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Chichester Cons McGowan & Loesser's BusinessDate: 18 January 2005
Chichester Festival Theatre has today released programme details for its annual summer festival, the third repertory season under artistic director-triumvirate Steven Pimlott, Martin Duncan and Ruth Mackenzie. Under the theme of “con art” which explores “cunning and conning, deception and dishonesty, phoney and fake”, this year’s festival, running from 29 April to 10 September 2005, will comprise seven new productions (amongst them, two world premieres, one UK premiere and two new English-language translations).
So far confirmed for the Festival’s resident ensemble company are impressionist Alistair McGowan (pictured) and David Warner. McGowan - well known for his impersonations of footballers David Beckham, Gary Lineker and others on TV’s Big Impression - will appear as Khlestakov in a The Government Inspector and James I in 5/11, a new play about Guy Fawkes.
Warner, who will take the title role in a new Chichester production of King Lear, was one of the brightest stars of the classical stage in the 1960s, but the 1972 production of I, Claudius marked his last UK stage appearance before a 30-year absence due to stagefright. Since his theatrical return, he has appeared in The Feast of Snails, Major Barbara and Where There’s a Will. Warner’s screen credits have included Tom Jones, The Omen, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Company of Wolves, The Planet of the Apes, Holocaust, Twin Peaks and Hornblower.
In the Festival Theatre
In the main Festival Theatre, the 2005 Chichester schedule kicks off with a new production of Frank Loesser’s rarely performed satirical musical about the world of corporate back-stabbing, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Premiered on Broadway in 1961, the show won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The new production, which runs from 5 May to 10 September 2005 (previews from 29 April), will be directed by Martin Duncan, designed by Francis O'Connor and choreographed by Stephen Mear.
It’s followed, from 26 May to 9 September 2005 (previews from 20 May), by Molière’s 1671 farce Scapino (or The Trickster), in a new translation by Jeremy Sams directed by Romanian Silviu Purcarete. Two young men turn to Scapino for help when their fathers try to thwart their romances, but the old men’s obstinacy tests the skills of the king of con men.
McGowan will lead the cast in Duncan’s new production of The Government Inspector, in a new English version by Feelgood satirist Alistair Beaton, which runs from 30 June to 10 September 2005 (previews from 24 June). In Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 comedy, a corrupt small-town mayor and his cronies mistake a penniless nobody for an undercover government inspector.
The final production in the Festival Theatre, in repertory from 18 August to 8 September 2005 (previews from 13 August), will be the world premiere of Edward Kemp’s 5/11, which weaves together Guy Fawkes and the 1605 Gunpowder Plot with modern acts of terrorism. It’s directed by Steven Pimlott.
In the Minerva Theatre
Meanwhile, in the smaller Minerva Theatre, the 2005 summer festival season opens with David Warner’s King Lear, directed by Pimlott and running from 17 May to 10 September 2005 (previews from 7 May). The production comes 40 years after Warner made history as the RSC’s youngest-ever Hamlet, in a landmark 1965 production that ran for two years, and four years after Pimlott directed Samuel West to multi-award winning success in another RSC Hamlet.
It’s joined in the repertory, from 7 July to 10 September 2005 (previews from 1 July), by the world premiere of Lee Miller, a musical about the eponymous 20th-century model, artist, friend of Picasso and lover of Man Ray. Miller’s photographic legacy, which ranged for Vogue fashion spreads to the first images from the Dachau concentration camp, is celebrated this year with a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The musical has music and lyrics by Jason Carr and a book by Edward Kemp. Chichester's premiere production is directed by Anthony Van Laast.
From 16 August to 8 September 2005 (previews from 11 August), Phyllis Nagy will direct the UK premiere production of her 1994 adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic 1850 novel about adultery and hypocrisy, The Scarlet Letter. The Minerva will also host the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre promenade production of Arabian Nights, adapted by Dominic Cooke and directed by Dale Rooks. It runs from 4 to 13 August.
- by Terri Paddock
NOTE: Public booking for Chichester’s 2005 Festival Season opens on 14 February 2005, with priority booking available from 20 January.
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