Chichester Festival Theatre's Doubt poised to return after Covid break

“This is my first time in Chichester. I have seen shows in the theatre and I love that theatre.

“I think it is a really great theatre but this is my first theatre for quite a while. I’ve just done more film and TV but I am really looking forward to getting back to the stage and I think it’s going to be brilliant to pit my wits against Monica Dolan in this piece. I think she is a fantastic actress.

“I think in this business you just tend to go on a run of stuff.

“I had a really good period of doing some very good filming projects and I tend to just move with the flow but then this play came up.

“I read it and immediately wanted to do it. It is such a well written play and such a bullet of a piece.

“As an actor you just want to do all kinds of stuff and that has always been very important to me.

“My mum is an actress and I grew up thinking I just wanted to do theatre and then I started doing film very early.

“But there is just something about the theatre in terms of the level of concentration that you need that really strengthens you as an actor, I think.

“It has a different kind of rigour to it.

“Film and theatre share the same intensity but in the theatre you have a level of concentration for a longer period and I think that’s a really good thing to practise. And also of course it’s great to be in a space with an audience rather than a camera. To have the audience there is thrilling and compelling.”

And this is a thrilling and compelling play to return with. And also a relevant piece.

Set in 1960s New York, Doubt is the gripping portrayal of the clash between two compelling characters.

School principal Sister Aloysius Beauvier is wedded to tradition and unafraid to fight for her beliefs while the basketball-playing priest and teacher Father Brendan Flynn is liberal-minded and charismatic. As mutual suspicion mounts, their actions become an epic battle of wills from which no one will emerge unscathed; but where does the truth lie?

Sam, who is playing Flynn, said: “It seems to be a good time to be putting this on.

“I feel like the last decade from my perspective has been dominated by conviction politics, and public discourse has become very polarised, and it feels like sometimes it is impossible to meet in the middle on certain issues and to have sympathy for the other side about why they might feel the way that they do. I think our ability to live in the grey areas has been challenged by people wanting to be in the brighter more extreme ends of the spectrum.

“In the grey it feels like we make fewer decisions but we are more open to changing our mind and are maybe more flexible with regards to what is going on.

“The play is asking when you are not sure about something should you really try to take a stand or do you just try to continue the conversation and listen to other people’s opinions.

“Flynn is essentially accused of improper behaviour with the boys in his charge which he vehemently denies but he obviously has a connection with his parish as a whole and with the boys in his charge that is not recognised by the more traditional forces of his order.

“It is set at a time when the Catholic church is going through a moment of spiritual renewal and that really chimes with how he wants to conduct himself as a priest but not everyone wants to go along that route.”

Whether he is guilty or whether he is not guilty, we don’t really know, Sam says. And if the audience leaves the theatre at the end debating his guilt or otherwise, then the actors will feel that they have done their job...

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