Rakie Ayola to star in Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles? at Chichester

Rakie Ayola will make her Chichester debut in the UK premiere of Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles? this summer.

The play, by Adrienne Kennedy and Adam P. Kennedy, runs from 16 June to 8 July at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre, directed by Diyan Zora.

It centres on playwright Adrienne Kennedy, who impulsively leaves New York for London with her young son, intent on adapting John Lennon’s book In His Own Write for the stage.

In the heady atmosphere of the Swinging ’60s, she finds herself rubbing shoulders with a dizzying array of celebrities, including all four Beatles. And when her idols, Laurence Olivier – director of the National Theatre – and his influential literary manager Kenneth Tynan, along with actor Victor Spinetti, promise to produce her play, it seems like a dream come true. But slowly the stars seem to align in a different way.

Told in the form of a one-act, near-monologue to her son Adam, it’s billed as “a mesmerising and disquieting tale of a young playwright trying to make her name in a new world”.

Rakie Ayola won a BAFTA Best Supporting Actress Award in 2021 for her role in TV drama Anthony. Her many leading television roles also include The Pact, Grace, Shetland, No Offence and Holby City. Her recent theatre work includes On Bear Ridge for National Theatre Wales/Royal Court, for which she won the Black British Theatre Award for Best Actress, and Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End.

The production will be designed by Anisha Fields, with lighting design by Joshua Gadsby, sound design by George Dennis and video design by Hayley Egan; the casting director is Lotte Hines CDG.