Nunn directs Sienna Miller in Rattigan

Trevor Nunn will direct Hollywood actress Sienna Miller in a new revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 play Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket this spring.

Flare Path is to be Nunn’s first production as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company, following Jonathan Kent and Sean Mathias in the role.

Flare Path (from 4 March 2011) joins a long list of plays timed for Terence Rattigan’s centenary this year, including Thea Sharrock’s new production of Cause Célèbre at The Old Vic from 17 March starring Anne-Marie Duff and Niamh Cusack, Less Than Kind currently playing at the Jermyn Street Theatre starring Sara Crowe, In Praise of Love at the Royal & Derngate in Northampton from 1 April directed by Richard Beecham, and a revival of The Deep Blue Sea at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from 18 February starring Maxine Peake. Also a new movie version of The Deep Blue Sea, starring Simon Russell-Beale, Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston, will open this year in cinemas this year.

In the play Sienna Miller plays Patricia Graham, a former actress married to a pilot but caught in a love triangle. Miller was last seen on stage in 2009 at Broadway’s Roundabout Theatre in After Miss Julie alongside Jonny Lee Miller, who will be starring in Frankenstein at the National Theatre from 5 February. She was last seen in London in As You Like It at the Wyndham’s Theatre in 2005. Recent films include The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe. Her partner, Jude Law, is also scheduled to appear in the West End this year, in Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse from 8 August.

Trevor Nunn comes to the production after directing Birdsong at the Comedy Theatre starring Ben Barnes, which closed on Saturday. His production of A Little Night Music continues to run on Broadway.

Flare Path will be designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis.

MORE ABOUT FLARE PATH

It is 1942. At the Falcon Hotel, on the edge of an airfield in Lincolnshire, Teddy, a young bomber pilot is celebrating a reunion with his actress wife Patricia. Events take an unexpected turn, when Peter a famous heartthrob film star arrives, and an urgent bombing mission over Germany is ordered. As the night gives way to dawn, Patricia finds herself at the centre of a passionate conflict of love and loyalty as unpredictable as the war in the skies.

Flare Path was first performed in the West End at the Apollo Theatre in 1942. It is based on Rattigan’s own Bomber Command experiences when he served as a tail gunner during the Second World War. He later reworked Flare Path into a screenplay and in 1945 the re-titled The Way to the Stars starring Michael Redgrave was successfully released.

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners

Best Set Design

2011 The White Guard designed by Bunny Christie
2010 Jerusalem designed by Ultz
2009 August: Osage County designed by Todd Rosenthal
2008 Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company for War Horse
2007 Sunday In The Park With George, designed by David Farley and Timothy Bird
2006 Hedda Gabler designed by Rob Howell
2005 His Dark Materials designed by Giles Cadle
2004 Hitchcock Blonde designed by William Dudley
2003 A Streetcar Named Desire designed by Bunny Christie

Best Set Designer

2002 Tim Hatley for Humble Boy and Private Lives
2001 William Dudley for All My Sons
2000 Rob Howell for Richard III, Troilus and Cressida and Vassa
1999 Anthony Ward for Oklahoma!
1998 Tim Goodchild for Three Hours After Marriage
1997 Tim Hatley for Stanley
1996 John Napier for Burning Blue
1995 Stephen Brimson Lewis for Design for Living and Les Parents Terribles
1994 Mark Thompson for Hysteria
1993 Ian MacNeil for An Inspector Calls
1992 Mark Thompson for The Comedy Of Errors
1991 Mark Thompson for The Wind In The Willows

Designer of the Year

1989/90Bob Crowley for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Hedda Gabler, Ghetto and The Plantagenets
1988 Richard Hudson for his season at The Old Vic
1987 Lucio Fanti (with Design Team) for The Hairy Ape
1986 William Dudley for Futurists, Kafka’s Dick and The Merry Wives Of Windsor
1985 William Dudley for The Mysteries and The Critics
1984 John Gunter for Wild Honey
1983 Ralph Koltai for Cyrano De Bergerac
1982 John Gunter for Guys And Dolls
1981 Carl Toms for The Provok’d Wife
1980 John Napier and Dermot Hayes for Nicholas Nickleby
1979 William Dudley for Undiscovered Country
1978 Ralph Koltai for Brand
1977 John Napier for King Lear
1976 Farrah for Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V