Last Chance To See The Critically Acclaimed Flare Path Directed By Trevor Nunn

The final performance of Trevor Nunn’s critically acclaimed production of Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path is on Saturday 11 June 2011. Flare Path, which opened on 14 March, recouped after 6 weeks, and was extended due to public demand, is the first production in Nunn’s role as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In Rattigan’s centenary year, Flare Path was the first of several major revivals of his plays in London and beyond, including Cause Célèbre at The Old Vic, a new film of The Deep Blue Sea, a season of his films at the BFI, a special display at the British Library, BBC radio productions and the publication of new editions of his work.

Set and costumes are by Stephen Brimson Lewis with lighting by Paul Pyant, sound by Paul Groothuis and projection design by Jack James. Flare Path is produced by Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions, Theatre Royal Haymarket Company, Act Productions Ltd and Tom McKitterick.

The cast comprises Joe Armstrong (Dusty), Jim Creighton (Wiggy Jones), Sarah Crowden (Mrs.Oakes), Mark Dexter (Count Skriczevinsky), Harry Hadden-Paton (Teddy), Emma Handy (Maudie), Sienna Miller (Patricia), James Purefoy (Peter), Sheridan Smith (Doris), Matthew Tennyson (Percy) and Clive Wood (Swanson).

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.

Following Flare Path, a further two productions will be directed by Trevor Nunn at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. After a three week run at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Nunn’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead starring Samuel Barnett, Jamie Parker and Tim Curry will run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 16 June – 20 August, with press night on 21 June 2011, followed by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, starring Ralph Fiennes, which will run from 27 August to 29 October, with press night on 06 September 2011.

Release issued by: Premier PR

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London

Terence Rattigan exhibition opens today at the British Library

The British Library in London opens a new exhibition today, 5 April 2011, presenting their archive on famous British playwright Terence Rattigan.

Timed to celebrate Rattigan’s centenary this year, “Nothing is ever as it seems…” in the British Library’s Treasures Gallery runs until July 2011 (free entry) and reveals a series of items from his archive.

Items featured include the original scripts of Cause Célèbre, which is currently playing at the Old Vic Theatre in London, Flare Path – which Trevor Nunn has directed at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, his first stage play, First Episode, and his 1938 play Follow my Leader.

The collection also presents photographs and letters of the playwright, including letters bought for only £22 from an antique bookshop by an eagle-eyed British Library curator.

Kathryn Johnson, the British Library’s Curator of Theatrical Manuscripts, said that the current successful revivals of his plays, including Thea Sharrock’s National Theatre production of After The Dance last year, shows that “the audiences and critics who once prized the writer for his theatrical craftsmanship, his characterisation, and his humane response to the emotional dilemmas of ordinary people were not simply lulled into that response by a master manipulator.”

Rattigan was only the second English playwright to be knighted in the 20th century, and interest in his life and work is set to continue apace leading up to his centenary on 10 June.

British Library, Monday to Sunday until July 2011.

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

1. First Episode (1933) – Rattigan’s first staged play. Typescript with autograph amendments.
Rattigan wrote First Episode while an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford, in collaboration with his friend, Philip Heimann. The play was produced at the Q Theatre, a small theatre near Kew Bridge in London with a reputation for staging new and experimental work. Drawing on Rattigan’s and Heimann’s Oxford experiences, First Episode is set in an undergraduate lodging house and shows four young men whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of two professional actresses to take leading roles in the university dramatic society’s latest production. Recurring themes of Rattigan’s mature writing are already present – incompatible lovers, and characters caught between physical desire and the dictates of reason and society.

2. Follow My Leader (1938) – original version refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain. Typescript with annotations. Written in collaboration with Anthony Maurice and submitted for licence in July 1938. (Until the passing of the Theatres Act in 1968, every play intended for public performance in Great Britain had to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office to obtain a licence.) Rattigan’s sprightly satirical farce poked fun not just at Hitler and the Nazis and Mussolini and the Italian fascists but also at those in authority in Britain who sought to appease them. But the Lord Chamberlain took fright and passed the script to the Foreign Office who were adamant that nothing calculated to offend a friendly foreign power should appear on the stage. A licence was refused until January 1940, by which time the play’s moment had passed, and Follow My Leader had a short and very disappointing run.

3. Flare Path: original script, under its original title of Next of Kin (1942).
When this script was sent for licence in 1942, the Lord Chamberlain insisted that it should be sent to the Air Ministry for vetting before he issued a licence. In the event the Ministry asked for only minor changes while the Lord Chamberlain, as ever, nitpicked over language. The play is set in the residents’ lounge of a hotel close to an RAF bomber station somewhere on the South Coast, beginning early one evening as a surprise mission disrupts the plans of a bomber crew and their wives, and ending the following morning, with the women greeting their husbands on their return from the bombing raid. The play’s success was assured when Churchill attended a performance in January 1943 at the insistence of his wife Clementine, and told the cast afterwards, “I was very moved ….. It is a masterpiece of understatement. But we are rather good at that, aren’t we?”

4. Cause Célèbre (also known as A Woman of Principle), 1975: original script of radio version.
Cause Célèbre was inspired by the Rattenbury & Stoner murder trial of 1935; Rattigan acknowledges that he took the bare bones of his play from the account of the trial edited by F. Tennyson Jesse in the Notable British Trials series. BBC Radio broadcast this version in October 1975: it opens at the beginning of the trial, and events leading up to the murder are conveyed in a series of flashbacks.

5. Letter from Terence Rattigan to Robin Midgley, director of the stage play Cause Célèbre; April 1977.
The stage version of Cause Célèbre encountered any number of difficulties. Rattigan was commissioned to rewrite the radio script for the stage in time for production in autumn 1976, but because of difficulties in casting, and his increasing weakness from terminal cancer, it was only in January 1977 that Rattigan began work with Robin Midgely, the artistic director of the Haymarket Theatre Leicester to rewrite and reconstruct the radio play as a stage work. This letter, recently acquired by the British Library, speaks eloquently of Rattigan’s continued stage craftsmanship and his determination in the face of constant pain. The final version was premiered at Her Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket in July 1977: Rattigan died at his house in Bermuda less than five months later.

LINKS

British Library website – Plan Your Visit
Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Book tickets to Cause Celebre at the Old Vic Theatre

SHERIDAN SMITH in Flare Path

Sheridan Smith joins Sienna Miller in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path

Acclaimed actress Sheridan Smith is a true all-rounder, whether it’s turning her hand to TV or stage, to comedy or drama, to straight plays or musicals. Her last West End work only ended in January, having spent a year wowing critics and audiences with her portrayal of blonde bombshell Elle Woods in the movie-to-stage musical Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre – leading to a Whatsonstage best actress in a musical award, and an Olivier Award nomination.

Up next is a play, as Sheridan takes the role of Doris in Terence Rattigan’s 1942 drama Flare Path, from 4 March at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Set during the Second World War, the play is directed by Trevor Nunn and co-stars Sienna Miller and James Purefoy.

Sheridan Smith is best known for her TV roles including Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Grown Ups, Love Soup, Benidorm, The Royle Family and Gavin and Stacey. Her stage work includes Into the Woods at the Donmar Warehouse, The People are Friendly for the Royal Court, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew at the Open Air Theatre and Audrey in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Little Shop of Horrors.

Also up next for Sheridan is a role in Tanya Wexler’s movie Hysteria starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jonathan Pryce.

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Flare Path – Reviews Round-up

A round-up of reviews for Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

This spring Trevor Nunn revives Terence Rattigan’s wartime romance Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, timed to celebrate the centenary of the acclaimed playwright. An all-star cast leads this compelling new production, including Sienna Miller (The Edge of Love) as Patricia, James Purefoy (HBO’s Rome) as Peter, Sheridan Smith (Legally Blonde) as Doris, Joe Armstrong as Dusty, Sarah Crowden as Mrs Oakes and Clive Woods as Swanson.

Set near an airfield in Lincolnshire in 1942, the year the play was written and first performed, Rattigan’s drama involves love and heartache between an actress, a young bomber pilot and a famous movie heartthrob. The revival runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 4 March 2011.

Read reviews, below, from the Times, Telegraph, Independent, Guardian and Daily Mail.

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
Flare Path: photos
Flare Path: More news

Photos: Flare Path at the Haymarket

Production photos of Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

This spring Trevor Nunn revives Terence Rattigan’s wartime romance Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, timed to celebrate the centenary of the acclaimed playwright. An all-star cast leads this compelling new production, including Sienna Miller (The Edge of Love) as Patricia, James Purefoy (HBO’s Rome) as Peter, Sheridan Smith (Legally Blonde) as Doris, Joe Armstrong as Dusty, Sarah Crowden as Mrs Oakes and Clive Woods as Swanson.

Set near an airfield in Lincolnshire in 1942, the year the play was written and first performed, Rattigan’s drama involves love and heartache between an actress, a young bomber pilot and a famous movie heartthrob. The revival runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 4 March 2011.

LINKS

Books tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

More news about Flare Path

Opening this week: Blithe Spirit, Flare Path

Première’s this week in the West End include Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit starring Alison Steadman and Ruthie Henshall, Sienna Miller in Flare Path, Polly Rae in Hurly Burly, Matthew Kelly in Sign of the Times and the Olivier Awards this Sunday 13 March.

Monday 7 March

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Tim Firth’s new play Sign of the Times starts previews at the Duchess Theatre tonight, with its press night on Friday. The Calendar Girls author has written a warm and witty comedy about a disillusioned sign erector whose life is changed by a clumsy teenager. The show stars Matthew Kelly and Shameless actor Gerard Kearns.

Wednesday 9 March

BLITHE SPIRIT: Noel Coward’s blissful comedy Blithe Spirit officially opens at the Apollo Theatre tonight featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago), Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Hattie). The revival is directed by the award-winning Thea Sharrock (After the Dance).

Thursday 10 March

FLARE PATH: Trevor Nunn kicks off as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket with the press night for Flare Path. Terence Rattigan’s Second World War romance stars Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith.

Friday 11 March

HURLY BURLY: Salacious show Hurly Burly opens at the Garrick Theatre, featuring the luscious Miss Polly Rae in an all singing, all dancing burlesque-inspired revue, with a contemporary twist. Long-time Kylie collaborator William Baker directs.

Sunday 13 March 2011

OLIVIER AWARDS: The Olivier Awards are tonight at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, promising a high star quotient at the UK theatre’s most important event. This year’s ceremony is hosted by Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, and you can tune in live to hear who wins on Radio 2 or via the BBC’s red button TV service. Visit our Olivier Awards micro-site here.

LINKS

Shows – tickets and booking information
Olivier Awards 2011

New this week: Oz, Blithe Spirit, Flare Path

Some big-hitting West End shows open this week in London, including The Wizard of Oz, Million Dollar Quartet, Flare Path and Blithe Spirit.

Monday 28 February 2011

Million Dollar Quartet, the musical that recreates the historic day when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis all made music together, opens tonight at the Noel Coward Theatre starring a multi-talented cast including Bill Ward (Coronation Street).

Tuesday 1 March 2011

It’s the premiere tonight of the musical that has received more publicity, hype and good old-fashioned audience anticipation than any other show for years as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sparkly new production of The Wizard of Oz opens at the London Palladium. Rebooted by Jeremy Sams and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Bill Kenwright, the show sees Over The Rainbow star Danielle Hope make her West End stage debut joined by Michael Crawford as the Wizard and Hannah Waddingham as the Wicked Witch.

Also today, tickets go on sale for the Olivier Awards at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The 13th March ceremony is open to theatregoers for the first time and promises a starry night of West End celebs and excerpts from the shows.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Noel Coward’s blissful comedy Blithe Spirit starts previews at the Apollo Theatre featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey), Ruthie Henshall (Chicago), Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Hattie). The revival is directed by the award-winning Thea Sharrock (After the Dance).

Thursday 3 March 2011

Previews starts for Hurly Burly at the Garrick Theatre, featuring the luscious Miss Polly Rae in an all singing, all dancing burlesque-inspired revue with a contemporary twist.

Also tonight, In A Forest, Dark and Deep starts previews at the Vaudeville Theatre with Lost star Matthew Fox and Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer) in Neil LaBute’s new psychological thriller.

Friday 4 March 2011

Trevor Nunn begins his artistic directorship of the Theatre Royal Haymarket tonight with the start of previews for Flare Path. Terence Rattigan’s Second World War romance sees Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith star.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Kneehigh theare company, who scored a huge hit in London and on Broadway with their stage take on Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, are back with a brand new production. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, based on the classic French film, begins previews at the Gielgud Theatre tonight starring Joanna Riding, Meow Meow and Andrew Durand.

Also on Saturday, A Flea in Her Ear closes at the Old Vic Theatre starring Tom Hollander and Ordinary Days starring Daniel Boys ends at the Trafalgar Studios.

JAMES PUREFOY in Flare Path

James Purefoy joins Sienna Miller and Sheridan Smith in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path

Hot on the heels of HBO’s racy and award-winning sex and sandals drama Rome, James Purefoy is back in Britain – and back on stage – in a revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 play Flare Path.

He is well cast, playing handsome Hollywood heartthrob Peter Kyle, who returns from America to throw the lives of actress Patricia (Sienna Miller) and young RAF bomber pilot Teddy into upheaval.

James Purefoy is best known for TV roles including Marc Antony in HBO’s Rome, NBC’s The Philanthropist, and movie roles in films such as Resident Evil, Vanity Fair, the Black Prince in A Knight’s Tale and Solomon Kane.

His theatre credits include a stint at the RSC in Macbeth, The Tempest, The Man Who Came to Dinner and King Lear, Hamlet for the Bristol Old Vic, Present Laughter at the Globe Theatre, Les Enfants du Paradis at the Barbican, and Trevor Nunn’s National Theatre production of The Relapse.

Up next for the actor is a starring role in new ITV drama Injustice, and movies Ironclad and John Carter of Mars.

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

SIENNA MILLER in Flare Path

Sienna Miller stars in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Sienna Miller’s on/off relationship with Jude Law has propelled her into the realms of acting stardom, but it’s for her work that she is becoming best known. Her 2009 Broadway role in the Roundabout Theatre’s production of After Miss Julie, alongside Frankenstein’s Jonny Lee Miller, garnered largely positive reviews.

And her next acting project is a return to the West End, where she last starred in a production of As You Like It at the Wyndham’s Theatre in 2005.  This time Trevor Nunn will direct her in a new revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 play Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, from 4 March. The revival is timed for Terence Rattigan’s centenary this year and will see Sienna play Patricia Graham, a former actress married to a pilot but caught in a love triangle.

Miller’s recent films include The Edge of Love with Keira Knightley and G.I. Joe with Christopher Eccleston, and past screen work ranges from a starring role in Alfie alongside Jude Law in 2004, to forthcoming Billy Zane project Two Jacks. Other film roles include Layer Cake, Casanova, Factory Girl, Interview, Camille and Stardust.

Sienna Miller will star in Flare Path alongside Legally Blonde’s Sheridan Smith and Rome’s James Purefoy.

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Chichester Festival announces new season

The Chichester Festival Theatre has announced its new 2011 season, including a major celebration of the work of Terence Rattigan and three new productions of classic musicals.

High-profile directors include Trevor Nunn, Max Stafford-Clark, Jonathan Church, Philip Franks and Sean Mathias.

Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton to star in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Sir Ian McKellen returns to Chichester to star alongside Michael Pennington in The Syndicate.

Chichester Festival Theatre has announced its new 2011 season, starting on 9 May. Artistic Director Jonathan Church has put together an impressive slate of new productions, attracting major directors and stellar acting talent to cover both drama and musicals.

Three big musicals will be revived this year, following Chichester’s 2010 stage version of famous film weepy Love Story, which is currently playing at the Duchess Theatre in London. The season kicks off with Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s She Loves Me (from 9 May), starring Joe McFadden and Dianne Pilkington, and directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear. The show was last seen in the West End in 1994 starring Ruthie Henshall, John Gordon Sinclair and Tracie Bennett.

From 27 June, MGM musical Singin’ in the Rain gets a brand new production by Jonathan Church, starring Adam Cooper, Daniel Crossley and Scarlett Strallen. The musical trio is completed at the end of the season by the much talked-about and anticipated new production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (from 24 September), directed by Jonathan Kent and starring Michael Ball in the title role and Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett.

The festival will also celebrate the work of Terence Rattigan with a mini season of productions, timed to coincide with the playwright’s centenary year in 2011. Shows include The Deep Blue Sea (from 13 July) directed by Philip Franks; and The Browning Version (from 2 September) directed by Angus Jackson, alongside the world premiere of a new one-act play by David Hare, South Downs, directed by Jeremy Herrin and commissioned by the Rattigan Trust as a response to The Browning Version. Also Nicholas Wright’s new play Rattigan’s Nijinsky, based on a screenplay by Rattigan, will get a world premiere from 19 July  directed by Philip Franks; and from 31 July the festival will hold a series of rehearsed readings of some of Rattigan’s lesser-known plays, including First Episode,  Adventure Story, Variation On A Theme, Heart To Heart and Harlequinade, plus In Praise Of Rattigan, devised by Jack Tinker and Martin Tickner and directed and featuring Penelope Keith.

Other new productions include Trevor Nunn following his spring production of Rattigan’s Flare Path in the West End, by directing Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (from 20 May); Max Stafford-Clark and his Out of Joint theatre company join forces with Chichester to revisit Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play Top Girls (from 23 June); and Sir Ian McKellen stars in a new version of Eduardo De Filippo’s The Syndicate (from 21 July), also starring Michael Pennington and directed by Sean Mathias.

LINKS

Chichester Festival Theatre website

Video: Sweeney Todd – Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton on The Michael Ball Show

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