The Caretaker among the CFT highlights
Harold Pinter’s first major success, The Caretaker, will be one of the big Chichester highlights this summer at the Festival Theatre in a busy and appealing Minerva season.
The revival will be directed by new chi chester festival theatre artistic director Justin Audi bert who points out just how appropriate the venue is.
“The Minerva was Pinter’s favourite theatre that he ever directed in, so his agent said. I think it was the intimacy that you could get there that he loved – and also the claustrophobia that you could create there.
“I think The Caretaker is an absolute masterpiece of a play. It's three people trapped in a room, three people on the margins of society struggling for a sense of hierarchy and dominance and struggling against each other. i think it' s the sharpnessof the dialogue and also the simplicity of the action. you will be on the edge of your seat with your stomach turning flip sand I'm so thrilled with the people we have got coming.”
The cast is adam gill en( amadeus National Theatre, ITV’S Benidorm) as Aston; Ian Mcdiarmid (Star Wars, Six Characters in Search of an Author CFT, Faith Healer Almeida and Broadway) as Davies; and Jack Riddiford (Romeo and Juliet Almeida Theatre, Jerusalem West End) as Mick.
After perhaps a period of neglect since his death, Justin feels that Pinter is ripe for a reassessment: “Rightly theatres have programmed other voices. He received a lot of praise in his lifetime but absolutely it is lovely to get back to his words now. And you remember that he was an actor first. He knew how a line would sound. his ear was impeccable.”
Also in the Minerva is The House Party by Laura Lomas, a new adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, directed by Holly Race Roughan in a co-production with Headlong in association with Frantic Assembly.
“It is such a brilliant play about what it is like to be young and confused about your emotions plus all the hormones running through you of being young. And in the design there will be a really big immersive element. The audience will be part of the action. sitting in the House Party will be unlike any other experience you've ever had in the Minerva.”
The promise in the minerva will offer a new play by paul on the pioneering post-war Labour government, directed by Jonathan Kent; there will also be a co-production with told by an Idiot of the “deliciously terrifying” The Cat and the Canary, adapted by Carl Grose from the play by John Willard, directed by Paul Hunter.
Also coming up will be the first-ever John le Carré novel on stage, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, adapted by David Eldridge and directed by Jeremy Herrin.
“I was talking to jeremy who has directed a lot in the Minerva and in our conversation he mentioned this. I thought we have got to be the people that bring this to life. I love le Carré, that sense of danger and that sense of knowing things are not quite what they seem. I love that aspect to his writing and he is just such an iconic figure.”
Booking for groups and schools opens: Thursday, February 29. General booking opens: Saturday, March 2 (online only); Tuesday, March 5 (phone and in person).