The Bridges of Madison County

by Marsha Norman (book) and Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics)

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 6 August 2019

Trevor Nunn directs this musical based on Robert James Waller's popular novel about an intense brief affair between Francesca (Jenna Russell) an Iowa farm housewife, originally from Naples, and Robert Kincaid (Edward Baker-Duly), a roving free-spirited photographer hired by National Geographic to photograph the celebrated covered wooden bridges of Madison County.

Robert calls at Francesca's home to ask the way to the elusive seventh bridge, on just the day when her husband and two fractious teenage children have departed for the Illinois State Fair. There is an immediate attraction; one thing leads quickly to another; but, at the last, Francesca's family loyalty prevents her from leaving with Robert. By the time, years later, that she might consider herself free - widowed and her children fully grown and establishes - it is too late; the older Robert has died.

Love in Idleness

by Terence Rattigan

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 22 April 2017

Trevor Nunn directs Eve Best as Olivia Brown, Anthony Head as Sir John Fletcher, Edward Bluemel as Olivia's son Michael and Helen George as Sir John's estranged wife Diana in a wonderful revival of Terrance Rattigan's wartime comedy, with sets designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis.

The play opens in a swank apartment with Olivia on the telephone gushingly trying to arrange a dinner party, persuading a series of guests to attend on each other's accounts. Eve Best excels at this fast-paced society manner, the words pouring out persuasively with hardly a breath taken. Yet we are soon aware that the situation is not exactly straightforward. She answers telephone calls a little warily, pretending anonymity until she knows who is calling; and she seems inept at taking in an important message for Sir John Fletcher, a minister in Churchill's War Cabinet. It transpires that Sir John has installed Olivia in the flat; their romantic involvement is clearly passionate but social respectability is denied them as Sir John cannot afford the scandal of divorce while in the Cabinet.

The Wars of the Roses

by William Shakespeare adapted by John Barton and Peter Hall

seen at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames on 29 October 2015

In 1962 John Barton and Peter Hall devised three plays they called 'Henry VI', 'Edward IV' and 'Richard III' from Shakespeare's original 'Henry VI' Parts 1, 2 and 3, and 'Richard III'. Presented under the overall title 'The Wars of the Roses', this was a major success for the then-new Royal Shakespeare Company, but the adaptations have rarely been performed since. Trevor Nunn saw the original productions as an undergraduate, and they inspired his vocation as a theatre director - he later followed Peter Hall as artistic director of both the RSC and the National Theatre. Peter Hall was also the founding patron of the Rose Theatre, and so Trevor Nunn has revived the trilogy here as a tribute to his mentor.

This production features Alex Waldmann as Henry VI, Joely Richardson as his queen Margaret of Anjou, Kåre Conradi as Edward IV, Alexandra Gilbreath as his queen Elizabeth, Robert Sheehan as Richard of Gloucester (later Richard III) and Alexander Hanson as Richard Plantagenet the Duke of York. The many other speaking parts are shared between these and sixteen other actors, some young boys and a 'company community chorus' of sixteen more assorted soldiers and peasants. The set was designed by John Napier and Mark Friend.