A PBSK Partnership production in association with Vivien Green, the TEN Group and The Norfolk Community Foundation A NEW Melvyn Bragg’s ADAPTATION FOR THE HOSTRY FESTIVAL KING LEAR 2016 Directed & Produced by STASH KIRKBRIDE IN NEW YORK Executive Producer PETER BARROW Lighting Design TIM TRACEY Set Design MATT REEVE Original music MARK REUTER Soundscape CHRIS BOND REBECCA CHAPMAN PETER BARROW REBECCA ALDRED NINA TAYLOR In this special Supported by: Shakespeare anniversary year, the Hostry Festival proudly presents Melvyn Bragg’s KING LEAR IN NEW YORK, a play especially re-written Norwich High School for Girls and adapted for the festival by aged 3 to 18 this internationally renowned presenter, broadcaster, author and playwright. LOUIS HILYER Running Time: 90 minutes approx. No Interval. [Please note, the script contains occasional strong language] Cover picture MATT DARTFORD Stash Kirkbride with Sabrina Poole, Assistant Director Director’s Note In 2010 Peter Barrow and I set up Working with writers such as It is already one of the highlights of The PBSK Partnership, in order to stage Melvyn Bragg is precisely what our festival’s history so far. Thank you two plays he knew I had always wanted we’re also about. for being here. Enjoy the acting, with to produce whilst in London as an actor/ a capital A! The original music and producer. We decided to find a space We met Melvyn in early 2016 and straight soundscape, the lighting and set design, that offered “all new possibilities” and away we all agreed to stage his play. and this heavenly building that seems as Her Majesty the Queen had just With a real leap of faith on his part he to relish us turning it into a performance opened the Hostry building at Norwich entrusted us with presenting a whole space, creating ‘The Autumn Festival Of Cathedral we approached the Dean and newly updated one act, 90 minute Norfolk’ each year. Chapter. Our first year saw us produce adaptation of his work. 2016 would see a highly successful play, our second year the festival produce his only play, well No need to say any more about the play, we became a festival of events, and the over 20 years-on since the original version it will speak for itself now. Enjoy it all. rest, 6 years on as they say is history. I first saw at the Chichester Festival. The Hostry Festival has now become So, here we are tonight, ready to share a fixture on the cultural landscape of with you the results of our wonderfully Stash Kirkbride Norfolk, engaging with well over 100 satisfying working relationship with Director/Producer: volunteers each year. People such as this internationally recognised author, Artistic Director of the Hostry Festival Louis Hilyer whose credits include presenter and playwright. [email protected] the RSC and National Theatre choose to perform with us; as well as working King Lear In New York is a great piece actors in Norfolk who have been doing of storytelling, offering real theatricality, PS. Any comments, reviews and so simply for the love of it for many and reality, for those portraying thoughts on the production – we’d love years. Our job as producers, is to set Melvyn’s characters. We care about to hear from you. the scene and the standards of work to what happens to the people in this play. make it a comfortable fit for all involved. And I can safely say you will be The standards of work from the get go moved to laughter and to tears perhaps, are high, and our ethos remains simple – and above all else you will be entertained. “How good can we make it?” It is a brilliantly observed piece of writing, We offer an elevated experience for affording its actors the chance to shine, actors, writers, directors, designers, and as the director of this production I technicians and students, to flourish am more than proud of each and every and enjoy real job satisfaction. member of our cast and crew. 2 Cast list from the Original production photograph – Jenny Seagrove (left) original production and Kate O’Mara (right) – Photo by John Timbers Melvyn Bragg A foreword from Melvyn Bragg I think I got to know about ‘King Lear’ It’s very odd that I never met Richard I wasn’t commissioned to write it. I sent and Richard Burton at near enough Burton. In 60’s BBC television there was it off to Patrick Garland who ran the the same time. Just after the mid a well-established Tafia – a group of Chichester Theatre, and whom I’ve known 50’s I was reading ‘King Lear’ again Welsh men who were dominant; most of when we worked together on ‘Monitor’. and again because it was one of the all Huw Wheldon, for whom I worked with He put it on. We had the singular misfortune set books for my A Levels, and also on ‘Monitor’. They all knew Burton, but to have a fine actor playing the main part because I just couldn’t believe how somehow I never bumped into him. who was also, it turned out, sadly, one way he did it! At the same time, Richard and another pretty disruptive. Burton was beginning to emerge. Even more curious, I was asked to write a He came from a mining family, the film on Malcolm Lowry’s shimmering novel Anyway, it got done. Some good 13th of 14 children (my Grandfather, ‘Under The Volcano’ which was to star reviews. Some not. And it did not transfer who worked the coal mines which ran Richard Burton. We never met while I was to London. under the sea, came from a family of writing the script because he was busy on 16 children). Somehow Burton had another project on another continent – or Frankly I’d more or less forgotten about it rocketed to national lustre as a very it may have been another planet. And then until Stash Kirkbride met me in Norwich great actor (though he had no formal he could not make the Director’s deadline after I’d spoken at the UEA on my latest training) and soon afterwards he because of other commitments and most novel. He was tremendously enthusiastic became an international film star and reluctantly, his poetic Welsh persuasiveness about the play and full of ideas about celebrity, and doomed tragic hero. not being enough on this occasion, the it, and more or less steam-rolled me caravan moved on without him. into doing it with him. When I read it I wanted to write a novel set at the turn of again a few times, I thought it was too the 19th and 20th century, and thought But I’m glad I never met him. Had I done long and too repetitive, lacked the really that the Richard Burton story would so, that meeting would have figured clear line and was in need of care and be a good template for it. Word got disproportionately in the book. As it was, attention. So I cut it down to 90 minutes out through my publisher, and reached I rowed across his family and friends, (without interval). I’ve seen several such Richard’s widow, Sally Burton, who called both professional and private, and most productions in London recently and I me to say that she had three tea chests especially his teacher, Philip, and got a thought they worked very well. full of Burton’s notebooks. She had never huge amount of good material. had the heart to go through them and Stash was extremely encouraging and would I like a look? One of the tensions in his later life was we ding-donged about the final script. between his English friends who thought His and Peter Barrow’s remarks are I went to Burton’s house in Switzerland, he should stay in London and become the always detailed and helpful and usually thinking I would be there for a day next Olivier and do all the Great parts, and taken up by me. His excitement has trip... and stayed three days going run the National Theatre because that was rubbed off and I can’t wait to see it. through these addictive and compelling Art. Or he could be a commercial Philistine notebooks. They were literary, they were and renounce Art (those were the days of It is in many ways a new play. I have cut social comment, they were gossipy, they undisguised cultural snobbery) and prostitute out completely one of the main characters were intermingled with responses from himself on celluloid. One upshot was he in the first version. I have transformed Elizabeth Taylor, they were marvellous; never did ‘King Lear’ which he wanted to do. another of the chief characters. I’ve they totally destroyed the idea that I reworked a lot of the dialogue. I wish this could write a novel! Sally asked me if I For reasons which I can’t now remember, had been a version I’d sent to Patrick would write his biography and I agreed on I thought I would like to try and write Garland at the Chichester Theatre! two conditions. One – that there was no about someone like Burton taking on editorial interference from her whatsoever, ‘King Lear’ at a tipping point in his life. and two – that the publishers must pay for When these two professional strands and Melvyn Bragg the copyright of his notebooks because a most complex and distressing family the price was way out of my league. drama were intertwined, I thought I had Both those were settled and I got on with it.