VIDEO: Why Quiz is unfinished business at Chichester Festival Theatre

Daniel is delighted to offer another chance to see James Graham’s smash-hit comedy, which premiered at Chichester in 2017 before transferring to the West End, being nominated for two Olivier Awards and becoming a hit TV drama. As Daniel says, James has since updated it. And he is delighted that leading the company will be “one of our great political satirists”, Rory Bremner.

The show will be directed by Daniel Evans and Seán Linnen and run from September 22-30 in the Festival Theatre, a provocative re-examination of the conviction of Charles Ingram, ‘the Coughing Major’, his wife Diana and accomplices, for duping the world’s most popular TV quiz show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, out of £1,000,000.

“We're bringing it back because it's unfinished business really. It has been on quite a journey. It went to the West End and became a much watched mini-series during the pandemic on ITV but since then James has wanted to update the play. It was going to do a UK tour but then the pandemic put paid to that and I am delighted to have it back. One of the things we love to do with our work at Chichester is to share it across the country and that's what's going to be happening.”

Completing the summer season on the main house stage will be A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller, directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart, a co-production with Headlong, Octagon Theatre Bolton and Rose Theatre, October 6-28, Festival Theatre.

On the Brooklyn waterfront, where the fierce passions of ancestral Sicily linger, the orphaned Catherine falls for her handsome, newly arrived cousin Rodolfo – an illegal immigrant. Their romance is encouraged by her aunt Beatrice but viewed with revulsion by her uncle, Eddie Carbone, who harbours an unspoken desire. As tensions rise, their story spins inexorably beyond control.

“This feels like a gift to the Festival Theatre and I can't believe that we have never produced a play by this Great American writer before. I just don't know why. I'm baffled. He is one of the Titans of American drama and also a fascinating man who was married briefly to Marilyn Monroe. His play The Crucible brings a link to the McCarthy era that he lived through where people were blacklisted. This now is a play which touches on immigration and I'm really excited that our audience in Chichester will have a chance to enjoy this really great drama.”

Also part of the summer season on the main-house will be Assassins, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, directed by Polly Findlay, June 3-24, a piece offering a surreal carnival centred on a group of people who have one thing in common: they want to assassinate the President of the United States.

“I was privileged to work with Sondheim,” Daniel says. “I had the immense pleasure of being in touch with him and working with him in London and in New York. He was complex. He was very strict but he was also very generous. He was also very self-deprecating and very emotional. I remember doing a workshop with him on Company in New York and he sat there and cried his eyes out. He felt that emotion.

“We stayed in contact. We would e-mail from time to time but I just remember such generosity. And it really has been one of the greatest honours in my lifetime to have lived in his era and to have worked with him.”

cft.org.uk; 01243 781312; tickets from £10.