In just over a month’s time the Chichester Festival Theatre is reopening after a enormous £20million revamp. We included Chichester Festival Theatre last year in our round up of the UK’s top theatres, but as the main Festival Theatre is about to reopen we thought we should report back on the accessibility and this year’s programme.
We should perhaps first mention a report we heard on last year’s temporary festival space from one of our readers, Stephen, which gives confidence that the revamp will be a success. He attended the festival last year and gave us some very positive feedback:
“Despite the fact that this year’s main productions were held in a “tent” with temporary access and car parks the whole thing was brilliantly done for wheelchairs. There was even somebody on hand to push me! Just shows what can be done.”
It sounds like, despite testing circumstances, they did a top job of remembering to make access a priority and as access begins with attitude this is promising. But as we said, this year the “tent” is gone and the theatre building is back in action. As you’d hope they seem to have thought about access in the new model.
There are going to be sixteen seats for wheelchair users in the new main Festival Theatre on two levels, with accessible lifts either side of the auditorium. They have accessible toilets, hearing units and audio described performances. Disabled guests and their companions also get a 40% discount on their tickets which is a nice touch. The access is good and well laid out on their website.
The programme for 2014 in the Festival Theatre looks fantastic too! Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, which runs from July 12 to August 2, will be the first production staged in the newly refurbished Festival Theatre. Famously adapted into an Oscar winning movie, the story of Antonio Salieri (played here by Rupert Everett) being tormented by the arrival of Mozart into what was initially ‘his patch’, is a classic which has transcended the play in popular culture. It should be brilliant to see it in all its original glory.
Amadeus is followed by a duo of musicals in the Festival Theatre. First is Guys and Dolls, a show that needs no introduction, starring Peter Polycarpou and Sophie Thompson. Let’s just say that if you’ve managed to somehow never hear of it before, then musicals might not be your cup of tea. In October, Imelda Staunton stars as Mama Rose in Gypsy, which is apparently “considered by many to be the greatest of the Broadway musicals”. Rose has been described as “one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical” making this perhaps ‘the thinking man’s musical’.
Oscar Wilde classic An Ideal Husband follows the musical detour in the festival programme. Patricia Routledge stars as Lady Markby following her success as Lady Bracknell in Chichester’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Along with Earnest, this is considered Wilde’s greatest work and it bursts with wit and comedy.
The final play of the 2014 festival is an exciting brand new adaptation of 101 Dalmatians which has been written by Bryony Lavery, who also wrote the Tony winning Frozen (nothing to do with the Disney movie). It will be interesting to see how they manage to make it work as a play and in particular how they manage to handle the tricky issue of titular dogs. One Dalmatian would be hard enough but they need to get another hundred on stage at once! This does sound like fun!
The festival period also coincides with a variety of other plays taking place in the smaller Minerva Theatre. As those shows are not in the Festival Theatre, we’re not going to cover them here, but if you’re interested then check out their website. There are two seats for wheelchair users in the Minerva theatre, accessible by lift to the first floor.
It looks like it’s going to be a great year at the swanky new model of the Chichester Festival Theatre, with great plays and great access too! If you’re going to anything in the festival please let us know if it lives up to expectations!!