Sense of history as Chichester Festival Theatre’s 60th anniversary season nears

Kate is the first female playwright to open the season. She is particularly delighted that it is happening in this year’s landmark anniversary year.

“It really does feel historic. It feels an incredible honour and a privilege and a little bit nerve-racking!”

Her only regret is that her parents, for whom the theatre meant so much over so many years, are no longer here to enjoy the moment.

“My parents were two of the people that put their hands in their pockets for this theatre even before they were living here and they were there on that first night, July 5 1962. My father was company secretary of the theatre for 30 years and they went to absolutely every show so this feels like a bit of family history as well. I have been trying to find pictures of my parents on that opening night back in the days when people used to dress up so beautifully for the theatre. And that first night was an extraordinary thing. It was just so glamorous. Laurence Olivier was the first artistic director and there were so many big names. It was at the same time that the National Theatre was announced, and that Olivier was going to run that after Chichester so it really did feel like theatre history in the making.

“It must have been just such a wonderfully glamorous evening but actually the first shows were not very successful and it was the Vanya that turned things around.”

Kate will be filling the same opening slot in this year’s 60th anniversary year – and she is thrilled to be able to offer a piece of theatre so rooted in Chichester.

“When people leave the theatre they will come out into the landscape that they have been hearing about. It’s April in the novel and in the play and it will be April now. I love Chichester and I love Fishbourne and I love the marshes and much of the play is out in that landscape. The landscape is fundamental to it and that means a great deal to me.

“It was to have been staged in the 2020 season at the end around Halloween. It’s a dark story. There is a resolution and there is hope and it finishes with a sense that the community is healed and restored but it is a dark gothic story and Halloween would have been appropriate too.”

It is set in 1912. In the isolated Blackthorn House on Sussex’s Fishbourne Marshes, Connie Gifford lives with her father. His Museum of Avian Taxidermy was once legendary, but since its closure Gifford has become a broken man, taking refuge in the bottle.

Robbed of her childhood memories by a mysterious accident, Connie is haunted by fitful glimpses of her past. A strange woman has been seen in the graveyard; and at Chichester’s Graylingwell Asylum, two female patients have, inexplicably, disappeared.

As a major storm hits the Sussex landscape, old wounds are about to be opened as one woman, intent on revenge, attempts to liberate another from the horrifying crimes of the past.

“The play has changed since it should have been done because I have learned a lot,” says Kate. “I am very fortunate that my husband is a playwright and teaches play-writing and also my son is an actor. I’ve had the time particularly with my son Felix to work out the dramaturgy, just how you take the same story and move it into a different art form.

“There are half million people in the UK that have read the book and that’s half a million people that I want to stay happy. It’s important to me that the spirit of the book is there but to make that actual theatrical move you have to strip a lot away. Much of the subtext and much of the back stories have had to go to concentrate on the main story which is a dark story of revenge.”.

Directed by Róisín McBrinn, the company includes Geoffrey Aymer, Pearl Chanda (as Cassie), William Chubb, Tim Frances, Daisy Prosper (as Connie), Forbes Masson, Taheen Modak, Akai Osei, Alastair Parker, Raad Rawi, Howard Saddler, Posy Sterling and Connie Walker.

And it has certainly been an interesting challenge, Kate says: “I am a novelist and that’s what I care about. I don’t write in order for my books to be made into films or theatre but I did want to do this because I love just the Festival Theatre and I love live theatre and this feels like a different audience but having said that (director) Róisín is a wonderfully collaborative person and a very warm and respectful director.

“She is very lyrical in the way that she thinks of the text which is also very important to me because though it is a tough story and an exciting story I want the beauty of the language to really matter. I said to her that she is the director and that ‘You are the creative team and this is your play. It is no more my play than it is your play’ and I said that I want you to feel that if there are bits that you think need to be slightly changed or something that doesn’t need to be said or if there’s something that isn’t said but needs to be said then I would be very grateful for their input into the text. These are tiny little changes but they are all part of creating this work

Kate Mosse’s novels include The Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel), The Winter Ghosts and her new historical series, The Burning Chambers and The City of Tears; non-fiction includes An Extra Pair of Hands. She is founder director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Founder of the global Woman in History campaign and visiting professor in contemporary fiction and creative writing at the University of Chichester.

Róisín McBrinn is joint artistic director of Clean Break; elsewhere she has directed many productions for theatres including The Abbey and Gate Theatres (Dublin), Leeds Playhouse, Sheffield Theatres, Donmar Warehouse, Bush Theatre and Sherman Theatre.

Pearl Chanda makes her Chichester debut as Cassie; her theatre work includes Masha in Three Sisters and James Graham’s Ink (also West End) at the Almeida Theatre, while television includes The War of the Worlds and I May Destroy You.

Daisy Prosper makes her professional theatre debut as Connie; on television she has appeared in The Devil’s Hour and Toast of Tinseltown.

The Taxidermist’s Daughter will be designed by Paul Wills, with lighting by Prema Mehta.Tickets on cft.org.uk or 01243 781312.

CFT summer

The Taxidermist’s Daughter, adapted for the stage by Kate Mosse, a new play based on her novel, directed by Róisín McBrinn, April 8-30, Festival Theatre.

Our Generation, a new play by Alecky Blythe, directed by Daniel Evans, a co-production with the National Theatre, April 22-May 14, Minerva Theatre.

Henry Goodman in Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig, directed by Jonathan Church, May 13-June 4, Festival Theatre.

Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith in The Unfriend, a new play by Steven Moffat, directed by Mark Gatiss, May 21-July 9, Minerva Theatre.

Alex Jennings in The Southbury Child, a new play by Stephen Beresford, directed by Nicholas Hytner, June 13-25, Festival Theatre.

Crazy For You, music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, July 11-September 4, Festival Theatre.

Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads by Roy Williams, directed by Nicole Charles, July 22– August 13, Minerva Theatre.

The Narcissist, a new play by Christopher Shinn, directed by Josh Seymour, August 26-September 24.

Woman In Mind by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Justin Martin, September 23-October 15, Festival Theatre.

Local Hero, book by David Greig, nusic and lyrics by Mark Knopfler, based on the Bill Forsyth film, directed by Daniel Evans, October 8-November 19, Minerva Theatre.

The Famous Five, a new musical, music & lyrics by Theo Jamieson, book by Elinor Cook, based on books by Enid Blyton, directed by Tamara Harvey, October 21-November 12, Festival Theatre.

Chichester Festival Youth Theatre present The Wind In The Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, adapted for the stage by Alan Bennett, directed by Dale Rooks, Dec 17-31, Festival Theatre.

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