Chichester - acting and education under the Festival spotlight

As Chichester-based actor and Royal Shakespeare Company associate artist Edward Bennett says, theatre has been changed by the pandemic and it is still trying to find its wavelength in this new world. But this is also the perfect opportunity for actors to explore and perhaps redefine their relationship with the community within which they are playing.

Edward will be talking about all this and more for the Festival of Chichester on Monday June 20 at 7.30pm in The Council House, North Street, Chichester.

His Chichester roles have included The Rehearsal and also the double bill of Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost. In fact, it was on that double bell that he met Lisa Dillon: “We fell in love and got married. It was Much Ado About Everything!”

And that's one of the reasons they moved to Chichester a few years ago, a place clearly very special for them both: “We were living in Oxfordshire and we were just thinking where do we want to live. We had this very special connection with Chichester and we thought it would be a good place to go to and so far it has gone very well. Our daughter is at school down here. We feel as settled as actors can be!”

And they have survived the pandemic: “We were very fortunate in a way. I had a TV series that kept us going but like everybody else we just bunkered down and did what we could, but towards the end of the lockdown I started talking to Chichester Festival Theatre. The only things that were happening in theatre were education projects and they were still trying to work in schools. The education department in Chichester is extraordinary. I came up with the idea of getting actors into relationships and creating relationships with schools in the area where they live. We did a shout-out to directors and designers and stage management people and actors to see if they wanted to get involved and we had a great response. Partly the idea was to give some work to some freelancers who were struggling but it was also about reappraising the whole conversation about how artists work in theatres and in schools. Over about a term and a half we managed to connect with about 2,500 students in 20 odd schools.”

As for theatre generally post-pandemic: “I do think it has changed but also in the context of Black Lives Matter and the #metoo movement which have been hugely important and I think that shows in the work that is being programmed.

“And I do think generally fewer actors are being used. It has become even more expensive to put on shows. For all the theatrical materials, the cost has just skyrocketed. So I think what we're seeing is shows that have no more than four to six actors unless it is a musical.

"But theatre was always going to survive. Prostitution will never go away and neither will theatre!”