Glyndebourne's new technical and production director

It’s a slightly scary but exciting time, he says.

“I have been incredibly happy at Chichester and it has been a glorious 29 years and I was not looking necessarily to go anywhere else but the opportunity came knocking for me, and once you entertain the idea, you start thinking ‘What if? What if I don’t ever know what would have happened if I had taken that opportunity?’

“My first-ever show in Chichester was Simply Disconnected with Alan Bates. It was a great show to start with but I remember one performance in particular. The set was a living room with French windows looking out onto an imagined garden and during one performance a bird flew in (from the imagined garden). I'm sure that the audience must have thought ‘That's brilliant! How on earth did they do that! How can they manage to do that every night!’ It certainly upstaged the actors in Act One!

“But what was also notable about the production was that it was the first time I met my wife who was on her first professional job in stage management. I met Sally on that show. I thought I was going to be coming to do one or two seasons here and now suddenly it is 29 years later.

“It is a wonderful theatre in a wonderful location compared to West End theatres or many regional theatres that tend to be in big cities. We are sitting in a glorious park! But also the nature of the building is unique with its thrust stage. There is no flying in or out. Everything is fixed overhead and we don't have any wings. There are a lot of limitations but the great thing is that those limitations encourage people to think more creatively about how we can make a show work. It means that every time you're having a dialogue with the team you are getting them to engage with the creative process. I think I've found myself more engaged with that creative process than I would have been at other theatres.

“The other thing is the quality of the work that we produce here and that we are so proud of. But the final thing is the festival model that we have got here. It means that we have a small core team and we bring in a lot of new blood every year to make the festival happen. And I think the great thing is that keeps us fresh and agile but it also means that it really feels like a family that we've got here.”

Inevitably it's difficult to pick out particular productions as Sam looks back over his Chichester Festival Theatre years “But that one stands out for me is Talking Heads which was directed by Alan Bennett. And we had Maggie Smith doing Bed Amongst The Lentils. It was just mesmerising. But I think another moment that really stands out is when we did Faustus with Act One in the Minerva and then we took the entire audience on a journey down North Street past the Seven Deadly Sins and then into the cathedral for Act Two. That was really exciting.

“But I also think of the shows that I could watch again and again, and one I would watch every night I could was Imelda Staunton in Gypsy. But I also thought Caroline, or Change was a brilliant piece of work and a really great production. There have just been so many.”

Now Sam's focus switches to Glyndebourne, however: “It is going to be something very different but very different with tangible similarities, that same sense of a slightly mad endeavour. With Chichester Festival Theatre you've got this massive producing house in a tiny city, and with Glyndebourne you have got this massive opera house in the middle of nowhere.

“It will be different also insofar as Glyndebourne has a wider and more international and European feeling. In a sense it is a bigger world and there is a lot more to do with international relations and a lot more work with international artists. It will be a little bit less England UK and that will be different. And there will be an element of international travel. My first day in the job will be in Barcelona for a three-day opera conference.”

Another difference will be that Glyndebourne still operates in repertoire in the way that Chichester used to – and that will bring the challenge of a maximum four-hour changeover between operas. In size, Chichester and Glyndebourne are similar, both around 1,300 seats, but again the configuration is very different, with Glyndebourne a four-tier opera house.

But already Sam is looking forward to coming back to Chichester, to enjoy the venue in a different way. As he says, it won't be white-knuckle looking up and hoping nothing is going to go wrong.

“But it will be great to come back and see the festival season. I have been very much part of shaping the season and resourcing it and making it happen.”