Thrilling main-house summer will pack a punch, Chichester Festival Theatre promises

We will be running the full range of emotions, he says: “You are going to get the belly laughs in The Government Inspector and then it's going to be tearing your heart with Anna Karenina. And then I'm going for total joy and bliss with Top Hat and then it will be a real punch in the guts with Lord Of The Flies. It is going to be an absolute total experience all the way through on the Festival Theatre stage.”

The season is Justin's second: “And in some ways it has been easier to do this time. Last season was about me saying ‘This is my taste and these are my shows and I hope that you like them.’ And it was great. In the Venn diagram of it all there was a really big intersection between what I liked and what the audience liked so I feel now that I have a keener sense of what audiences have an appetite for. I feel I've got a firm base of understanding of what will work but it's not about resting on your laurels.”

It's about taking the next step – and so, as Justin says, in some ways season number two will be even more Justin than season number one was.

“What I've always wanted to do is really encourage the big epic stories on the Festival Theatre stage and I feel that we really did that last year. That’s what that stage is for, and in a way I'm pushing that even more this year. We've got The Government Inspector and Anna Karenina and Lord Of The Flies, and I think in each of those you have got the whole of society on stage with all its generational conflicts. The Government Inspector is a comic masterpiece. You see people getting up to all sorts of venal tricks. In Anna Karenina you are dealing with a moment when the whole story became possible because of the invention of the train, because the train comes to the village. And it means that for Anna she can follow her heart and leave Karenin. And then in Lord Of The Flies again you've got the entire society on the stage. I want whole audience to feel that they are on that island too, trapped with these young boys going wild.”

Last year the season’s focus was on England and its history. Instantly this year, the season goes international: “This year we felt that we wanted to be looking out at the world. It feels even more important that we do so now.

“And then on top of these three plays on the Festival Theatre stage we have got the jewel in our season which is the Festival Theatre’s musical and I'm thrilled to say that we have got Top Hat. Everybody has seen the amazing film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and we know that our audiences are going to really appreciate it but the fantastic thing is that we have got Kathleen Marshall with us. She is one of the most brilliant choreographer directors working in the world.”

Kathleen’s Tony and Olivier Award-winning production of Anything Goes recently wowed audiences.

“Oliver! last year was always going to be a difficult title to follow because it was multi-generational, but we know that the passion and joy that people have when they are watching tap dance is so incredibly infectious, and that's the quality that Kathleen will bring to the show. We're going to have something slightly heavier either side of it while this is something that will bring pure joy. And it's not just the skill and talent of the tap dancers. It's the fact that we know that people will leave the theatre with a massive smile on their faces.”

Based on the classic 1935 film which starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the stage adaptation’s West End premiere won the 2013 Olivier Award for Best New Musical and the Evening Standard Award for Best Night Out.

Next up on the main-house stage will be Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games) making her Chichester debut as Anna in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in a new adaptation by Phillip Breen, directed by Phillip Breen (June 7-28)

“We all know Natalie from Game of Thrones and also The Hunger Games, and she and Phil have a creative relationship. Phil suggested her as the right person and she just has exactly the right profile and age to play this deeply, deeply conflicted woman. What is so brilliant about Phil's adaptation is that it is set in the period but the dialogue tone feels incredibly now. There is nothing twee about it. It feels so urgent. It feels so much like a person in 2025 in this situation of ‘Do I follow my heart?’ or ‘Do I maintain my status in society?’ That's the dilemma that so many people have faced in our lives.”

Across the vast panorama of 19th-century Russia – from the glittering salons of Moscow and St Petersburg to its remote country estates – everyone is searching for answers in a society on the brink of collapse.

Anna Karenina, the beautiful wife of a powerful government official, dares to step outside the bounds of society to risk a dangerous and destructive love affair with the magnetic Count Vronsky. Meanwhile, country landowner Levin is in pursuit of a new way to live and wrestling with his thwarted devotion to Kitty, who’s been left broken-hearted by Vronsky. Her sister Dolly struggles to reconcile constant child-bearing with her husband’s constant philandering.

Their dreams and despairs are mirrored in the tensions between individual and society, modernity and tradition, city and countryside, faith and doubt.

“Natalie was last in the West End in Venus In Furs, I think nine years ago. She's been being a movie star in the time since so it is an absolute coup to have her and we've got a really brilliant cast for the whole thing.”

Full season coming up:

• Tom Rosenthal in The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, a new adaptation by Phil Porter, directed by Gregory Doran, April 25-May 24, Festival Theatre.

• Mark Addy and Jenna Russell in The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, a new musical adapted by Rachel Joyce from her own multi million-selling novel, directed by Katy Rudd, May 5-June 14, Minerva Theatre.

• Natalie Dormer in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, a new adaptation by Phillip Breen, directed by Phillip Breen, June 7-28, Festival Theatre.

Beverley Knight in Marie And Rosetta by George Brant, directed by Monique Touko a co-production with Rose Theatre and ETT, June 25-July 26, Minerva Theatre.

• Top Hat, music & lyrics by Irving Berlin, based on RKO's Motion Picture, adapted for the stage by Matthew White & Howard Jacques, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, July 14-September 6, Festival Theatre.

• Choir by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, directed by Hannah Joss, August 2-30, Minerva Theatre.

• Giles Terera in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, directed by Justin Audibert, September 6-October 4, Minerva Theatre.

• William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies, adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams, directed by Anthony Lau, September 19-October 11, Festival Theatre.

• Safe Space by Jamie Bogyo, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, October 11-November 8, Minerva Theatre.

• Stiles and Drewe’s The Three Little Pigs, music by George Stiles, book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, a co-production with Unicorn Theatre, December 6-28, Minerva Theatre.

• A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig, adapted for the stage by Philip Wilson, music by Tom Brady, lyrics by Philip Wilson and Tom Brady, directed by Dale Rooks, performed by Chichester Festival Youth Theatre in their 40th anniversary year, December 15-31.

Priority booking for Friends & Champions of Chichester Festival Theatre opens: Saturday, February 22 (online and booking forms only); Tuesday, February 25 (phone and in person). Booking for groups and schools opens: Thursday, February 27. General booking opens: Saturday, March 1 (online only); Tuesday, March 4 (phone and in person).

Tickets from £10: cft.org.uk or 01243 781312. Prologue: 9,000 £5 tickets are available for 16-30 year-olds across all Festival 2025 productions; sign up for free at cft.org.uk/prologue.