Sometimes it feels like an act of madness” admits Jamie Glover about his Chichester directorial début at the same venue where he starred in last year’s world premiere If Only.

And the double bill of August Strindberg’s one–act tragedy Miss Julie and Peter Shaffer’s farce Black Comedy is certainly a challenge.

The two pieces were first performed together at Chichester Festival Theatre in 1965 after celebrated critic Kenneth Tynan commissioned Shaffer to write a companion piece to Miss Julie.

The result was a technically innovative comedy set during a blackout – opening in darkness until the power fails at which point the lights go on and the audience witness the characters’ fumblings in the dark.

That first production, under the auspices of founding artistic director Laurence Olivier, starred Albert Finney and Maggie Smith across both plays.

This revival sees ITV’s Endeavour star Shaun Evans and Olivier–nominated Rosalie Craig take on the challenge.

“Part of the joy the audience will get out of it is an acting Olympiad,” says Glover, who has spent the last six weeks alternating between the two plays.

“Both take place on a night when the world is turned on its head for contrasting reasons. Miss Julie is set on Midsummer’s Eve – a huge festival in Scandinavia where there is magic in the air and servants become masters. Black Comedy is a night where all the lights go out.”

There are other links between the two plays – from Shaffer’s deliberate linguistic echoes to the way they both deal with class as characters try to impress each other in the face of social barriers.

Miss Julie sees an aristocratic young lady try to seduce her father’s handsome valet Jean after a night of dancing.

And in Black Comedy an impoverished artist tries to impress both his fiancee’s father and a millionaire art dealer by borrowing his uptight neighbour’s expensive furniture before the lights go out.

Rehearsing for Black Comedy has been something of a technical challenge – with Glover using blindfolds on occasion to capture the movements of someone lost in the dark.

“All the actors say they have never done a play like this and never will again,” says Glover.

“I have given the actors a blindfold obstacle course – finding a table, picking up a glass and sitting on a chair. It’s very funny what happens – people start to see with their ears, their head cocked to the side. It has been great fun.”

Miss Julie brings its own problems. This version is a new translation by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

“There’s a musicality to her language,” says Glover. “She has done translations of Ibsen before so Strindberg felt like a perfect fit.

“Miss Julie is an extraordinary play, unlike any other. There’s levels of emotion and heightened emotion.”

Fortunately there’s enough of a gap between the end of Miss Julie and the entrances of Evans and Craig’s characters in Black Comedy to allow them to refocus on the new play.

Whether that’s going to be enough for a set change between the two productions is another matter.

“Andrew D Edwards has come up with a marvellous set which he assures me can be changed in a 20 minute interval,” says Glover.

“The blackout is an ongoing discussion – we have all the emergency exit signs and fire alarms which have their own flashing lights.

“Every technical rehearsal the lighting designer [James Whiteside] is asking for dark time, which takes on a whole new meaning – no mobile phones or going in and out of doors as he makes sure we cover every crack of light.”