Live entertainment returns to Chichester
A limited Chichester Festival Theatre autumn season has taken a major step closer. CFT artistic director Daniel Evans has given a delighted welcome to the news that out-door theatre is now permitted. It gives the green light to a late-summer concert in Chichester and Family Fun in the Park day on Monday, August 31. But more importantly for the CFT, the news that pilot performances are to take place in venues to assess when indoor performances can return means that the CFT might yet have an autumn season. Daniel said he would be looking towards late October/ early November for a fiveweek season, mostly likely based on the kinds of shows which enjoyed such success last year in the temporary Spiegeltent venue.
It’s too soon to talk about the first show back, plus people haven’t yet signed on the dotted line. “But people have said they are very excited at the thought of coming back. We would be doing this in the main house and we would be looking to the kind of things that were popular in the Spiegeltent, things like theatre and cabaret, the things that really packed the place out. We are thinking about the kind of things that people might want to see, and we think that people will be ready for a good laugh by October!” Daniel said Thursday’s government announcements were a “game-changer”. “We would love to have a full month to five weeks. We are desperate to come back and play the part that we know the festival theatre plays in the community, particularly after this period of so much anxiety and fear and uncertainty. “We know that we have got a big part to play.”
The precise details of how it might happen are in the government guidance. Daniel said he welcomed the degree of detail the guidance offers: “I haven’t yet gone through all the guidance, which is 50 pages long, with a fine-tooth comb, but I have glanced at every page and it seems to me very sensible and I am really grateful.” In the short term, last week’s government announcement means the CFT can now announce that Hugh Bonneville and Omid Djalili will be among the stars as live entertainment returns to Chichester, part of a Movies and Music Weekend . The films will include screen classics Singin’ in the Rain and Some Like It Hot, alongside the popular hits Grease, The Greatest Showman and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, all at the Drive-In Cinema in Northgate car park, produced by the CFT and Chichester Cinema at New Park from
Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30. Pixar’s latest family comedy Onward will complete the programme. The CFT’s day of outdoor performances then follows on Monday, August 31. Hugh Bonneville headlines Family Fun in the Park, reading Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog the Forgetful Cat, with actors using puppetry to bring the stories to life. Families can also join in a fun dance-along. And then, at a concert that evening, Omid Djalili will introduce songs from the musicals with West End performers Gina Beck, Gabrielle Brooks, Rob Houchen, Julian Ovenden and Giles Terera, joined by CFT artistic director Daniel Evans. Songs will include a medley from South Pacific alongside hits from West Side Story, Wicked, The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. Tickets go on sale from July 30 at www.cft.org.uk.