Press release: New Season Preview

The Chesil Theatre, Winchester, is presenting an exciting and challenging selection of plays in their new season.

Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn is the first production in October. The action takes place in three bedrooms which will certainly test the ingenuity of the excellent set building team, as well as the cast who have to stay on stage, sometimes asleep, while other scenes are performed.

The December play is the classic drama Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. This will be directed by Cecily O’Neill, who came to live in Winchester in 2006 and soon found her way to the Chesil. She is an international authority on drama and the arts in education working with students, teachers, directors, and actors throughout the world. She was one of the directors of the Winchester Passion of 2009.

February brings a tense thriller Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott. This has a character, Susy, who has lost her sight, a young girl with learning difficulties who is her companion, a drug filled doll and one terrifying scene which takes place in the dark when three ruthless criminals threaten the blind woman.

Alan Bennett’s Kafka’s Dick follows in March. This surreal and irreverent comedy features Sydney, an insurance man obsessed by the literary works of Kafka – also an insurance man. In weird circumstances, and 60 years after his death, Kafka and his friend Max Brod turn up in Sydney’s suburban home to dispute the way biography can distort a life for all time.

In May they present Florence Nightingale by John Bowen. 10 actors will play all the characters from wounded soldiers to Queen Victoria as it tells the story of this strong minded and complicated woman from her youth in the early Victorian age, through the Lady of the Lamp period, to the close of her life in 1910.

The last production in July is Last Train to Nibroc by Arlene Hutton with just two characters. Set in the American mid-west at the time of the Second World War , this feel-good play traces the bitter-sweet romance of a young couple whose relationship is frustrated by the global conflict, puritanical attitudes and ignorance.

New for this season is the introduction of online tickets sales. Tickets will still be available by post direct from the Chesil Theatre and are available for the next show as soon as the previous production closes.

See the Chesil website www.chesiltheatre.org.uk for details. Tickets for Bedroom Farce are now on sale.

Chairman Deborah Edgington said: “With these six productions, which we hope will delight and entertain audiences, two thriving Youth Theatre Groups, Guest companies and our Outreach activities, the Chesil is looking forward to another busy and successful season.”