Busy Chichester Festival Theatre winter season unveiled

Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi are among the big names in a wide-ranging newly-announced Chichester Festival Theatre winter season.

The season boasts James Graham’s Olivier Award-winning Best New Play Punch and the smash-hit musical Heathers. There will also be looks at two fascinating trios: the comedians Tommy Cooper, Bob Monkhouse and Eric Morecambe in The Last Laugh, and Labour politicians Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland in The Gang of Three.

Amid a “wealth of unforgettable stories”, the CFT is also promising a new production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time featuring Joe McFadden and Charlie Brooks plus Noël Coward’s celebrated comedy Present Laughter starring Tracy-Ann Oberman, James Dreyfus and Adrian Lukis.

The season also includes Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities and Khaled Hosseini’s acclaimed A Thousand Splendid Suns while Jane Asher, Matthew Cottle and Samantha Womack will evoke the fashion choices of the late Queen in By Royal Appointment. Giovanna Fletcher returns in the tense thriller Before I Go To Sleep. This Christmas, Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure will be brought to life by Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, and Hey! Christmas Tree returns to the Minera.

Coming up:

• The Last Laugh, November 3-7, Festival Theatre. The Last Laugh imagines three of Britain’s all-time greatest comedy heroes – Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse – in a dressing room, discussing the secrets of life, death, comedy and what it means to be really funny...

• Heathers The Musical, November 10-14, Festival Theatre. Welcome to Westerberg High, where popularity is a matter of life and death, and Veronica Sawyer is just another of the nobodies dreaming of a better day. But when she’s unexpectedly taken under the wings of the three beautiful and impossibly cruel Heathers, her dreams of popularity finally start to come true…

• The Gang Of Three, November 10-14, Minerva Theatre. Deep in the corridors of power, the Labour Party’s Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland clash over the soul of British socialism and their own ambitions. Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s political drama brings to life the personalities, principles and private tensions that shaped a generation of politics. Alan Cox as Tony Crosland, Hywel Morgan as Roy Jenkins and Colin Tierney as Denis Healey.

• The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, November 17-21, Festival Theatre. Chris Boone is gifted with a brilliant mind for numbers but unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life. When a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, she comes under suspicion. Determined to prove her innocence, Chris becomes both detective and suspect… Joe McFadden and Charlie Brooks star as Chris’s parents.

• The Silence And The Noise, November 17-21, Minerva Theatre. Daize has a sharp tongue and a sharper blade. Ben has killer trainers and not much else. She’s determined to protect her mum from his drug-dealing boss – but can two neglected teenagers change their destinies? Tom Powell’s play portrays two young people finding hope together.

• Present Laughter, November 24-28, Festival Theatre. Tracy-Ann Oberman stars as Geri Essendine in this new production of Noël Coward’s portrayal of the temptations and pitfalls of theatrical celebrity. James Dreyfus is known for his TV roles in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, The Thin Blue Line and Mount Pleasant. Adrian Lukis’s screen credits include Pride and Prejudice.

• Christmas Concerts, December 1-5, Festival Theatre. The Band of His Majesty’s Royal Marines Collingwood and Chichester Cathedral Choir return for the Festival Theatre’s traditional Christmas Concerts.

• Hey! Christmas Tree, December 5-27, Minerva Theatre, written by Vicki Berwick from a poem by Michael Morpurgo, music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer. A festive story about the importance of finding friendship and somewhere to call home, created especially for Chichester Festival Theatre.

• Chichester Festival Youth Theatre present Stiles and Drewe’s Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure, December 14-30, Festival Theatre. A classic musical adaptation presented by Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, directed by Lucy Betts (The Wizard of Oz) and supported by a full professional creative team.

• New English Ballet Theatre present The Nutcracker, January 6-10, Festival Theatre. New English Ballet Theatre presents a bold reimagining of The Nutcracker, performed live on stage to Tchaikovsky’s original score.

• By Royal Appointment, January 19-23, Festival Theatre. The late Queen Elizabeth II was famous for her discretion. She never said anything in public that could ruffle the lightest of feathers. But she had one way of expressing what she really thought – through her wardrobe. Starring Jane Asher as The Queen, Samantha Womack as The Dresser, David Robb as The Designer with Matthew Cottle as The Milliner, the play is written by Daisy Goodwin.

• Spitfire Girls, January 19-23, Minerva Theatre. New Year’s Eve, 1959. Decades after answering the call, two women separated by the war meet again as the rain hammers down on the windows of The Spitfire pub. As we hear their story, we’re transported back to a time when female pioneers defied expectations and soared through the skies.

• Before I Go To Sleep, February 2-6, Festival Theatre. Giovanna Fletcher stars in the world stage premiere of Before I Go To Sleep. Based on the novel by S J Watson which became a hit film, it is adapted for the stage by Rachel Wagstaff and directed by Loveday Ingram. Christine appears to have an idyllic life – with one terrible exception. Every night, when she goes to sleep, she loses her memory. Every morning she wakes up remembering nothing from the last 20 years of her life.

• The Reckoning, February 2-6, Minerva Theatre. A journalist meets a man in a ruined village outside Kyiv. The Man from Stoyanka is a security guard, just an ordinary man. But when everyone else flees, he stays. As his home turns into a no man’s land, he chooses to take extraordinary action…

• Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities, February 9-13, Festival Theatre. In 1770s Paris, revolution is stirring. Sydney Carton is a brilliant yet cynical barrister from England. Charles Darnay is the rebel child of French aristocrats. When they both fall for charming émigré Lucie Manette, a chain of events is set in motion which will endanger everyone….

• Birdcatcher, February 10-13, Minerva Theatre. Birdcatcher is a darkly comic drama about a teenage girl navigating life inside a doomsday cult. Set in East Yorkshire, the play shines a light on the murky, repressive underworld of religious “high control groups” in the UK – and asks how you find yourself in a world you think is about to end.

• A Thousand Splendid Suns, February 16-20, Festival Theatre. Birmingham Rep presents its production of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns – which has sold over 38 million copies worldwide and is Hosseini’s spiritual sequel to The Kite Runner. As the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear.

• Punch, February 23-27, Festival Theatre. James Graham brings Jacob’s extraordinary true story to the stage. Jacob Dunne, a teenager from Nottingham, spends his Saturday nights seeking thrills with his friends. One fateful evening, an impulsive punch leads to fatal consequences. After serving prison time, Jacob finds himself lost and directionless. Searching for answers, Joan and David – the parents of his victim James – ask to meet…

• Also coming up:

Judi Dench: Is it too late to make a run for it? October 28, Festival Theatre

Sir Derek Jacobi in conversation with Richard Clifford, January 16 at 2.30pm, Festival Theatre

• Box office: Priority booking for Champions and Friends of Chichester Festival Theatre opens: Saturday, September 5 from 9am (online and by booking form only); Tuesday, September 8 from 10am (phone and in person)

Groups and schools booking opens: Thursday, September 10 from 9am

Public booking opens: Saturday, September 12 from 9am (online only); Tuesday, September 15 from 10am (phone and in person)

Box office 01243 781312; online cft.org.uk