Chichester Festival 2011

Chichester Festival has unveiled its 2011 season running from May to November, and priority booking opened yesterday. Terence Rattigan's centenary is celebrated in style, including two famous and fine plays, The Deep Blue Sea and The Browning Version, and a first-ever showing of a script he wrote for television about Nijinsky and Diaghilev, now written into a new play by Nicholas Wright. Other world premieres are David Hare’s South Downs and a new version of Eduardo De Filippo's The Syndicate, starring Ian McKellen. Three musicals - She Loves Me, Singin’ in the Rain and Sweeney Todd - and two modern classics, Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Caryl Churchill's Top Girls complete the line-up. Stars appearing include Adam Cooper, Penelope Keith, Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball.

She Loves Me (book Joe Masteroff, music Jerry Bock, lyrics Sheldon Harnick), 9 May-18 June, Minerva Theatre. Two lovelorn assistants in a Thirties parfumerie squabble by day but write anonymous love letters to each other, unaware, each evening. Production directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear (whose current Shoes is at Sadler’s Wells Peacock Theatre), designed by Anthony Ward.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard), 20 May–11 June, Festival Theatre. Directed by Trevor Nunn, this comedy retells Hamlet through the eyes of two of its minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who inhabit a world completely beyond their grasp and control.

Top Girls (Caryl Churchill), 23 Jun–16 July, Minerva Theatre. A provocative study of powerful women in Thatcher’s Britain, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, co-produced with Out of Joint.

Singin’ in the Rain (adapted from the film by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed), 27 Jun–10 Sep, Festival Theatre. Classic musical about the change from silent movies to talking pictures, and the stars created - and left behind - by this new technological development. Directed by Jonathan Church, choreographed by Andrew Wright, starring Adam Cooper (former Royal Ballet and Matthew Bourne Swan Lake star), the score includes immortal songs such as "Make 'Em Laugh", "Good Morning", "Moses Supposes" and "Singin’ in the Rain".

The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Rattigan), 13 July–3 Sep, Festival Theatre. Rattigan explores the driving force of desire and its devastating consequences through his depiction of Hester Collyer, torn between her love for a callow younger man, and the security of a lifeless marriage. The play (the original production pictured above, terencerattigan.co.uk) is performed in turn by the same company of actors in turn with the world premiere of Rattigan’s Nijinsky, below.

Rattigan’s Nijinsky, WORLD PREMIERE (Nicholas Wright, based on a Terence Rattigan screenplay), 19 July–3 Sep, Festival Theatre. In 1974 Rattigan wrote a television script for the BBC about Diaghilev, the impresario behind the Ballet Russes, and Nijinsky, the dancer. The screenplay was later withdrawn in mysterious circumstances by Rattigan himself and neither produced nor published. In a new play, Nicholas Wright imagines why.

The Syndicate, WORLD PREMIERE (Eduardo De Filippo, new version by Mike Poulton), 21 July–20 Aug, Minerva Theatre. Ian McKellen returns to Chichester for the first time in several decades to play Don Antonio, the Godfather making someone an offer they can’t refuse in this witty dark comedy set in 1960s Naples, directed by Sean Mathias.

South Downs, WORLD PREMIERE (David Hare)/ The Browning Version (Terence Rattigan), 2 Sep–8 Oct, Minerva Theatre. Hare’s new one-act play, written at the invitation of the Rattigan Trust as a response to The Browning Version, concerns a lonely boy at a public school on the South Downs. Jeremy Herrin directs. In Rattigan’s play, directed by Angus Jackson, unpopular Classics master Andrew Crocker-Harris finds years of self-loathing, disappointment and humiliation are released by a small gesture of unexpected kindness from one of his pupils.

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (book by Hugh Wheeler, music and lyrics Stephen Sondheim), 24 Sep–5 Nov, Festival Theatre. Jonathan Kent directs, Anthony Ward designs and Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton lead in Sondheim's masterly, dark and witty portrayal of a barber’s corruption and revenge in 19th-century London.

Terence Rattigan - A Celebration: a series of rehearsed readings of some of his lesser-known plays with members of the Festival Company and special guests. (Rattigan pictured right in 1955, terencerattigan.co.uk)

• First Episode (1933), 31 July, Minerva Theatre: The devastating impact of a visiting actress upon a group of undergraduates.
• In Praise of Rattigan, 7 Aug, Minerva Theatre: An entertainment devised by Jack Tinker and Martin Tickner directed by and featuring Penelope Keith.
• Adventure Story (1949), 14 Aug, Minerva Theatre: One of Rattigan’s own favourite plays - never produced since its premiere - this sweeping historical drama about Alexander the Great, who conquers the world and loses his soul.
• Variation on a Theme (1958), 21 Aug, Minerva Theatre: Rattigan’s retelling of the story of the Lady of the Camellias, in which Marguerite Gaultier falls hopelessly in love with a bisexual dancer much younger than herself.
• Heart to Heart (1962), 4 Sep, Minerva Theatre: During the course of a live interview (based on John Freeman’s celebrated TV programme Face to Face), an eminent politician is forced to reveal the truth about his political and personal life.
• Harlequinade (1949), 25 Sep, Minerva Theatre: This humorous caricature of post-war theatre life was originally performed in a double bill with The Browning Version.

Full details of all events are in the Festival brochure or online at the Chichester Festival site.

Priority booking for Friends of Chichester Festival Theatre opens today; online public booking opens on 28 February