisation located in Worthing which offers young people a place of safety, supporting and encouraging those that need their services. CFT has been working in partnership with Asphaleia since 2018, delivering weekly sessions for young unaccompanied asylum seekers based in West Sussex. Recently, Poppy Marples and Jess Smith, our experienced theatre practitioners, have led a programme of dynamic, creative and nurturing workshops with these inspiring young people. Focusing on wellbeing and arts skills such as puppetry and physical theatre, the workshops also support the young people in learning English. These sessions enable them to make friends, develop confidence
socially, and build skills. We currently work with 24 young people who are also completing a Bronze Arts Award. ‘The sessions with Asphaleia are always full of lots of laughter and provide a safe space for the young people to develop their skills. When I look back to our first session with this year’s cohort compared to now, the difference in their confidence, social and language skills is just incredible. I’m so proud of them all and it’s been a joy and privilege to work with them this year.’ Poppy Marples, Lead Practitioner
In July we welcomed 17 of the Asphaleia group – including unaccompanied young people from Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia – for a fun-packed day at CFT. Starting with a backstage tour, they enjoyed a certificate of achievement presentation and games on the park before watching a matinee of The Sound of Music. For almost all the participants it was their first time in a theatre.
In the young people’s own words: ‘I will never forget this day. It will be in my mind for ever.’ ‘Drama has helped me learning English, respecting each other and feeling strong in my mind.’ ‘Sometimes I am angry because I miss my family, Poppy asks how I feel and talking helps, drama makes me feel better.’ ‘I am proud we have learnt all together and enjoyed no matter what country.’
Discover new foodie experiences Christmas food & drink
Dine with friends
In the Minerva Bar, we’re changing it up with truly scrumptious Afternoon Teas and in The Brasserie a new family friendly bistro style menu, bursting with local ingredients and epic desserts. Children can enjoy half portions of firm family favourites like posh fish & chips, burgers and, of course, turkey with all the trimmings. Yum!
If you’re looking for a great spot to dine with your theatre pals, look no further than The Brasserie. Fantastic food featuring local, seasonal ingredients plus à la carte options, top notch service and excellent wine. It also happens to be the closest restaurant to the Theatre so there’s no need to rush to catch the overture.
In the Café on the Park we’ll have mince pies, and we can’t wait for the smell of mulled apple juice from The Bar (extra shots of festive cheer available!).
Like some more? Pop in for pizza, cracking cakes and barista coffee from the Café on the Park, where you'll also find free WiFi and family-friendly books, toys and beanbags.
For the full menu of food and drink, visit cft.org.uk/eat, email dining@cft.org.uk or call 01243 782219.
The Inquiry By Harry Davies
Robert Maxwell, April 991 Photo: David Fowler/Shutterstock
Blame Robert Maxwell Frederick Wilmot-Smith on the history of public inquiries
Public inquiriesare an ancient institution. Edward I’s Statute de Officio Coronatoris of 1276, which codified already longstanding law, obliged coroners to ‘go to the place where any be slain or suddenly dead’ to investigate. But coroners’ inquiries rarely deal with matters of general public concern. The idea of holding an inquiry in response to a public scandal is comparatively recent. Until well into the 20th century, such matters were left to parliamentary select committees, which were, inevitably, subject to political influence. In 1912, the Marconi Company won a government contract to build wireless telegraph stations across the British Empire. There were widespread allegations of corruption in the tendering process, and a select committee was appointed to investigate. The (Liberal) majority absolved the (Liberal) government of responsibility; a Conservative minority declared the government guilty of gross impropriety. It was clear that a more independent process was needed. When, in 1921, there were allegations that officials in the Ministry of Munitions had destroyed documents relating to procurement contracts, Parliament legislated for
a system of public inquiries. There have since been inquiries into a wide range of matters of public interest, from the Aberfan disaster to the death of David Kelly, Profumo to tabloid phone hacking.
The Bloody Sunday inquiry took 12 years to investigate the events of one day. On 15 June 2009, Gordon Brown announced an inquiry into the Iraq War – to investigate, as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry’s chairman, put it, ‘the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned’. Although oral hearings finished in early 2011, the inquiry wasn’t published until July 2016. Part of the reason was that the scope was vast. Chilcot was asked to investigate nine years of sensitive foreign policy; he took nearly seven years to do it. (The Bloody Sunday inquiry took 12 years to investigate the events of one day.)
‘Maxwellisation’ is the process, named after a legal battle involving the disgraced media mogul Robert Maxwell, whereby those criticised in the first draft of a report are given an opportunity to respond. Still, Chilcot might have reported sooner had he not gone through ‘Maxwellisation’. This is the process, named after a legal battle involving the disgraced media mogul Robert Maxwell, whereby those criticised in the first draft of a report are given an opportunity to respond. Maxwellisation delayed the report by about two years. Chilcot made clear from the start that potential witnesses would be given the opportunity to comment on criticisms. It would be wrong to go back on that promise. The question is whether it should have been made in the first place – and
whether or not it should be made in future inquiries. Chilcot has called Maxwellisation ‘normal practice’; Andrew Bailey and Brian Pomeroy, who led an inquiry into the near demise of HBOS, said that it is ‘legally required’. Our law is such that custom slides silently into obligation. But in fact Maxwellisation is a recent innovation, barely customary, and almost certainly not obligatory. In 1969, a US company, the Leasco Data Processing Equipment Corporation, made a takeover bid for Pergamon Press, Robert Maxwell’s publishing company. Leasco then learned that Pergamon’s profit figures, on which its bid was based, were dubious. Because it had committed to the takeover in principle, it was permitted to withdraw only if it had a valid reason to do so. The surrounding controversy was such that the Takeover Panel called for the Board of Trade (today’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) to set up an inquiry. Maxwell refused to give evidence. Instead, deploying a strategy that would serve him well in the years to come, he tied the investigation up in legal proceedings. The inspectors’ methods, he alleged, offered him insufficient protection. His principal objection was that the inquiry did not proceed like a judicial hearing: he wanted access to the evidence that might be used to criticise him, the right to cross-examine witnesses who gave evidence against him, and the right to be represented at the inquiry by a lawyer. Maxwell took his battle to the Court of Appeal twice and lost both times. In Lord Denning’s words, Maxwell’s own application for what is now called Maxwellisation ‘failed utterly’. ‘I hope’, he added, that such an attack ‘will never happen again’. Where an intolerable delay is foreseeable, Maxwellisation has sometimes been avoided. Lord Justice Leveson chose not to go through the process because it ‘would have killed any prospect of doing the report in time’. Could Chilcot have completed Maxwellisation sooner? I doubt it, though it’s difficult for an outsider to be sure. At any rate, most of the criticism
Above: Sir John Chilcot presents the Iraq Inquiry report, July 2016. Photo: Associated Press/Alamy Opposite: Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. No date has been set for the report's publication. Photo: covid19.public-inquiry.uk
of Chilcot on this ground is unwarranted. It was, for example, widely alleged that he failed to set a deadline for responses. But in a letter to Crispin Blunt MP of 20 July 2015, Chilcot said that ‘individuals are allowed a reasonable but not indefinite amount of time to respond.’ ‘No one’, he wrote, ‘has taken an unreasonable length of time to respond given the range and complexity of the issues under consideration.’
Independence from political influence was supposed to be the cardinal virtue of public inquiries; sending drafts of reports to politicians hardly looks good. Another possible criticism of Maxwellisation is that it threatens an inquiry’s independence. Independence from political influence was supposed to be the cardinal virtue of public inquiries; sending drafts of reports to politicians hardly looks
good. Is this anything more than a problem of perception? Are valid criticisms removed or tempered thanks to political pressure? It’s hard to say. The process is confidential: although we know some of the individuals who have gone through the process, we don’t know what the provisional criticisms were, what the responses were, or what changes they prompted. For some, that alone is enough to make the whole thing indefensible. But one of the points of the process is to weed out unfair criticism: it couldn’t do this if the criticisms were aired. Is this confidentiality a price worth paying? One reason, the ‘instrumental’ reason, to undertake any particular procedure is that it may lead to a better outcome: hearing all sides of the story helps an inquiry to get the facts right. Another reason, the ‘intrinsic’ reason, is that fair procedures are a good thing regardless of their contribution to the outcome. Chilcot used both kinds of reason to justify Maxwellisation. He referred to it as ‘an essential part of the inquiry’s procedures’ because it ensures that ‘any criticism included in the final report is... fair and reasonable’ – an intrinsic reason. He added that the process is ‘essential not only to the
fairness but also the accuracy and completeness of our report’ – an instrumental reason. Notice that the instrumental reason doesn’t justify Maxwellisation as a general practice. If the inquiry does its job properly, it won’t need to send its draft out for comment. Also, under Maxwellisation only those who are criticised get to comment. Why just them? Criticism might focus the mind, but in principle anyone could correct a factual flaw.
The public inquiry is a strange institution… no one is bound by anything an inquiry says. The public inquiry is a strange institution. In 1929, Lord Hewart complained that ministers are ‘in no way bound’ by what an inquiry finds and ‘may entirely ignore the evidence which the inquiry brings to light’. In fact, no one is bound by anything an inquiry says. Public inquiries, according to the latest act regulating them, have ‘no power to determine... any person’s civil
or criminal liability’: they can neither exonerate nor convict anyone of anything. Fairness is vital in criminal procedures, where basic rights are threatened, and in those areas where civil or public rights are at stake, such as where an individual’s welfare entitlements are concerned. But inquiries don’t have to justify their findings to anyone in quite the same way. All this would suggest there is no legal or ethical case for Maxwellisation. There is, however, one further consideration. Although an inquiry can’t put anyone in prison, there are rights it can infringe. An analogy with journalism is helpful here. Journalists aim to discover the facts and to report them to a wider audience. But they can get the facts wrong, and sometimes that results in defamation. In the legal regulation of journalists, a balance must be struck between the rights of individuals in the public eye and our interest in being informed of matters of public importance. A world with no defamation is probably a world with less information. How much defamation should we tolerate as the price of having more information? In 2001, the judiciary tried to square the defamation/information circle by creating a new defence for journalists who
Above: The final report of the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press was published in November 2012. Photo: sjscreens/Alamy Opposite: Protest at government lack of action following the Grenfell Tower fire, 2017. The Inquiry report is to be published in 2024. Photo: SOPA Images Limited/Alamy
defame when discussing political matters. Journalists could escape liability if they acted responsibly in drafting the story. Whether a journalist acts responsibly depends in part on whether they seek comment from the person defamed. Inquiries too can imperil an individual’s reputation. They too have to strike a balance. Maxwellisation should be understood as one part of their attempt to balance rights violations with the public interest in information. This explains why only the person criticised needs to be shown the criticism. If the purpose were only to improve the quality of the report, this procedure would make no sense; but if the point is to give someone the chance to try to defend themselves against possible defamation, it makes perfect sense.
Public inquiries are ‘more catholic than litigation but less anarchic than street fighting’.
Publicinquiries are ‘more catholic than litigation but less anarchic than street fighting’, the former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Sedley once said. Often they are ordered simply to manage a public outcry. They can divert an issue from the political realm and so defer calls for action. There are, in broad terms, two kinds of justification for holding an inquiry. One concerns looking back. An inquiry may ask what happened, why it happened and who is responsible for it. Criticism or blame is, in this sense, backwards looking. The other kind is about looking forward. An inquiry may try to draw a controversy to a close or suggest reforms of an institution (like the government, or the press). Inquiries often have more than one aim and rarely look in just one direction. Any inquiry must decide what to aim for. Should it try to parcel out responsibility for a past wrong or to design procedures minimising the risk that similar mistakes will take place in the future? It can’t always do both at the same time. This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the London Review of Books on 17 March 2016. Frederick Wilmot-Smith is a barrister and author.
Versions of the truth At the end of the first week of rehearsals, we sat down with writer Harry Davies and director Joanna Bowman to inquire into The Inquiry. Harry, The Inquiry is your first play and you’re an investigative reporter at The Guardian. What’s the relationship between those two roles? HD There are certainly things I’m interested in as a journalist which have shaped the drama. I first started thinking about the play and mapping out its plot in spring 2020 when the country was in a very dark place and I was working with colleagues to investigate the government’s Harry Davies Joanna Bowman
response to the pandemic. Even very early, I was struck by an acceptance among people in government that an almighty public inquiry was an inevitability. It was clear that a process would be needed to examine the various failings of the state. Those were the atmospheric conditions in which the idea was conceived, but for me a play begins with snatches of dialogue and as characters start to take shape. That’s how The Inquiry began, rather than emerging from a set of issues or an argument I wanted to prosecute. Before straying into journalism, I studied drama and worked in the theatre as an actor and later as a researcher. I suspect the play
owes more to that side of my life than my work as a reporter. Why, then, did you choose to write about a public inquiry? HD I’ve long been fascinated by inquiries and the fact-finding missions they embark on. When I was an undergraduate in London, and meant to be studying plays, I used to go and sit in on the public hearings of two public inquiries running at the time. Inquiries are not there to establish civil or criminal liability; they’re formed to establish facts, to work out what happened and why it happened, usually when something terrible has gone wrong. Those questions, which sit at the
heart of any inquiry, are often deeply contested. What tends to happen towards the end of an inquiry – as with the inquiry into the Iraq War – is a period of negotiation and back and forth over what will and will not be accepted. An account, or a series of statements about the facts and the truth, can be arrived at through a process, through negotiation. There’s an equivalent in journalism: before we publish a story about someone, particularly when we’re making serious allegations against them, we provide them with an opportunity to comment. This play begins as the inquiry is in the middle of that process, which can often be
dragged out. While it’s a moment of fairness the inquiry affords individuals or bodies that are being criticised, it’s also a point of vulnerability for the inquiry’s integrity and independence, when the outcome and the final wording of its report can be shaped and haggled over. Something similar can happen during the journalistic ‘right to reply’ process. It’s when the stakes are at their highest. Jo, how do you approach directing a new play, especially one that’s set in the public realm? JB The great thing about working on new plays is that you get to talk to the writer – particularly a writer who has both a professional interest in the specific world of the play, and perhaps a more personal interest in the drama which that world offers to audiences and the actors. It’s twofold: there’s a factual way of working with The company visiting Middle Temple
Harry – how does a public inquiry work? What does the Minister for Justice’s office actually look like? Then there’s the ability to really interrogate and to evolve the text together. Harry has forensically mapped out the plot; which means I’m able to come in and say, is that the moment we want to be landing on right now? The brilliant thing about new writing is that nobody has ever seen The Inquiry before, so we get to meet a genuinely new audience coming fresh to it every night, which is very exciting. Is it important to visit the places mentioned in the play and get all those details right? JB I think so. It’s not a documentary, it’s a fictional version of our world; but as theatre makers we have a duty, if we’re choosing to put certain institutions on the stage, to know as much about them as we can.
Also, it’s really fun! As a company we visited locations which appear in the play, which deepened our understanding of the sort of spaces the play occurs in, and how the characters might exist in those spaces. A great part of my job is that I come in and learn about Maxwellisation and public inquiries for a year, and then I’ll go and learn about women boxing or something else. There’s a great deal of public cynicism towards politicians and, in some quarters, the judicial system too. How did you approach putting those professions on stage? HD Being a journalist can breed a hopefully healthy amount of cynicism, but dramatically that can be very uninteresting. My basic function as a reporter is to get facts out into the public domain, often when there are people or forces at play trying to prevent that. When writing about someone who may have done something wrong, our job is to publish as much as we can about that. As a dramatist, the task is different. As well as whatever wicked thing they’ve done wrong, you’re also interested in who they are as humans. A straightforwardly bad character is often quite dull. Whether on stage or screen, the most interesting characters are those in whom we see the good and bad. People behave in totally incomprehensible and contradictory ways and I’m often very interested in that in drama, particularly when in the context of great cruelty or corruption, there are inexplicable moments of humanity and kindness. The two can exist at the same time, and our responses to that can often be rather complicated. Jo, it must be a gift to the actors and to you as a director, to explore those contradictions. JB Totally. It’s easy to be cynical about systems; it’s much harder to be cynical about people, I find. People are complicated, particularly those who are at the top of their profession. There’s a moment in the play that some people will read as a fatherly gesture of preparation, and others as a moment
of control. I’ve been working with Harry for over a year now and on different days the end of the play makes me feel different things. I’d really like it if people drove home arguing, because they’ve had different responses to the play. Harry, having been an actor yourself, does it help to understand if an actor says, in rehearsal, ‘I don’t think my character would say that’? HD As a journalist, I’m used to being edited or having someone say ‘actually, there’s a better way of phrasing that’. Everyone needs an editor. With the play, as our dramaturg Kate Bassett knows, there are certain lines I’ve spent years rewriting. In the rehearsal room, the great value and joy of bringing a group of actors into the process is that together we’ve been able to find better versions of lines I’ve been uncertain about and refine others they’ve stumbled over. They are the ones who have to perform the play each night, and I’d hate for them to be struggling with a line for the rest of the run. JB I think Harry speaks to one of the great truths of the rehearsal process; it’s a space where my job is to carefully and precisely work with the actors, creative team and the text to get to a place where the production is as rigorous and exciting as can be, creating a space for the audience to be thrilled by the play every night. Last year, Jo, you transformed the Minerva Theatre into a pub for Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads. Does this space have a special quality? JB It has an immediacy; there’s something about the horseshoe shape (and indeed the main house too) which means the audience, even if they’re never directly spoken to, are implicated in the events that are happening on stage. I believe theatre has a civic function, bringing people together and saying, this is something socially or politically important to us; let’s sit and watch the same story, and think and imagine together.
Talking of civic function brings us back to public inquiries and Maxwellisation. When you say ‘the truth can be arrived at through negotiation’, is it being watered down or obscured? HD Those are definitely criticisms that can be levelled at an inquiry. But when you’re examining any complicated series of events, you often don’t have all the evidence; critical pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are often missing. Eventually, the account
The Company
of what happened might emerge from a process, a negotiation of sorts, in which there can be competing interpretations of events. That isn’t to deny cold, hard truths exist; and there are certainly situations where it might be comfortable for people to believe that something is more complicated than it is. What interests me about Maxwellisation is that, as with the journalistic practice of giving someone a right of reply, it’s a private
EDITORIAL 2 SPREAD 3 process. The readers and the public don’t see it. There are good reasons for that, but I’m interested in the difference between what’s behind and in front of the curtain. We have a number of public inquiries going on at the moment; we see the public hearings and might eventually read the public report, but often we don’t have a sense of what goes on behind the scenes. That’s something I’ve been interested in exploring in this play – what’s behind the curtain.
The company in rehearsal
Is it facile to compare it to a rehearsal process? HD There’s a reveal; the curtain rises. Whether it’s a big investigation over six months or years, at some point the curtain has to rise. JB Much like the characters in the play, I hope we’re working in a way which is interrogative. In comparing an inquiry and a rehearsal room, the stakes are obviously different but that process of haggling and exchange feels very recognisable and comparable to how we make theatre. Ultimately any production of a play is one version of truth. The October 2023 version of The Inquiry is not absolute; it’s a series of decisions barrelled together to make a version of truth.
The Inquiry By Harry Davies Cast Lady Justice Deborah Wingate The Rt Hon Arthur Gill MP Elyse Lamy Donna Brooke Jonathan Hayden KC Lord Patrick Thorncliffe KC Helen Linwood
Deborah Findlay John Heffernan Shazia Nicholls Macy Nyman Nicholas Rowe Malcolm Sinclair Stephanie Street
The action of the play takes place in various locations around London. There will be one interval of 20 minutes.
World premiere performance at Chichester Festival Theatre, 13 October 2023.
Director Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Movement Director Casting Director
Joanna Bowman Max Jones Mark Henderson Christopher Shutt Yarit Dor Charlotte Sutton CDG
Dramaturg Assistant Director
Kate Bassett Cory Hippolyte
Production Manager Costume Supervisor Props Supervisor
John Page Sabia Smith Sharon Foley
Company Stage Manager Deputy Stage Manager Assistant Stage Manager
Suzi Blakey Gareth Newcombe Isobel Eagle-Wilsher
Production credits: Set construction and painting by Scena Productions; Production Carpenters Tom Humphrey, Jon Barnes; Costume hire National Theatre Costume Hire, Angels Costumes; Costume maker Kat Behague; Prop makers Marise Rose, Bronia Topley; Despatch box loaned by Barrow Hepburn & Gale barrowhepburngale.com; Rehearsal room RSC Clapham. With thanks to Susan Baker and Aaliyah Johnson of Middle Temple, Jatinder Chera, Henry Dyer, Danny Friedman KC, David Gauke, Sam Knight, Gill Plimmer, Gerry Knoud and Noluthando Boqwana. And to the actors who helped develop the script: Priyanga Burford, Sofia Danu, Phoebe Horn, Wil Johnson, Amanda Lawrence, Prasanna Puwanarajah. Rehearsal and production photographs Manuel Harlan Programme consultant Fiona Richards Programme design Davina Chung Cover image Bob King Creative, photograph Seamus Ryan With special thanks to supporters of The Playwrights Fund for their support of the research and development of The Inquiry: Deborah Alun-Jones, Robin and Joan Alvarez, George W. Cameron OBE and Madeleine Cameron, Clive and Frances Coward, Mrs Veronica J Dukes, Melanie Edge, Sir Vernon Ellis, Val and Richard Evans, Simon and Luci Eyers, Sandy and Mark Foster, Jonathan and Clare Lubran, Mrs Denise Patterson, Jans Ondaatje Rolls, Wendy Usborne and the late Peter Usborne. Supported by The Inquiry Supporters and Patrons Circles: Margaret Bamford, Ian and Judy Barlow, Caroline and Malcolm Butler, Karen Coburn, Mrs Veronica J Dukes, Sheila and Steve Evans, George Galazka, Jennie Halsall, Themy Hamilton, Richard and Rosie Hoare, Colin and Gay Kaye, Sara Kelly, Judy Martin-Jenkins, Nita and Peter Mitchell-Heggs, Vicky Mudford, David and Sophie Shalit, Dr Linda Shaw OBE, Greg and Katherine Slay, Patricia Sloane, Howard M Thompson, Ernest Yelf, and all those who wish to remain anonymous.
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Deborah Findlay
Cast Biographies Deborah Findlay Lady Justice Deborah Wingate Previously at Chichester, Miss Cooper in Separate Tables (Festival Theatre). Theatre includes Mrs Grimsditch in Orlando (Garrick Theatre); Gilchrist in Allelujah! (Bridge Theatre); Hazel in The Children (Royal Court & Friedman Theater, New York: Tony Award nomination); Sally in Escaped Alone (Royal Court & BAM); Edith in Rules for Living, Flavia in Timon of Athens, Ponthia in The House of Bernarda Alba (WhatsOnStage Award nomination), Nadejda Petrovna in The Mandate, Mother Clap in Mother Clap’s Molly House, Paulina in The Winter’s Tale, Hilda in Stanley (& Circle in the Square, NY: Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress, New York Drama League Award for Outstanding Performance); Rosalind in As You Like It, Goneril in King Lear, Madame Arcadina in The Seagull (tour); Volumnia in Coriolanus, Bel in Moonlight, Gunhilde Borkman in John Gabriel Borkman, Susan in The Cut (Olivier Award nomination), Helen Saville in The Vortex (Donmar Warehouse); Amanda in The Glass Menagerie (Young Vic); Lady Sneerwell in The School for Scandal, Portia in Merchant in Venice, Olivia in Twelfth Night (RSC); Hedda in Hedda Gabler, Tongue of a Bird (Almeida); The Clandestine Marriage (West End); Joyce/Isabella in Top Girls (Royal Court: OBIE Award). Television includes The Split, The Drowning, Collateral, Lovesick, Coalition, Midsomer Murders, Starlings, New Tricks, Poirot, Silent Witness, Torchwood, Gunrush, Lewis, Wilfred Owen, Cranford, Thin Ice, The Family Man, Foyle’s War, State of Play, Anna Karenina, Wives and Daughters, What If It’s Raining?. Films include Romeo and Juliet, Making Noise Quietly, Hampstead, Kaleidoscope, Jackie, The Lady in the Van, The Ones Below, Suite Francaise, Up on The Roof, Summer, Vanity Fair, Me Without You, A Loving Act, Jack and Sarah, Truly Madly Deeply.
John Heffernan
John Heffernan The Rt Hon Arthur GIll MP Theatre includes Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Edward II in Edward II (Evening Standard Best Actor nomination), George Hastings in She Stoops to Conquer, Peter in Emperor and Galilean, Peter Scott-Fowler in After the Dance, George in The Habit of Art, Stephen Undershaft in Major Barbara, Supervacuo in The Revenger’s Tragedy (National Theatre); DC Moody in Maryland, What If If Only, Love and Information (Royal Court); Edward in Pinter 7: A Slight Ache (Harold Pinter Theatre); Macbeth in Macbeth (Young Vic); Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (RSC/West End); Lush in The Hothouse (Trafalgar Studios); Johann Wilhelm Mobius in The Physicists (Donmar Warehouse); Michael Bloch in The Last of the Duchess (Hampstead Theatre); Richard II in Richard II (Ian Charleson nomination: Shakespeare at The Tobacco Factory); Kenneth in Love Love
Love (Paines Plough); Bernard in Jack Thorne Monologue (Nabokov/Bush Theatre); Albert Sandwich in Carrie’s War (Apollo Theatre); Trevor Simmonds in Lloyd George Knew My Father (Theatre Royal Bath); Oswald in King Lear, The Seagull, James Guerney in King John, Sexton in Much Ado About Nothing, Paris in Romeo and Juliet (RSC); Voltemand/Lucianus/ Francisco in Hamlet (ETT). Television includes A Gentleman in Moscow, This Town, Becoming Elizabeth, The Pursuit of Love, Dracula, Brexit, Collateral, The Crown II, The Loch, Dickensian, Luther IV, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Ripper Street III, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Outlander, Foyle’s War, Love and Marriage, Murder on the Home Front, Henry IV Parts 1&2, The Shadow Line, Casualty 1990, Holby Blue, King Lear. Films include The Duke, Misbehaviour, The Banishing, Official Secrets, Radioactive, Crooked House, Eye in the Sky, Having You.
Malcolm Sinclair
Shazia Nicholls Elyse Lamy Theatre includes Alex in Paradise Now! (Bush Theatre); Ismene in Antigone (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Trixie in Kraken, Polly in Mancoin (Vaults Festival); Official from Sicyon in Antony and Cleopatra (National Theatre); Camillo in The Winter’s Tale, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (National Theatre Learning & tour); Olivia in Twelfth Night (Orange Tree); Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Squares). Television includes The Disclaimer, The Undeclared War, Call the Midwife, Doctor Foster. Films include the shorts Inquiry into the State of My Health, Hunch, Malcolm, The Overcoat. Macy Nyman Donna Brooke Previously at Chichester, Dorcas in Plenty (Festival Theatre), Betty in The Stepmother (Minerva Theatre). Theatre includes Hermine in Leopoldstadt (Wyndham’s Theatre); Julie in Pack of Lies (Menier Chocolate Factory); George Balfour in Posh (Pleasance Theatre); Wendy in Peter Pan (Northcott Theatre Exeter); Sophie in The BFG (Octagon Theatre Bolton); Jaquenetta/Marcade in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Amanda Gronich in The Laramie Project, Perdita in The Winter’s Tale, Sonya in Uncle Vanya (LAMDA). Television includes Alex Rider, The Coroner, Poirot: Hallowe’en Party. Films include Run Fatboy Run, Foster, and the short Bump. Trained at LAMDA. Nicholas Rowe Jonathan Hayden KC Theatre includes Ted Turner/Pat Robinson/ The Pope in Tammy Faye: A New Musical, and Albion (Almeida); King Charles III (Wyndham’s/Almeida); Donkey’s Years (Rose Theatre Kingston); Raving (Hampstead Theatre); The Madness of George III (Theatre Royal Bath & tour); Into Thy Hands (Jericho House); Victory (Arcola);
An English Tragedy (Watford Palace Theatre); Whipping It Up (Bush Theatre); See How They Run (UK tour); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (ETT); The Way of the World (Wilton’s Music Hall); The John Wayne Principle (Pleasance Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest (Nottingham Playhouse); The Real Inspector Hound/ Black Comedy (Comedy Theatre); Translations (Lyceum Edinburgh); Hamlet (Hackney Empire/Broadway); Saint Joan (Theatr Clywd/West End); Romeo and Juliet (ESC). Television includes The Outlaws, The Killing Kind, A Spy Among Friends, A Very British Scandal, Road Kill, Washington, Belgravia, Riviera, The Joy of Oscar Wilde, Grantchester, Genius: Einstein; Doctor Thorne, The Crown, The Last Kingdom, Da Vinci’s Demons, Inspector George Gently, Midsomer Murders, Loving Miss Hatto, Borgias, Kingdom, Margaret, Hotel Babylon, Shazia Nicholls
Sold, Easy Peasy, Beau Brummel, A Harlot’s Progress, Gil Mayo, Broken News, Our Hidden Lives, Princes in the Tower, Waste of Shame, The Black Death, The Fugitives, La Femme Musketeer, Outside the Rules, Shackleton, The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells, Longitude, A Dance to the Music of Time. Films include The Undertaker, Rosaline, Operation Mincemeat, Hurt by Paradise, Waiting for Anya, Remi Sans Famille, Old Boys, A United Kingdom, Snowden, Mr Holmes, Delicious, The Duel, The Baker, Seed of Chucky, Crying Shame, Nicholas Nickleby, Enigma, A Lover’s Prayer, All Forgotten, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Young Sherlock Holmes. Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Malcolm Sinclair Lord Patrick Thorncliffe KC Previously at Chichester, Terence Rattigan in Rattigan’s Nijinsky (Festival Theatre),
Humphrey Atkins in This House (Minerva & Garrick Theatres), General Eisenhower in Pressure (Minerva & Royal Lyceum/ Ambassadors Theatre/Toronto: Olivier Award Best Supporting Actor nomination). For the National Theatre: BB in The Doctor’s Dilemma, The King James Bible, 66 Books, Benjamin Britten in The Habit of Art, Scholes/Adair Turner in The Power of Yes, Headmaster in The History Boys (& Broadway), Cajetan in Luther, Gavin Ryng-Maine in House/Garden, Clarence in Richard III, Kingston in Racing Demon. Other theatre includes Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady (London Coliseum); Eddie Loomis in Quartermaine’s Terms (Wyndham’s); Menenius in Coriolanus (Crucible Theatre); Mayor Peter in An Enemy
Macy Nyman
of the People (Nottingham Playhouse); Roy Johnson in The Light in the Piazza (London, Chicago & Los Angeles); Captain Andy Hawks in Show Boat (New London Theatre); The Meeting (Hampstead Theatre); Bishop of London in Temple, Count Shabelsky in Ivanov, Major Miles Flack in Privates on Parade (Olivier Award Best Supporting Actor nomination) (Donmar Warehouse); Racing Demon, Twelfth Night (Sheffield Crucible); Rosmersholm, Heartbreak House (Almeida); Dealer’s Choice (Menier Chocolate Factory/Trafalgar Studios); What the Butler Saw (Hampstead & Criterion Theatre); Journey’s End (Playhouse Theatre); Richard III (RSC); My Fair Lady (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Cressida (Almeida/Albery); Hay Fever (Savoy Theatre);
Jeeves in By Jeeves (Duke of York’s); Uncle Vanya (RSC/Young Vic). Television includes Andor: A Star Wars Story, Virtuoso, Tubby and Enid, Worricker, Silk, Henry V, Parade’s End, Material Girl, Daphne, Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, Hustle, Judge John Deed, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Life Begins, Falling, Rosemary and Thyme, The Brief, Making Waves, Anybody’s Nightmare, A&E, Relic Hunter, Murder Rooms, Victoria & Albert, Anna Karenina, Fish, Kavanagh QC, Pie in the Sky (5 series), A Touch of Frost. Films include The Man Who Knew Infinity, Survivor, The Young Victoria, Casino Royale, V for Vendetta, The Statement, Secret Passage, Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Stephanie Street Helen Linwood Previously at Chichester, Diana Ingram in Quiz (& West End), Luljeta in Our Generation (& National Theatre) (Minerva Theatre). Nicholas Rowe
Theatre includes Elise in Deciphering (Curious Directive/New Diorama); Mina/Pia in Good Trouble and Quiet (Tara Arts); Priti Patel/Woman in Living Newspaper 3, Wani in The Djinns of Eidgah, Aisha in Rough Cuts, Sabrina in Shades (Royal Court); Marianne in Constellations (Singapore Repertory Theatre); Asha in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Nightwatchman (WhatsOnStage Awards Best Solo Performance nomination), Mary in King James Bible: The Gospel According to John (National Theatre); Samina/Maysoon/Faiza in Sisters (Sheffield Crucible); Karelma in The Big Fellah (Out of Joint tour); Sarika in On the Beach/Resilience (The Bush); Nosh in Sweet Cider (Arcola); The Scarecrow and His Servant (Southwark Playhouse); Kastoori in Indenture (Talawa); Bashemath in Not the End of the World (Bristol Old Vic); Usma in Iraq Innit (Paines Plough/Trafalgar Studios); Raziya in Too Close to Home (Rasa); The Laramie Project (Kit Productions/Sound
Theatre); The Vagina Monologues (Mark Goucher Productions); Fatima in Arabian Night (Actors Touring Company); Rosalind in As You Like It (Natural Perspectives). Television includes Breathtaking, Joan, Delia, Master of None, Vera, Doctors, Hank Zipzer, Holby City, DCI Banks, Silk, Bringing Down the House, Hens, Lewis, Apparitions, Monday Monday, EastEnders, Never Better,
Stephanie Street
Commander III, Primeval, Heavenly Father, Soundproof, Ny-Lon, 20 Things to Do Before You’re 30, Red Cap, The Last Detective. Radio includes Whose Sari Now, Legacy, Westway. Films include Attack the Block. Trained at LAMDA & Cambridge University.
Creative Team Kate Bassett Dramaturg Literary Associate (literary manager and dramaturg) at Chichester Festival Theatre 2016-2023, to whom she is also under commission as writer/editor. Also, script consultant and reader for the BBC, and previously for the National Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Michael Grandage Company, Cheek by Jowl, Sheffield Theatres, Gate Theatre (London), Feelgood Fiction. Dramaturg on David Byrne’s The Secret Life of Humans and Down and Out in Paris and London, New Diorama Theatre and 59E59, New York. Previously,
researcher on international scripts for Stephen Daldry and assistant director at the Gate Theatre (London), Royal Court, Hampstead Theatre and National Theatre Studio. Platform talks host at CFT, the National Theatre, the Barbican, British Library, King’s Place and Trafalgar Studios. Author of In Two Minds: a Biography of Jonathan Miller, and ‘Staging Shakespeare: World Enough and Time?’ in Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie. Contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Also, formerly, arts journalist, theatre and comedy critic for the Independent on
Deborah Findlay Nicholas Rowe Joanna Bowman Shazia Nicholls
Sunday, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, New Statesman, Time Out and Radio 4’s Saturday Review. Judge on various awards panels including the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for women playwrights, the Verity Bargate Award, Ian Charleson Award, David Cohen Prize for Literature, European Theatre Convention Awards, Peter Brook Empty Space Award and chair for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Reading and teacher of playwriting internationally for British Council.
Joanna Bowman Director Previously at Chichester, Revival Director Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (Minerva Theatre 2022), Assistant Director Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (Spiegeltent 2019). Credits include Wolfie (Tron Theatre); Moonset (Citizens Theatre); Blue Stockings (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts); She Wolf (Edinburgh Festival Fringe); The Metamorphosis: Unplugged (Vanishing Point/national tour); Chaos (Perth Theatre); Alright Sunshine, Mary and Ada Set the World to Rights (Òran Mór). As Associate Director: The Wind in the
Willows (Wilton’s Music Hall), Carousel (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), The Good Life (Fiery Angel/UK tour), The Metamorphosis (Vanishing Point/Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione/Tron Theatre); as Assistant Director A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Cyrano de Bergerac (National Theatre of Scotland), Nora: A Doll’s House, A Christmas Carol and The Macbeths (Citizens Theatre), Toy Plastic Chicken (Traverse Theatre and Òran Mór). Joanna is Associate Director of the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, a National Theatre Connections Mentor Director, and a Creative Associate of Vanishing Point. She trained on the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London. Harry Davies Writer Harry Davies is an investigations correspondent at The Guardian. In the theatre, he has worked on the research and development of productions in London, New York and Mexico City. He began Harry Davies
working in the theatre as an actor at the RSC, studied drama at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has been a member of the Royal Court young writers’ programme. The Inquiry is his first play. Yarit Dor Movement Director Yarit is a movement director, fight director and an IDC certified intimacy director and intimacy coordinator with work that spans dance, theatre, musicals and film/TV. Also at Chichester this season, Intimacy Director A View from the Bridge (Festival Theatre). Selected theatre credits include A Strange Loop (Barbican); Hamilton, The Glass Menagerie, The Shark Is Broken (West End); Death of A Salesman (West End & Young Vic); Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre); “Daddy” A Melodrama (Almeida Theatre); The Band’s Visit, Love & Other Acts Of Violence (Donmar Warehouse); Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Hamlet, As You Like It,
Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); Black Superhero, This Is Not Who I Am, Purple Snowflakes, Titty Wanks (Royal Court); The Book Thief (Curve Theatre & Belgrade Theatre); Arms and The Man, Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, Last Easter (Orange Tree Theatre); The Second Woman, Changing Destiny, Wild East (Young Vic); Of Mice and Men (Birmingham Rep); Old Bridge, Strange Fruit (Bush Theatre), Scandaltown (Lyric Hammersmith); Macbeth (Royal Exchange Theatre). Dance credits include Goat, Peaky Blinders (Rambert Dance); Burnt City (Punchdrunk); and dance dramaturgy for Hagit Yakira Company. TV and Film credits: The Glass Onion, Wicked, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time amongst many others. Mark Henderson Lighting Designer Previously at Chichester, Murder on the Orient Express, Oklahoma!, Flowers for Mrs Harris, Present Laughter, Sweet Bird of Youth, Forty Years On, An Enemy of the People, Young Chekhov, Gypsy (and West End), Sweeney Todd (and West End), The Scarlet Pimpernel, A Patriot for Me, Valmouth, The Mitford Girls, Feasting with Panthers, The Cherry Orchard (Festival Theatre); The Unfriend (and West End), Copenhagen, For Services Rendered, Private Lives (and West End), ENRON (and Royal Court, West End and Broadway) (Minerva Theatre). He was an Associate and Lighting Consultant to the National Theatre and Lighting Adviser to the Almeida. He was the recipient of the 1992, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2010 and 2016 Laurence Olivier Awards for Lighting Design, was awarded a Tony Award in 2006 and has also received a Welsh BAFTA. Mark has lit extensively for all the major theatre, opera and dance companies in the UK and over 70 West End productions, notably Girl from the North Country, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Iceman Cometh, Copenhagen, Democracy, Hamlet, The
Real Thing (all also on Broadway), The Bodyguard, The Sound of Music, Grease, Spend Spend Spend, Neville’s Island, Follies, All My Sons, American Buffalo, Funny Girl. He has lit over 80 productions for the National Theatre including Racing Demon, Les Parents Terribles, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (all also on Broadway), All My Sons, Mourning Becomes Electra, The History Boys, The Habit of Art, One Man Two Guvnors. Opera and dance includes productions for ENO, the Royal Opera, WNO, Opera North and Glyndebourne Festival Opera, LCDT, Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. Mark designed the lighting for the Kate Bush ‘Before the Dawn’ shows at Hammersmith Apollo. Cory Hippolyte Assistant Director Cory is an actor, director, facilitator and teacher, and a member of the Young Vic Creators Program. Theatre includes, as Assistant Director: Hansel and Gretel (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Tempest (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre/Unicorn Theatre); Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (Rutgers University/Shakespeare’s Globe). As Director: Much Ado About Nothing (Rutgers University/Shakespeare’s Globe); Macbeth (RADA/NYU); The Tempest (East 15/Shakespeare’s Globe); as Co-Director, Unexpected Adventure (Kiln Young Company). As Co-Creator and Writer, Codes & Daggers (Kiln Young Company). As Actor: King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe); African Queens (Netflix/Westbrook). Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Max Jones Designer Previously at Chichester, The House They Grew Up In (Minerva Theatre/Headlong).
Theatre designs include A Mirror (Almeida); Anna Karenina, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Crime and Punishment, A Streetcar Named Desire, Orpheus Descending (Bunakmura Theatre Tokyo); Jekyll & Hyde (Reading Rep); The Comedy of Errors, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC); Noises Off (Lyric Hammersmith & West End); Sydney and the Old Girl (Park Theatre); All My Sons (Old Vic/ Headlong); Meek (Headlong); Close Quarters (Out of Joint/Sheffield Theatres); Love and Information, Queen Coal (Sheffield Theatres); Trainspotting (Citizens Theatre); The Hypocrite (RSC/Hull Truck/Hull City of Culture); Pride and Prejudice (& tour), A Winter’s Tale (Re-Imagined) (Regent’s Park Theatre); The York Mystery Plays (York
The company
Minster); The Crucible, Brilliant Adventures, Miss Julie (Royal Exchange); The Little Shop of Horrors, Educating Rita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bruised, A Doll’s House, Blackthorn, Dancing at Lughnasa, A Small Family Business (Theatr Clwyd); The Broken Heart, The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe); Blasted (The Other Room Cardiff); Play Strindberg (Ustinov Theatre Bath); True West (Citizens Theatre & Tricycle Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing (NPAC Japan); Of Mice and Men (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Contractions (Chapter Arts Centre); A Time to Reap, Spur of the Moment (Royal Court); Così fan tutte (WNO); Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre); A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Citizens Theatre). He is a winner of The Linbury Biennial
Prize for Stage Design and was an Associate Artist at Theatre Clwyd 2008-2015. Max has sat on the Equity Directors and Designers committee since 2019 and is also a founder member of Scene/Change. Trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Christopher Shutt Sound Designer Previously at Chichester, Murder on the Orient Express (Festival Theatre), The Country Girls, The House of Special Purpose (Minerva Theatre). Theatre includes Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, A Disappearing Number, Elephant Vanishes, Mnemonic, Noise of Time, Street of Crocodiles,
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Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol (Complicite); Brokeback Mountain (West End); The Crucible, The Corn is Green, Paradise, Hansard, Top Girls, Antony and Cleopatra, Julie, John, War Horse, Twelfth Night, Here We Go, Man and Superman, The James Plays (Parts I & II), From Morning to Midnight, Burnt by the Sun, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Coram Boy, Play Without Words, Machinal (National Theatre); Four Quartets, The Twilight Zone, Frozen, The Entertainer, The Winter’s Tale (West End); The Treatment
(Almeida); Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp, ear for eye, Escaped Alone, The Sewing Group, Love and Information, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Serious Money, Road (Royal Court); Timon of Athens (and New York/Washington), Macbeth, Hamlet, Oppenheimer (and West End), The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Wendy and Peter Pan, The Tempest, King Lear (RSC); Far Away, St Nicholas, Aristocrats, Knives in Hens, Saint Joan, Faith Healer, Privacy, Philadelphia Here I Come! (Donmar); Timon of Athens, War Horse, A Human Being Died That Night, Macbeth, All My Sons, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Happy Days, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Coram Boy, Not About Nightingales, Mnemonic (Broadway/NY); The Father (West End); Hamlet, Julius Caesar (Barbican); All About My Mother (Old Vic). Awards include Tony Award (War Horse); Evening Standard Theatre Award (A Disappearing Number); New York Drama Desk Award (War Horse, Mnemonic, Not About Nightingales). Charlotte Sutton CDG Casting Director Previously at Chichester, Assassins, The Famous Five, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, Doubt, The Long Song, South Pacific (CDG Casting Award nomination), Crave, Oklahoma!, Plenty, Shadowlands, Flowers For Mrs Harris, Me and My Girl, The Chalk Garden, Present Laughter, The Norman Conquests, Fiddler on the Roof, Sweet Bird Max Jones Joanna Bowman
of Youth, Forty Years On, Mack & Mabel (Festival Theatre); Local Hero, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (CDG Casting Award nomination), The Unfriend (also West End); Our Generation (also NT; CDG Casting Award), Home, The Butterfly Lion, 8 Hotels, The Deep Blue Sea, This Is My Family, The Watsons, Cock, Copenhagen, The Meeting, random/generations, Quiz, The Stepmother, The House They Grew Up In, Caroline, Or Change (also Hampstead/West End; CDG Casting Award nomination), Strife (Minerva Theatre). Theatre credits: The Secret Life of Bees (Almeida); Guys and Dolls (Bridge); Further Than The Furthest Thing, Best of Enemies, Fairview (CDG Casting Award nomination), Death of a Salesman (CDG Casting Award nomination), The Convert, Wild East, Winter, trade, Dutchman (Young Vic); Cock (Ambassadors); Company (Gielgud; CDG Casting Award nomination); Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Wyndham’s and BAM); The Pitchfork Disney, Killer (Shoreditch Town Hall); My Brilliant Friend (NT and Rose Theatre Kingston); Annie Get Your Gun, Flowers For Mrs Harris, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Waiting for Godot, Queen Coal (Sheffield Crucible); Henry V (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Insignificance, Much Ado About Nothing, Jumpy (Theatr Clwyd); wonder.land, The Elephantom, Emil and the Detectives, The Light Princess (National Theatre); One Man, Two Guvnors (Theatre Royal Haymarket/international tour).
Events
The Inquiry Pre-Show Talk Monday 16 October, 5.30pm Join director Joanna Bowman for a fascinating insight into how her production came together, with a chance to ask questions of your own. She is in conversation with best-selling author Kate Mosse. Free but booking is essential.
Post-Show Talk Monday 23 October Stay after the performance to ask questions, meet company members and discover more about the production. Hosted by Kate Bassett, CFT Literary Associate. Free
Masterclass: Write the Prologue Saturday 4 November, 10am – 5pm Join writer and investigative reporter Harry Davies for a practical writing workshop. Learn new skills and tips that helped him develop his first play The Inquiry and get started on writing your own. £5
Get Creative Whatever your interests or skill-set, there’s something for you in our programme of activities for adults. Everyone’s welcome, so join us and get creative. Get Into It! Learn new skills and socialise in our termly sessions in Acting, Dancing or Singing each Monday. Can’t make it every week? Try our Drop-Ins and join us when suits you. No experience necessary - everyone is welcome to Get Into it!
Mind, Body, Sing Fun and relaxing, our group singing sessions are open to everyone aged 18+ and are dementia friendly. We believe everyone is musical and there are no wrong notes, so join us and experience the health-giving properties of group singing.
Scan to find out more cft.org.uk/get-creative
Wednesday Company and Friday Company For adults aged 25+ with learning disabilities to develop their artistic skills, meet new people and socialise in a fun and supportive environment. Wednesday Company takes place at The Capitol in Horsham and Friday Company takes place at St Paul’s Church in Chichester.
Chichester People’s Theatre Our community company work together to devise an original piece of theatre inspired by the work on our stages. The piece is then shared at a public performance. We’ll hold open auditions to become part of the company towards the end of 2023.
Join Chichester Festival Youth Theatre “For young people, knowing you can identify as whoever you really think you are is more and more relevant, and CFYT has always felt like a space where you can do that.” CFYT MEMBER
Every week, CFYT members meet at locations across the county to discover new skills and explore new stories, make friends, build confidence and, most importantly, “laugh until your sides hurt”* (*direct quote from a member). For ages 5 to 25 we have drama, dance, musical theatre and technical theatre sessions to choose from, as well as groups for young people with additional needs (CFYT Wednesday in Horsham and CFYT Friday in Chichester). Our weekly sessions take place in locations across West Sussex for you to meet like-minded people and find a space where you can just be yourself!
Find your group across West Sussex and join us! Scan to find out more
cft.org.uk/CFYT
Light a Spark Enjoying the show? Imagine if everyone could discover the magic of theatre. You can make it happen. Donate to our Light a Spark fundraising campaign and support a family to come to CFT for the first time or a young person to launch their career with us.
Scan to donate or find out more
cft.org.uk/LightASpark
Chichester Festival Theatre is a registered charity. Charity no. 1088552.
Staff Trustees Mark Foster Jessica Brown-Fuller Jean Vianney Cordeiro Victoria Illingworth Rear Admiral John Lippiett CB CBE Harry Matovu KC Caro Newling OBE Nick Pasricha Philip Shepherd Stephanie Street Hugh Summers Associates Kate Bassett Charlotte Sutton CDG
Literary Associate Casting Associate
Building & Site Services Chris Edwards Maintenance Engineer Lez Gardiner Duty Engineer Daren Rowland Facilities Manager Graeme Smith Duty Engineer Costume Isabelle Brook Aly Fielden Helen Flower Shelley Gray Abbie Hart Amy Hills Natasha Pawluk Loz Tait Colette Tulley Eloise Wood
Dresser Wardrobe Manager Senior Costume Assistant Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Manager Assistant Wardrobe Wardrobe Manager Wig Daysetter Head of Costume Wardrobe Maintenance Wigs Assistant
Development Nick Carmichael Development Officer Julie Field Friends Administrator Sophie Henstridge-Brown Senior Development Manager Sarah Mansell Charlotte Stroud Karen Taylor Megan Wilson
Development Consultant Development Manager Development Manager Events and Development Officer
Directors Office Justin Audibert Kathy Bourne Patricia Key Keshira Aarabi
Matthew Hawksworth
Head of Children & Young People’s Programme
Tom Hitchins Joe Jenner
Hannah Hogg
Senior Youth & Outreach Manager
Mike Keniger Andrew Leighton
Creative Therapist Senior Community & Outreach Manager
Head of Sound Senior Lighting Technician
Matthew Linklater
No.1 Sound Technician
Finlay Macknay Charlotte Neville
Stage Crew Head of Props Workshop
Chair
Shari A. Jessie Louise Rigglesford Dale Rooks Abi Rutter Angela Watkins
Director of LEAP Youth & Outreach Co-ordinator LEAP Projects Manager
Marketing, Communications, Digital & Sales Josh Allan Box Office Supervisor Caroline Aston Audience Insight Manager Becky Batten Head of Marketing Laura Bern Marketing Manager Jessica Blake-Lobb Marketing Manager (Corporate) Helen Campbell
Deputy Box Office Manager
Jay Godwin Lorna Holmes Mollie Kent
Box Office Assistant Box Office Supervisor Box Office Assistant (Casual)
Mihad Khalifa
Box Office Assistant (Casual)
James Mitchell James Morgan Lucinda Morrison Brian Paterson
Box Office Assistant Box Office Manager Head of Press Distribution Co-ordinator
Kirsty Peterson Ben Phillips
Box Office Assistant Marketing & Press Assistant
Catherine Rankin
Box Office Assistant (Casual)
Luke Shires
Director of Marketing & Communications
Jenny Thompson
Social Media & Digital Marketing Officer
Grace Upcraft
Box Office Assistant (Casual)
Claire Walters Joanna Wiege Jane Wolf
Box Office Assistant Box Office Administrator Box Office Assistant
Artistic Director Executive Director PA to the Directors Projects & Events Co-ordinator
People Paula Biggs Jenefer Francis
Angela Buckley
Projects & Events Co-ordinator
Naziera Jahir Emily Oliver
Sophie Hobson Aimée Massey
Creative Associate Diversity, Inclusion & Change Consultant Company Secretary & Board Support
Interim People Manager Accommodation Co-ordinator
Gillian Watkins
HR Officer
Julia Smith
Finance Alison Baker Payroll & Pensions Officer Sally Cunningham Purchase Ledger Assistant Amanda Hart
Finance & Operations Director
Krissie Harte Katie Palmer
Finance Officer Assistant Management Accountant
Amanda Trodd Protozoon Ltd
Management Accountant IT Consultants
LEAP Helena Berry Ellen de Vere Matthew Downer
Heritage & Archive Manager Youth & Outreach Trainee Cultural Learning & Participation Apprentice
Zoe Ellis Sally Garner-Gibbons
LEAP Co-ordinator Apprenticeship Co-ordinator
Head of People HR Officer (maternity leave)
Production Niamh Dilworth Producer Amelia Ferrand-Rook Producer Claire Rundle Production Administrator George Waller Trainee Producer Nicky Wingfield Production Administrator Technical Steph Bartle Deputy Head of Lighting Victoria Baylis Props Assistant Daisy Vahey Bourne Stage Crew Finley Bradley Technical Theatre Apprentice Leoni Commosioung Sarah Crispin Elise Fairbairn Zoe Gadd
Stage Technician Senior Prop Maker Stage Technician Assistant Sound Technician
Ross Gardner Stage Crew Sam Garner-Gibbons Technical Director Laura Hackett Technical Apprentice Dan Heesem Lighting Technician Katie Hennessy Props Store Co-ordinator
Head of Stage & Technical Production Manager Apprentice
Stuart Partrick Transport & Logistics Neil Rose Deputy Head of Sound Ernesto Ruiz Prop Maker Anna Setchell (Setch) Deputy Head of Stage James Sharples
Senior Stage Crew & Rigger
Molly Stammers
Senior Lighting Technician
Graham Taylor Dominic Turner Bogdan Virlan Linda-Mary Wise
Head of Lighting Lighting Technician Stage Crew Sound Technician
Theatre Management Janet Bakose Theatre Manager Judith Bruce-Hay Minerva Supervisor Charlie Gardiner Minerva Supervisor Ben Geering Head of Customer Operations Dan Hill Assistant House Manager Will McGovern Deputy House Manager Sharon Meier PA to Theatre Manager Gabriele Williams Deputy House Manager Caper & Berry Catering Proclean Cleaning Ltd Cleaning Contractor Goldcrest Guarding
Security
Stage Door: Bob Bentley, Janet Bounds, Judith Bruce-Hay, Caroline Hanton, Keiko Iwamoto, Chris Monkton, Sue Welling Ushers: Miranda Allemand, Judith Anderson, Maria Antoniou, Izzy Arnold, Jacob Atkins, Carolyn Atkinson, Brian Baker, Richard Berry, Emily Biro, Gloria Boakes, Alex Bolger, Dennis Brombley, Judith Bruce-Hay, Louisa Chandler, Jo Clark, Gaye Douglas, Stella Dubock, Amanda Duckworth, Clair Edgell, Lexi Finch, Suzanne Ford, Suzanne France, Jessica Frewin-Smith, Nigel Fullbrook, Barry Gamlin, Charlie Gardiner, Jay Godwin, Anna Grindel, Caroline Hanton, Justine Hargraves, Joseph Harrington, Joanne Heather, Marie Innes, Keiko Iwamoto, Flynn Jeffery, Joan Jenkins, Pippa Johnson, Julie Johnstone, Ryan Jones, Jan Jordan, Jon Joshua, Sally Kingsbury, Alexandra Langrish, Judith Marsden, Emily McAlpine, Janette McAlpine, Fiona Methven, Chris Monkton, Ella Morgans, Susan Mulkern, Isabel Owen, Martyn Pedersen, Susy Peel, Kirsty Peterson, Helen Pinn, Barbara Pope, Fleur Sarkissian, Nicola Shaw, Janet Showell, Lorraine Stapley, Sophie Stirzaker, Angela Stodd, Christine Tippen, Charlotte Tregear, Andy Trust, Sue Welling, James Wisker, Donna Wood, Kim Wylam We acknowledge the work of those who give so generously of their time as our Volunteer Audio Description Team: Janet Beckett, Tony Clark, Robert Dunn, Geraldine Firmston, Suzanne France, Richard Frost, David Phizackerley, Christopher Todd
Our Supporters 2023 Major Donors Deborah Alun-Jones Robin and Joan Alvarez David and Elizabeth Benson Philip Berry George W. Cameron OBE and Madeleine Cameron Sir William and Lady Castell David and Claire Chitty John and Pat Clayton David and Jane Cobb John and Susan Coldstream Clive and Frances Coward
Trusts and Foundations The Arthur Williams Charitable Trust The Arts Society, Chichester The Bateman Family Charitable Trust The Bernadette Charitable Trust The Chartered Accountants’ Livery Charity The Dorus Trust The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Elizabeth, Lady Cowdray’s
Festival Players 1000+ John and Joan Adams Tom Reid and Lindy Ambrose The Earl and Countess of Balfour Sarah and Tony Bolton Ian and Jan Carroll C Casburn and B Buckley CS and M Chadha David Churchill Denise Clatworthy Michael and Jill Cook Lin and Ken Craig
Festival Players 500+ Judy Addison Smith Mr James and Lady Emma Barnard (The Barness Charity Trust) Martin Blackburn Janet Bounds Pat Bowman Jean Campbell Sally Chittleburgh Mr and Mrs Jeremy Chubb Mr Charles Collingwood and Miss Judy Bennett
Yvonne and John Dean Jim Douglas Nick and Lalli Draper Mrs Veronica J Dukes Melanie Edge Huw Evans Steve and Sheila Evans Val and Richard Evans Sandy and Mark Foster Simon and Luci Eyers Angela and Uri Greenwood Themy Hamilton Lady Heller and the late Sir Michael Heller Liz Juniper Roger Keyworth Vaughan and Sally Lowe Jonathan and Clare Lubran Mrs Sheila Meadows Elizabeth Miles Eileen Norris Jerome and Elizabeth O’Hea Mrs Denise Patterson DL Stuart and Carolyn Popham Dame Patricia Routledge DBE Sophie and David Shalit Simon and Melanie Shaw Greg and Katherine Slay Christine and Dave Smithers Alan and Jackie Stannah Oliver Stocken CBE Howard Thompson Wendy Usborne and the late Peter Usborne
Charity Trust Epigoni Trust The Foyle Foundation The G D Charitable Trust Hobhouse Charitable Trust John Coates Charitable Trust The Mackintosh Foundation The Maurice Marshal Preference Trust Noël Coward Foundation Rotary Club of Chichester Harbour Theatre Artists Fund The Vernon Ellis Foundation Wickens Family Foundation
Deborah Crockford Clive and Kate Dilloway Peter and Ruth Doust Gary Fairhall Mr Nigel Fullbrook George Galazka Robert and Pirjo Gardiner Wendy and John Gehr Marion Gibbs CBE Rachel and Richard Green Ros and Alan Haigh Chris and Carolyn Hughes Melanie J. Johnson John and Jenny Lippiett Alan and Virginia Lovell Sarah Mansell and Tim Bouquet Patrick Martyn James and Anne McMeehan Roberts Mrs Michael Melluish Celia Merrick Roger and Jackie Morris Mr and Mrs Gordon Owen Graham and Sybil Papworth Richard Parkinson and Hamilton McBrien Nick and Jo Pasricha John Pritchard Trust Philip Robinson Nigel and Viv Robson Ros and Ken Rokison David and Linda Skuse Peter and Lucy Snell Julie Sparshatt
The de Laszlo Foundation Lady Finch Colin and Carole Fisher Beryl Fleming Terry Frost Stephen J Gill Dr Stuart Hall Rowland and Caroline Hardwick Dennis and Joan Harrison Karen and Paul Johnston Frank and Freda Letch Anthony and Fiona Littlejohn Jim and Marilyn Lush Dr and Mrs Nick Lutte Trevor & Lynne Matthews Tim McDonald Jill and Douglas McGregor Sue and Peter Morgan Mrs Mary Newby Margaret and Martin Overington Jean Plowright Robin Roads Dr David Seager John and Tita Shakeshaft Mr and Mrs Brian Smouha Elizabeth Stern Anne Subba-Row Harry and Shane Thuillier Miss Melanie Tipples Chris and Dorothy Weller Nick and Tarnia Williams
Bryan Warnett Ernest Yelf
Richard Staughton and Claire Heath Ian and Alison Warren Angela Wormald
...and to all those who wish to remain anonymous, thank you for your incredible support.
‘Chichester Festival Theatre enriches lives with its work both on and off stage. It is a privilege to be connected in a small way with this inspirational and generous-hearted institution, especially at such a challenging time for everyone in the Arts.’ John and Susan Coldstream, Major Donors and Festival Players
Our Supporters 2023 Principal Partners Platinum Level
Prof. E.F. Juniper and Mrs Jilly Styles Gold Level
Silver Level
Corporate Partners FBG Investment J Leon Group Jones Avens
Montezuma’s Oldham Seals Group Pallant House Gallery
Protozoon William Liley Financial Services Ltd
Why not join us and support the Theatre you love: cft.org.uk/support-us | development.team@cft.org.uk | 01243 812911
Your business centre stage
Corporate partnerships at CFT can shine a spotlight on your business. Reach our audiences of 360,000 and align with our outstanding work on and off stage. Plus there’s free tickets, invitations to special events and (best of all) you’ll be making our shows and community work happen. It’s a win-win. You can sponsor a show, support a community project or start something new! Fancy teaming up? Get in touch.
cft.org.uk/partnerships 01243 812874