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Peter Viney's Blog

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Forty Years On

Forty Years On
By Alan Bennett 

Directed by Daniel Evans

Designed by Lez Brotherston
Musical Director & Arranger – Tom Brady

 Chichester Festival Theatre

Saturday 6th May 2017, 14.30 

CAST:

Faculty:
Richard Wilson – Headmaster
Alan Cox – Franklin, the incoming headmaster
Danny Lee Wynter- Tempest, a teacher
Jenny Galloway – Matron
Lucy Briars – Miss Nisbitt, school secretary

Pupils:
Michael Lin – Crabtree
Joe Idris-Roberts – Headboy and lectern reader
Thomas Bird – Skinner
Martin Sarreal- Charteris
Martha Waddington – Boy
Oliver Marshall – Rumbold
Silas Wyatt-Barke – Wigglesworth
Michael Hamway – Tredgold
James McConville- Tupper
Crispin Glancy – Foster

Ensemble
Fifty-two locally cast boys

The opening school assembly with the set – note In Memoriam boards either side

Alan Bennett’s first play was produced in 1968, and takes place in Albion House, a public school on the South Downs, fortuitously close to Chichester in reality. It’s the headmaster’s last day (after forty years) and he has been asked to appear in the annual school play. The problem is that he has not yet read the script, and the play, Speak for England, Arthur, has unexpected content.

This Chichester production is a year short of “fifty years on” from the original production. As the 1968 headmaster recalls being a pupil as World War One ended in 1918, it’s odd that it isn’t “fifty years on” in the first place, though maybe forty is his length of service as a teacher. The title of the play-within-a play Speak for England, Arthur, started me thinking of The Kinks 1969 album Arthur, or The Decline & Fall of The British Empire. Ray Davies has maintained an interest in theatre.

Alan Bennett was lampooning a public (= elite private for non-British readers)  school culture, which like me, he knew from comic books and Boys’ Own tales, and in his case, people he met at university and in the theatre. The broad brush satire is 1968 … Beyond The Fringe, Oh, What A Lovely War, How I Won The War and so on. Lindsay Anderson’s If …. the best of the era on the topic was written by “insiders” in the system, public school boys, and based on Canford School, though filmed at Marlborough. Like Alan Bennett, I attended a state grammar school. Even in my state grammar school, some teachers were wannabe public school teachers with Mr Quelch black gowns and snotty attitudes to foreigners. We were only just past the era that Bennett is satirising when classrooms had maps of the British Empire, then later, Commonwealth … a world map with satisfying swathes of pink for “our lot.” Geography explained how cheerful happy Ghanaians sent us cocoa, cheerful happy Indians sent us tea, cheerful happy Jamaicans sent us bananas, cheerful happy Kiwis sent us lamb, cheerful happy Canadians sent us lumber. Jolly Yanks were not quite the ticket, not having the queen, but were cheerful and happy about fighting shoulder to shoulder with us and buying our whisky and luxury vehicles. In other words it’s the post-Brexit fantasy of the Brexiteers. Let’s set the clock back to 1956.

The play stars Richard Wilson, at age 80, taking the role John Geilgud played in 1968 (Geilgud was sixteen years younger). Alan Bennett took the role of Tempest, the young rather effete schoolmaster, himself in 1968, here played brilliantly by Danny Lee Wynter.

Even before the play started we were lost in the set detail. A massive pipe organ dominates the school hall. A row of canvas seats for the boys surrounds the stage (the audience are “the parents”). Beyond the stage, there is a huge war memorial board on each side. These are later used for projection. The speakers, hanging from the ceiling, have been encased in 1940s wooden fretwork.

This is Daniel Evans debut production as Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. The direction and production are of the highest possible standard … there are FIFTY-TWO extras in school uniform, and at the end of Act One, in CCF (Combined Cadet Force … see If ….) uniforms. They are choreographed with precision throughout. The massed hymn singing is wonderful to hear. There are ten professional actors as “the pupils” and a faculty of five.

There is the play within a play. Criticism suggests it’s more of a frame for a revue (like Beyond The Fringe) as Speak for England, Arthur is episodic. The play-within-a-play is based around a group of four as World War Two starts … a politician (played by Mr Franklin), a nurse (Mrs Tibbert), a female Women’s Auxiliary Service person (Matron), a “son”, Christopher (Mr Tempest) who goes off to war. However it flashes back and forth between World War II and a history of the whole 1900 to 1945 era. These flashbacks include lampoons of an Oscar Wilde play (Mr Tempest as the lady aristocrat), a lecture on T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia by Mr Franklin  (the headmaster fears it’s D.H. Lawrence) , a satire of the Bloomsbury set around Virginia Woolf (Mrs Hibbert), a lampoon of an extract from a detective novel with John Buchan’s Richard Hannay, a scene with Bertrand Russell, and a court trial of Neville Chamberlain for appeasement.  Then there’s the school chaplain (played by Mr Tempest) giving a talk on sex education to a boy. It’s based on the headmaster’s long-used talk.

They’re invaded from time to time by the school’s rugger team.

Invasion of “The Rugger Hearties”

The headmaster comments in shock on the content, and is roped in for some parts. Yes, it is a frame for a revue, but I see nothing wrong with that. It’s a sturdy frame, and the contextualisation worked.  It’s well signposted with the years under review / or rather revue (1900, 1908, 1914, 1922 etc), projected on both sides. This makes it far clearer than the play text, which is somewhat short of such desirable markers.

Left: Mr franklin (Alan Cox), the Headmaster (Richard Wilson)

There is a lot of music. Hymns, stuff of the era, a fantastic I Vow To Thee My Country as 1960s vocal group (the programme says The Drifters). All the professionals have to play … organ, drums, bass, trumpet, guitar. There is a splendid tap dance from Michael Lin. James McConville as Tupper has a stellar singing voice.

Mr Tempest (Danny Lee Wynter) acts as one of The Bloomsbury Set

All the faculty were brilliant. When the play opens, and the headmaster was waffling on,  it felt exactly like our school assemblies. Mr Franklin (Deputy Head) and Mr Tempest (young, dramatic) were seated and never stopped scanning the boys and us with eagle eyes. At our school, it was the same. We’d go back to class for registration, and our form master would fly into a rage because he’d spotted someone “not praying” or picking their noses in assembly … just as Alan Bennett’s script. Danny Lee  Wynter did such a wonderful pompous, but very theatrical young master as Mr Tempest. Alan Cox was Mr Franklin, directing the subversive play within a play, waiting to take over and change things, just as happened in 1968. My favourite speech is the headmaster (Richard Wilson) on his impending retirement:

Matron: I don’t know what Mr Franklin will do without you.
Headmaster: Don’t you? The first thing he will do is abolish corporal punishment, the second thing he’ll do is abolish compulsory games. And the third thing he’ll do is abolish the cadet corps. Those are the three things liberal schoolmasters always do, Matron, the first opportunity they get. They think it makes the sensitive boys happy. In my experience, sensitive boys are never happy anyway, so what is the point. Excuse me.

Matron (Jenny Galloway) makes up the headmaster for his part. Mr Franklin looks on.

Jenny Galloway’s Matron was a force throughout, accompanied by the only other woman, Lucy Briars as Miss Nisbitt (who wants a cardie). Both are tremendous as the lone females in this man’s world.

It has moments of extreme drama … Act One ends with gun explosions in Flanders, with all the boys in cadet uniforms. Matron comes on with a trolley (with the third of a pint bottles of milk the government used to issue to all schoolchildren, until Mrs Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher- Milk Snatcher) abolished it. Matron announces the interval.

In memoriam: the boys with wreathes

The end of Act Two runs a picture collage from 1968 to 2017 on the side screens … bringing it up to Brexit.

I think the critics, mainly three star, were harsh, and those on two stars, vicious.  Though maybe an extra week until we saw it had smoothed it out. They note that Richard Wilson was using various crib sheets for his part, but often that’s part of the story … the headmaster has no idea the play’s content. OK, earlier on, he was using the lectern with notes, then a book with notes, but first he’s eighty, secondly he had a serious heart attack last year, and third, it didn’t bother us in the slightest. He is perfect casting and gave a great performance.

I’m with Domenic Cavendish on ratings this time. The set, the production values, the direction, the extras, the actors were all as good as you can get. Maybe the play itself has a few flat spots, inevitably given the passing of time, the changing of targets (the Bloomsbury set don’t feature highly in my list of potential 20th century targets), so not five star.

But overall:

****

TRIVIA

The 1968 production had twenty pupils, and named all of them. According to Wiki, Bennett’s friend Russell Harty was teaching at a boys’ school and the names come from his class. I’m not so sure Harty’s class list wasn’t amended. Alan Bennett knows his popular culture. Alf Tupper was the “Tough of the Track” in The Rover boys’ comic.  Leslie Charteris was the author of The Saint novels, hugely popular on TV in 1968. Harold Skinner appears in the Billy Bunter school series as “the cad” (played by Melvin Hayes on TV). Major Rumbold is a character in A.A. Milne’s classic detective novel The Red House Mystery. 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:
4
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph, ****
3
Michael Billington, The Guardian ***
Clare Brennan, The Observer ***
Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times, ***
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, ***
Mark Shenton, The Stage ***
2
Dominic Maxwell, The Times, **
Jane Edwardes, Sunday Times **
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage **
LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

PLAYS BY ALAN BENNETT
People by Alan Bennett, National Theatre on Tour, Milton Keynes

DANIEL EVANS
American Buffalo, by David Mamet, Wyndham’s Theatre, London

RICHARD WILSON
Fracked! Or Please Don’t Use The F-Word. by Alistair Beaton, Chichester Minerva 2016 (DIRECTOR)

LUCY BRIARS
Ivanov, by Anton Chekhov, version by David Hare, Chichester Festival Theatre
The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov, version by David Hare, Chichester Festival Theatre

DANNY LEE WYNTER
Comus, by John Milton, Wanamaker Playhouse
Much Ado About Nothing – Old Vic 2013

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      • A Legal Matter
      • A Post-Brexit Vision
      • Agatha Christie: Deduction in a dell’arte mask
      • Allergies … and lawyers
      • Baby Boomer v Wokeperson
      • Barcodes
      • Beaujolais Nouveau …
      • Best of 2011
      • Best of 2012
      • Best of 2013
      • Best of 2014
      • Best of 2015 – music
      • Best of 2015 – Theatre
      • Best of 2016 – Music
      • Best of 2016 – Theatre
      • Best of 2017 – Music
      • Best of 2017 – Screen
      • Best of 2017- Theatre
      • Best of 2018 – Music
      • Best of 2018 – theatre
      • Best of 2019 – Concerts
      • Best of 2019 – Theatre
      • Best of 2019- Music
      • Best of 2020
      • Best of 2020- Music
      • Best of 2022 – Music
      • Best of 2022- Theatre
      • Cars are cars
      • Chorizo is Vile
      • Christmas Markets
      • Christmases long past …
      • Civil Wars & Statues
      • Climate Change: my rant
      • Communication skills: Leaders TV debate 2015
        • Opposition Leader’s Debate, 16 April 2015
      • Crisis at the Cash Register
      • Culture Shock Bourbon Street
      • Cycling in London (and elsewhere)
      • Encounter: Saul Bellow
      • Eurovision 2022
      • Fawlty Towers and Tall Poppies
      • Flags and anthems
      • Football nicknames
      • Free Broadband in Every Packet!
      • Guilt and innocence
      • Hail, hail, the first of May
      • Howards End is a blur
      • In the April Garden …
      • In The Days of Covid-21
      • In the May Garden
      • Jangle Bells: shopping for Christmas
      • Jumble Sales
      • Land Of My Mother’s
      • London-centric theatre
      • Mail v Guardian
      • Major Brylcreem or My adventures in the CCF
      • Matinees
      • Not an amazing grace
      • On The Road: Information overkill
      • Parent and child spaces
      • Poppies
      • Princely Names
      • Quaint hotels
      • Remember, remember …
      • Secondhand Christmas
      • Shrink wrapping albums
      • Sloppy fiction?
      • Someone will call you back …
      • Sound … and Fury… at The Globe
      • SS-GB – Mumbling soundtracks
      • Supermarket check-outs
      • Surveys
      • Testing in schools
      • The “Poldark” Effect
      • The 2019 watershed?
      • The 70s were crap
      • The Building Behind Me …
      • The Cheerful e-bay seller
      • The Curse of The Crawleys: Downton Abbey Series 10
      • The Decline of Bournemouth
      • The End of Deference …
      • The Famous Five – by Paul F. Newman
      • The four day week?
      • The Great War
      • The Hacking Cough
      • The Long & The Short Of It
      • The March of The Halloumi Fries
      • The Shakespeare Cod-Piece
      • The Stitch Up
      • View From The Queue
      • What happened to car CD players?
      • What’s happened to air travel?
    • stage
      • ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore – Cheek by Jowl
      • ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore – Wanamaker
      • 8 Hotels
      • A Damsel in Distress
      • A Little Hotel On The Side
      • A Mad World My Masters
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – BBC TV 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Bridge 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Grandage 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Propellor 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – RSC 2011
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – RSC 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Selladoor 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Watermill 2018
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Watermill Tour 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Young Vic
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bath 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Headlong
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare
      • A Midsummer Nights Dream – Handspring 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream RSC 2016 Revisited
      • A Number
      • A Streetcar Named Desire NT Live
      • A Taste of Honey
      • A Very Very Very Dark Matter
      • A View From The Bridge
      • A Woman of No Importance
      • Abigail’s Party 2013
      • Absolute Hell
      • Ah, Wilderness!
      • Albion
      • All My Sons
      • All New People
      • All’s Well That Ends Well – RSC 2013
      • All’s Well That Ends Well- 2018
      • All’s Well That Ends Well- RSC 2022
      • Amadeus – 2014
      • Amadeus – NT 2017
      • American Buffalo
      • An Enemy of The People
      • An Ideal Husband 2018
      • An Ideal Husband- 2014
      • Antony & Cleopatra – RSC 2013
      • Antony & Cleopatra – RSC 2017
      • Antony and Cleopatra – Globe
      • Antony and Cleopatra 2012
      • Arcadia
      • Arden of Faversham
      • Around The World in 80 Days
      • As You Like It – Globe 2015
      • As You Like It – Globe 2018
      • As You Like It – National 2015
      • As You Like It – RSC 2019
      • As You Like It RSC 2013
      • Awful Auntie
      • Bakkhai
      • Balletboyz: The Talent
      • Barber Shop Chronicles
      • Bartholomew Fair
      • Beauty & The Beast (Ballet Theatre UK)
      • Before The Party
      • Birthday
      • Bitter Wheat
      • Black Comedy
      • Blithe Spirit
      • Blithe Spirit – Bath 2019
      • Blood Wedding
      • Blues For An Alabama Sky
      • Boudica
      • Bring Up The Bodies
      • Broken
      • Candida
      • Cardenio
      • Carmen Disruption
      • Caroline or Change
      • Comedy of Errors – Globe
      • Comedy of Errors – RSC, 2021
      • Comedy of Errors NT 2012
      • Comedy of Errors RSC ’12
      • Communicating Doors
      • Comus
      • Copenhagen
      • Coriolanus – NT Live
      • Coriolanus – RSC
      • Crazy For You
      • Curiosity Shop
      • Cymbeline – RSC
      • Cymbeline – Wanamaker
      • Dancing At Lughnasa
      • Death Of A Salesman
      • Deathtrap
      • Dedication
      • Dido, Queen of Carthage
      • Dinner With Saddam
      • Doctor Faustus
      • Don Carlos
      • Don Juan in Soho
      • Don Quixote
      • Doubt – a parable
      • Dream
      • Dunsinane
      • Echo’s End
      • Educating Rita
      • Edward II
      • Electro Kif
      • Endgame / Rough for Theatre II
      • Eyam
      • Fallen Angels
      • Fantastic Mr Fox
      • Far
      • Farinelli and The King
      • Fences
      • First Light
      • Flare Path
      • Follies
      • For Services Rendered
      • Forests
      • Fortune’s Fool
      • Forty Years On
      • Fracked! Or Please Don’t Use The F-Word.
      • Frankenstein – NT Encore
      • French Without Tears
      • Funny Girl
      • Future Conditional
      • George’s Marvellous Medicine
      • Girl From The North Country
      • God of Carnage
      • Gypsy
      • Hairspray, The Musical
      • Half A Sixpence
      • Hamilton
      • Hamlet – Cumberbatch
      • Hamlet – Globe 2014
      • Hamlet – Maxine Peake
      • Hamlet – NT 2010
      • Hamlet – RSC 2016
      • Hamlet RSC 2013
      • Hamlet- Almeida / BBC 2017
      • Hamlet- Young Vic 2011
      • Hangmen
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own – review
      • Hay Fever
      • Hecuba
      • Hedda Gabler
      • Hedda Tesman
      • Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
      • Henry V – 2018
      • Henry V – Jude Law
      • Henry V – RSC 2015
      • Henry VI – Rebellion
      • Henry VI – Wars of The Roses
      • Henry VI: Three plays
      • Hobson’s Choice
      • Hogarth’s Progress
      • Home
      • Home, I’m Darling
      • Hysteria
      • Imogen (Cymbeline) – Globe 2016
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2010
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Suchet, 2015
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Watermill
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2014
      • Importance of Being Earnest- 2018
      • Inala
      • Institute
      • Into The Hoods – Remixed
      • Ivanov
      • Jack Absolute Flies Again
      • Jeeves and Wooster
      • Jerusalem
      • Jerusalem – 2018
      • Jitney
      • John Gabriel Borkman
      • Julius Caesar – Globe 2014
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2012
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2017
      • Ka
      • King Charles III
      • King John – Globe 2015
      • King John – Rose, 2016
      • King John – RSC 2019
      • King Lear Frank Langella
      • King Lear – Antony Sher, RSC 2016
      • King Lear – Barrie Rutter
      • King Lear – David Haig
      • King Lear – Globe 2017
      • King Lear – McKellen 2017
      • King Lear – Russell-Beale
      • Kiss Me Kate
      • Kunene and The King
      • La Bête
      • Lady Windermere’s Fan
      • Leopoldstadt
      • Life of Galileo
      • Little Shop of Horrors
      • Local Hero
      • Long Day’s Journey Into Night
      • Love
      • Love For Love
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost – 2018
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost- 2016
      • Love’s Labour’s Won
      • Love’s Sacrifice
      • Love, Love, Love
      • Macbeth – Globe 2016
      • Macbeth – McAvoy 2013
      • Macbeth – National Theatre 2018
      • Macbeth – Tara Arts
      • Macbeth – Young Vic
      • Macbeth RSC 2018
      • Macbeth, RSC 2011
      • Macbeth, Watermill 2019
      • Macbeth- Chichester 2019
      • Macbeth- Wanamaker 2018
      • Mack & Mabel
      • Malory Towers
      • Man and Superman
      • Mary Poppins
      • Me and My Girl
      • Measure for Measure – Globe 2015
      • Measure for Measure – Young Vic
      • Measure for Measure RSC 2012
      • Measure For Measure- RSC 2019
      • Medea NT live
      • Miss Julie / Black Comedy
      • Miss Littlewood
      • Mojo
      • Monsieur Popular
      • Mrs Warren’s Profession
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2017
      • Much Ado About Nothing – NT 2022
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Old Vic 2013
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Rose 2018
      • Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing- Northern Broadsides
      • Much Ado About Nothing- RSC 2016
      • Much Ado About Nothing- RSC 2022
      • Much Ado About Nothing- Wyndhams 2011
      • Murder On The Orient Express (stage)
      • Murder, Margaret and Me
      • My Brilliant Friend (play)
      • My Night With Reg
      • Neighbourhood Watch
      • Nell Gwynn
      • Nice Fish
      • No Man’s Land
      • Noises Off
      • Obsession
      • Oklahoma! – Chichester
      • Once
      • One Man, Two Guvnors
      • Othello – Globe 2018
      • Othello – RSC 2015
      • Othello NT 2013
      • Othello- ETT 2018
      • Othello- Wanamaker 2017
      • Othello- Watermill 2022
      • Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
      • Our Man in Havana (musical)
      • People
      • People Like Us
      • Pericles
      • Peter & The Starcatcher
      • Peter and Alice
      • Peter Gynt
      • Peter Pan (pantomime)
      • Peter Pan Goes Wrong
      • Photograph 51
      • Pitcairn
      • Plastic
      • Platonov
      • Playing Cards 1: Spades
      • Plenty
      • POSH
      • Present Laughter – Chichester 2018
      • Present Laughter – Old Vic 2019
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2003
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2016
      • Pressure
      • Private Lives
      • Privates On Parade
      • Punishment Without Revenge
      • Punk Rock
      • Pygmalion
      • Quatermaine’s Terms
      • Queen Anne
      • Quiz – James Graham
      • Racing Demon
      • Ralegh: The Treason Trial
      • Relative Values
      • Richard II – Globe
      • Richard II – RSC
      • Richard III – Almeida
      • Richard III – Apollo 2012
      • Richard III – Freeman
      • Richard III – RSC 2012
      • Richard III – RSC 2022
      • Richard III – Spacey, 2011
      • Robin Hood (panto)
      • Romantics Anonymous
      • Romeo & Juliet – Globe 2017
      • Romeo & Juliet – RSC 2018
      • Romeo & Juliet 2014 – Box Clever
      • Romeo & Juliet, Headlong 2012
      • Romeo & Juliet- Branagh 2016
      • Romeo and Juliet – NT, 2021
      • Romeo and Juliet- Globe 2015
      • Romeo and Juliet: Tobacco Factory
      • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
      • Ross
      • Rules for Living
      • Salomé – RSC
      • Same Time, Next Year
      • School nativities
      • Secondary Cause of Death
      • Separate Tables
      • Shakespeare in Love
      • She Stoops To Conquer – Bath 2015
      • She Stoops to Conquer – Rain or Shine
      • Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads
      • Skylight
      • Slava’s Snowshow
      • Snow in Midsummer
      • South Pacific
      • Spring Awakening
      • Stepping Out
      • Strife
      • Swan Lake
      • Sweet Bird of Youth
      • Switzerland
      • Tamburlaine
      • Tangomotion
      • Tartuffe- RSC
      • The Alchemist – RSC
      • The Argument
      • The Beauty Queen of Leenane
      • The Beauty Queen of Leenane – 2021
      • The Beaux Stratagem
      • The Birthday Party
      • The Book of Mormon
      • The Broken Heart
      • The Canterbury Tales
      • The Captive Queen
      • The Caretaker
      • The Chalk Garden
      • The Changeling
      • The City Madam
      • The Constant Wife
      • The Country
      • The Country Girls
      • The Country Wife
      • The Cripple of Inishmaan
      • The Crucible, NT 2022
      • The Crucible, Old Vic 2014
      • The Deep Blue Sea – 2019
      • The Deep Blue Sea-NT live, 2016
      • The Doctor
      • The Dresser
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2012
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2014
      • The Duchess of Malfi – RSC 2108
      • The Entertainer
      • The Famous Five: A New Musical
      • The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich
      • The Ferryman (Acts 2 & 3)
      • The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
      • The Four Seasons: A Reimagining
      • The Game of Love and Chance
      • The Ghost Train
      • The Height of The Storm
      • The Homecoming
      • The Hot House
      • The Hypochondriac
      • The Hypocrite
      • The Jew of Malta
      • The Knight of The Burning Pestle
      • The Ladykillers
      • The Lie
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore- 2018
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore-2001
      • The Lock In
      • The Lock In Christmas Carol
      • The Magistrate – NT Live
      • The Magna Carta Plays
      • The Man In The White Suit
      • The Merchant of Venice – Almeida
      • The Merchant of Venice – Globe
      • The Merchant of Venice – RSC
      • The Merry Wives – Northern Broadsides
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – Globe 2019
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – RSC 2012
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor- RSC 2018
      • The Misanthrope ETT
      • The Miser
      • The Narcissist
      • The Nightingales
      • The Norman Conquests
        • Living Together
        • Round & Round The Garden
        • Table Manners
      • The Odyssey
      • The Painkiller (2016)
      • The Play That Goes Wrong
      • The Play What I Wrote
      • The Price
      • The Provoked Wife
      • The Recruiting Officer
      • The Rehearsal
      • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
      • The Rivals
      • The Roaring Girl
      • The Rover
      • The Ruling Class
      • The School for Scandal
      • The Seagull
      • The Seagull- Chichester
      • The Seven Year Itch
      • The Shoemaker’s Holiday
      • The Silver Tassie
      • The Southbury Child
      • The Spire
      • The Storm
      • The Syndicate
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2012
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2019
      • The Taming of The Shrew- Globe 2016
      • The Taxidermist’s Daughter
      • The Tempest – Bath Ustinov
      • The Tempest RSC 2012
      • The Tempest RSC 2016
      • The Tempest- Wanamaker
      • The Truth
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- 2018
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- RSC
      • The Unfriend
      • The Upstart Crow
      • The Wars of The Roses
        • Edward IV
        • Henry VI
        • Richard III
      • The Watsons
      • The Way of The World
      • The Weir
      • The Whale
      • The White Devil – Globe
      • The White Devil – RSC
      • The Winter’s Tale – Branagh
      • The Winter’s Tale – Cheek by Jowl
      • The Winter’s Tale – Globe 2018
      • The Winter’s Tale – RSC 2013
      • The Winter’s Tale – RSC 2021
      • The Winter’s Tale- Wanamaker
      • The Witch of Edmonton
      • There and Back Again – An Odyssey
      • Thérèse Raquin
      • This Happy Breed
      • This Is My Family
      • Timon of Athens
      • Timon of Athens – RSC
      • Titus Andronicus – RSC 2017
      • Titus Andronicus- Globe 2014
      • Totem
      • Travels With My Aunt (musical)
      • Travesties
      • Tristan and Yseult 2017
      • Troilus & Cressida RSC 2018
      • True West
      • Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012
      • Twelfth Night – Globe 2017
      • Twelfth Night – Globe, 2021
      • Twelfth Night – NT 2017
      • Twelfth Night – RSC 2017
      • Twelfth Night – Watermill
      • Twelfth Night – Young Vic
      • Twelfth Night RSC 2012
      • Twelfth Night- ETT 2014
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – 2016
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – RSC
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona- 2013
      • Uncle Vanya (Hare)
      • Uncle Vanya (McPherson)
      • Venice Preserved
      • Vice Versa
      • Volpone
      • Vulcan 7
      • Watership Down
      • Way Upstream
      • What The Butler Saw
      • While The Sun Shines
      • Wolf Hall
      • Woman in Mind
      • Women On The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown
      • wonder.land
      • Worst Wedding Ever
      • Woyzeck
      • Yerma (2017)
      • Young Chekhov Season
      • Young Marx
    • video
      • A Weekend Away, A Week By The Sea
        • Sections: Weekend Away / By the Sea
      • Dennis Cook: A history
      • Drama, dialogue and video
      • Teaching with video: techniques
      • Video: non-authentic
      • Video: on location
      • Video: Peter Viney Interview
      • Video: What happened?

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