OFFICIAL PROGRAMME 2021 Welcome After the most challenging year in our charity’s history, we still need your support to help us Welcome back! We’re delighted – We’ve three wonderful DELIGHTED – to be able to celebrate the shows for you again this recover. These are the ways to help support the summer in style with you again. Out in year: The Jungle Book which brings family joy, giggles the open, under the Great British skies, future of Storyhouse and bags of heart on its furry with food, drink and great stories, sat sleeve; Pride and Prejudice, together in a circle... where else would packed with dance, music Become a Member you rather be? and the heart-aching search for love and freedom; The best way to support Storyhouse. The Merry Wives of Get discounted tickets for Storyhouse, Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre Windsor, with its rabble- rousing, raucous, sit-com and Moonlight Flicks as well as Priority Booking and more for just £4 a month, silliness. We’ve the perfect with no ongoing commitment – you can cancel at any time. combination of heart, wit and tomfoolery, which will afford escape and reunion through Gift Membership laughter and song, just when we need it most, just how we Storyhouse Card is the perfect gift for film or theatre lovers and gives them need it most: together. 10% off all tickets, priority access, and no booking fees. Choose a six or 12 month After an often rubbish year, subscription and send to someone you love with a personalised message. it’s a privilege to be back at work, making live theatre Donate with and for you here in Chester, under the wide, Make a one-off donation or become a regular giver and help to Save Storyhouse. open sky. Our charity, like so many others, has faced real jeopardy over the last Pay it Forward eighteen months. At times, we thought we might not be Support us by buying tickets for yourself or treat someone else. able to return. But thanks to the ongoing support of so many of you – as volunteers Volunteer working with us, as members, If you’d ever thought about joining our amazing army of volunteers, now is through donations – we are the moment. We need you more than ever in these unusual times. Volunteers still going. We rely entirely on your support to make this all at Storyhouse work alongside us in every part of the business from shows, to happen. So feel pleased with helping in the library, to storytelling, helping our accounts team, working with yourselves for making this young people and serving customers possible, sit back, drink up and let’s get stuck in. Andrew Bentley Alex Clifton Chief Executive Artistic Director Find out more at storyhouse.com 3 grosvenorpark.co.uk #ThePark Interview With the writer, Glyn Maxwell The Jungle Book takes us from the Since then, audiences have enjoyed his adaptations from Cyrano de manicured lawns of North West England Bergerac to Alice in Wonderland. to draw us deep into the vivid scents, He has also written three productions sounds and senses of Northern India’s for the main stage at Storyhouse. “It’s been wonderful to me,” he says animal kingdom. of the working relationship with the team, including artistic director Alex And it’s also been a journey for What hasn’t altered amongst Clifton and chief executive Andrew this new production of the cherished the nimble reactions to shifting Bentley. “I’ve also made a lot of Kipling classic, with its author circumstances is the heart of good friends among the actors over Glyn Maxwell embarking on a the much-loved story which still the years, and I’m left with almost rollercoaster of rewrites over the revolves around Mowgli and 10 adaptations which get put on in last 15 months; from its inception his mentors – and tormentors - places all over world. as a full-length show for 12 actors including Bagheera the panther, “It’s not a bad legacy of that little in the 2020 season, to initial ideas Baloo the bear and the python Kaa. patch of ground.” for a covid-safe cast of five when For many of us, our view of The the pandemic first hit, to this final While the fall-out from Coronavirus Jungle Book will have been shaped iteration with its socially distanced means Glyn may not have had any by the colourful 1967 Disney film. company of eight playing almost shows staged over the last year, he twice that number of roles. And audiences will find nods to that certainly hasn’t been idle. interpretation as well as to Kipling’s Creatives As Glyn reveals: “When I thought During the first lockdown the original 1894 book – albeit with I had five actors I did this insane act 58-year-old wrote a novel, and last Glyn’s own take on the story which Based on the original by Rudyard Kipling of doubling where I was working it autumn he learned that his latest celebrates the dignity of teachers out with all the little toy animals book of poetry – How the Hell Are and teaching, underlines the need Adapted by Glyn Maxwell which I’d had for years just for that You – had been shortlisted for the for respect for the natural world, sort of purpose.” prestigious TS Eliot Prize. Directed by Gitika Buttoo and emphasises the importance of s Toy animals aside, his keen editing fostering unity and understanding. The book was practically finished Designed by Jessica Curti skills have been brought to bear to and ready to go to print when life trim the original script to its current He explains: “All my was suddenly turned upside down, Musical Direction by Tom Penn brisk straight-through running time, adaptations are about although Glyn says he felt it was Choreography by Grace Goulding delivering a masterclass in snappy important to add a final poem which storytelling along the way. how should we behave addressed the Coronavirus situation. BSL consultant Katie Erich It’s been a challenge, but one not now? What is the right And if he didn’t win the coveted 2021 only its writer but also the whole title, promoting his poetry online Casting consultant Kay Magson creative team has embraced. and what is the wrong meant it reached more people than it would have done in a ‘normal’ year. “The cast are very fast on their feet, thing to do?” very astute,” Glyn says. “They’ve all But while the internet has certainly Thus, while Shere Khan is got charisma, a sense of humour and been invaluable, there is still a real traditionally painted as Mowgli’s are quick-thinking. I’m delighted.” appetite for a return to live theatre, brutal enemy, here Glyn has as seem by the reception given to taken a more measured, nuanced Cast this Grosvenor Park season. view of the magnificent Bengal Suzanne Ahmet as Kaa and Liam tiger, while elsewhere some of his With the support village which monkeys yearn to be like men but has grown up around the open-air Victoria Brazier as Noel and Seeno can only ape what they have seen auditorium not being built this year, as Baloo of mankind which, in the jungle, is Glyn says it will be like those “rough Howard Chadwick wilfully destructive. and ready” early days when shows like his Merlin, Masters Are You as Ringo and Speakno The Jungle Book is the latest show Jessica Dives Mad? and Cyrano de Bergerac in a decade-long collaboration were first staged. Darren Kuppan as Bagheera between Glyn and Grosvenor Park which started in 2011 when his “It will remind us of how it started,” Jenny Murphy as Hearno Merlin and the Woods of Time – he says, “and what Alex and Andrew as Shere Khan and Paul an irresistible mix of chivalry, comic built out of that.” Perry Moore catastrophe and some very odd Purvi Parmar as Mowgli cocktails - was premiered on the Glyn Maxwell open-air stage. 5 4 Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre grosvenorpark.co.uk #ThePark Interview With the designer, Jessica Curtis Over the years, open-air theatre has become embedded in Grosvenor Park. Now this summer the park is being embedded in the theatre in return. She explains: “I’d been having And although the hard-wearing thoughts about my own practice, central space, encircled by natural inspired a lot by the ethos of Chester wood chippings, is a type of and the way Storyhouse talks to artificial grass surface, commitment its communities, and its ongoing to reducing the theatre’s ecological conversation with people through footprint means it is made from this lovely theatre in the park. recycled plastic. “And I also wanted to be more While the meadow is not meant to sustainable in the way I practised; specifically represent the jungle of have a lighter footprint in general.” The Jungle Book, it helps to form an evocative backdrop, augmented by The result is the culmination of many a gently waving canopy of slim and conversations with what Jessica elegant sculptural ‘trees’ created calls “really passionate plantsmen Jessica Curtis from old festival flag poles which and women” to help her choose stand some six metres (19ft) tall. native species which feed the park’s particular pollinators, reflect the Embedded fans of dried incense A sea of native grasses has been flora and fauna of Chester, and add will enhance the fragrance of the planted directly into the ground visual and acoustic texture. grasses, while sound, light and in the spot where you would music complete the sensual jungle normally find audience members in Meanwhile species which have been experience.