A look back at the 2024 Chichester Festival Theatre summer

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It’s been a year of monumental successes and a year of learning as Chichester Festival Theatre artistic director Justin Audibert looks back on his first summer season in charge.

Justin was here last year but was working effectively on Daniel Evans’ final season as CFT artistic director.

“This year they were all my shows and what I think we gave people was a real variety of shows and I'm really proud of that. There was a lot of passion for the new plays that we had which was really exciting, The Other Boleyn Girl, House Party and Redlands and I think that's really unusual in a regional theatre, to have such a variety of new plays and that people respond so well to them

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“Obviously Oliver! was a real highlight of the summer. Oliver! was a show that had to deliver so much for us and there was so much pressure on it, but it was fantastic. I do think the source material is so amazing. It's a brilliant book and brilliant music and it's a well known story but you've still got to deliver it and we felt so proud of what we did. Obviously it has gone to the West End but for us we really thought that it delivered a show for the Festival Theatre stage. It worked so well on that stage. I saw it from five different seats and it was always just as good. In London, it is going into a much smaller venue with just 800 seats. (Director) Matthew (Bourne) is brilliant and he will have some plans but I think we had the best of it. I'm very biased, I know, but I think the fact is that we've got two of the very best theatres in the country and that's what makes it so special. And that's why people come to work here. The relationship between this audience and the stage in both our spaces is unique and that's what is really important. We can have the claustrophobia and the intensity of The Caretaker in the Minerva and then we can have something spectacularly dazzling like Oliver! on the Festival Theatre stage.

Jack Philpott as Oliver and Billy Jenkins as The Artful Dodger in Oliver! at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo Johan PerssonJack Philpott as Oliver and Billy Jenkins as The Artful Dodger in Oliver! at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo Johan Persson
Jack Philpott as Oliver and Billy Jenkins as The Artful Dodger in Oliver! at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo Johan Persson

“And the fact is that audience numbers are now back where they were pre-pandemic. We are actually bettering those years and we're in a really great place. Oliver! was our most successful musical ever. I think it played to something like 92 per cent of capacity; The Other Boleyn Girl was our most successful number-one slot play for years; and Redlands was the most successful new play on the Festival Theatre stage. Redlands averaged just shy of 1,100 people a night.

“The Other Boleyn Girl seems like ages ago but it got the season off to a brilliant start. It did fantastic numbers in what's traditionally quite a tricky slot. I don't know why but number one is a difficult slot. But what I tried to do was balance the season so that not all the pressure falls on the musical and so that you get support across the season. We reduced numbers of plays on the Festival Theatre stage from five to four and I think that really worked for us.

“The Coram Boy didn't achieve as much as we hoped. I think it was a really good company and a really committed company but sometimes time just catches up with a play, and I think the other thing was I don't know if we quite focused enough on the brilliant choral singing as much as we should have done. But I will also say I think it was quite a hard play to explain clearly and concisely. And I don't think it had a big enough difference between The Other Boleyn girl and Oliver! It did less well. The other two got repeat bookers and people who came back but less so with The Coram Boy. Maybe it just wasn't different enough.”

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Redlands, however, finishing the main-house season, was certainly huge on impact. Keith Richards himself wasn't able to come as had been hoped but two of his children did as did his grandchildren: “And I think Keith himself was astonished that people were quite so interested in the story. I just think of the last night when we had 1,300 people in the Festival Theatre all dancing in the aisles and having the time of their life. You are trying to do so many things when you do this job but one of them is that you want people to think at the end of the year back on the great nights they have had and you want them to think back on something that they saw here and I think people will do that with Redlands.”

Jasper Talbot as Mick Jagger, Brenock O'Connor as Keith Richards in Redlands at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Ikin YumJasper Talbot as Mick Jagger, Brenock O'Connor as Keith Richards in Redlands at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Ikin Yum
Jasper Talbot as Mick Jagger, Brenock O'Connor as Keith Richards in Redlands at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Ikin Yum

Is it possible that the play might go on somewhere else? “Quite a few of the shows might get the chance to do that. Maybe three of the shows might have another life. We know that people love working with us because they know that they will get quality of costume and quality of design and quality of everything and I think that makes a big difference.

“So maybe what I have learned is about the balance for the Festival. I'm really pleased that we did four plays (on the main-house stage) and I think that was really smart and I think it works but if I look at the balance I would say that I did not get it quite right.

“I think if Coram Boy had been a comedy maybe it would have balanced the season really well. You would have had a literary adaptation then a comedy and then a musical and then a new play and I think that would have really worked. But the great thing about the Minerva is that you can programme work for a younger audience and you can put on such different shows. The programme to crack is the Festival Theatre but actually from when Oliver! went into previews we managed to sell out pretty much until the end of the season and on a matinee day it meant that we had 2,900 people on our site for our shows which is pretty good!”

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