An unrelentingly bleak financial forecast hasn’t deterred the man behind one of the country’s most respected platforms for new theatre from thinking big.

Artistic director Jonathan Church has extended this year’s festival – his fourth at the helm alongside chief executive director Alan Finch – so the 2009 event starts a month earlier and places yet more emphasis on new work.

There are four world premieres this time around and well-known names such as Joseph Fiennes, Felicity Kendal, Diana Rigg and Trevor Nunn.

Jonathan’s reasoning in expanding the festival, he says, was twofold.

“If you pre-empt disaster and pull your horns in, it can be a self- fulfilling prophecy – so I wanted to keep being ambitious and stay brave, doing the best work we can,” he says.

The timing of the extended season also allowed the staging of The Last Cigarette, which begins next week. Completed by Simon Gray shortly before his death last year, the play is adapted from his own much-loved memoirs.

“It’s a wonderful new piece and the opportunity to have Richard Eyre direct a cast including Felicity Kendal was too good to pass up,” Jonathan says, adding that the chance to cast Diana Rigg in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever also tipped the balance.

The festival is more than a year in the making. Jonathan says that while some of the productions come together in the space of a few months, many of them are “years in gestation”, including his own epic production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath.

“I’m always led by good stories,” he says.

“You want to be sucked in and spat out the other end having thought slightly about the world – and that can just mean you’ve had a good laugh, it doesn’t have to be heavy.”

He says bringing new work to the stage through a producing festival can be something of a journey in itself, in that it is only clear what the production will be like when it reaches audiences.

Some of the productions – new or otherwise – will be unknown quantities to audiences, but Jonathan, who almost doubled audiences at Birmingham Repertory Theatre before coming to CFT, believes that the power of bringing household names to Chichester will have a significant impact on the way the festival is perceived by potential theatre-goers.

“Cyrano De Bergerac (from May 8 to May 30) is a case in point – Britain is famous for being a little suspicious of French drama, but this is a brilliant translation by Anthony Burgess and I hope that having someone like Joe Fiennes will get the audience over that barrier to see that it’s a piece of epic, witty theatre.”

Far from shying away from the economic gloom, different strands of the festival seem to be finding their own ways of engaging with the situation – as is the case with The Grapes Of Wrath.

Frank Galati’s acclaimed stage adaptation of Steinbeck’s novel was premiered by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in 1988 and won two Tony Awards on its transfer to Broadway.

A large ensemble cast tells the story of the Joads – a family of dispossessed Oklahoman sharecroppers who must trek 2,000 miles across America in search of a better life.

“I can’t pretend I’m not influenced in doing it this year by the fact that we’re entering into a depression of our own,” says Jonathan, who previously cast Matthew Kelly in his Olivier-nominated production of Of Mice And Men.

“But the other thing that led me to it is that I have to look very hard at what works in a big, sprawling arena like our main stage – it really comes alive when you do something like our adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby.”

The play is not without optimism, he says.

“It’s a heartbreaking story, but like all Steinbeck’s work, there’s something of the American dream at the heart of it.”

Partnering The Grapes of Wrath is the theatre’s big summer musical Oklahoma! Rodgers and Hammerstein’s landmark musical, directed by John Doyle, tells the captivating story of Oklahoman farm girl Laurey, forced to choose between Curly, the happy-go-lucky cowboy she loves, and Judd, the mysterious loner she fears.

“We get massive family audiences for the big musical we do, and one of the reasons we do it is so we can introduce young people to a very palatable piece of theatre,” Jonathan says, adding that discounted tickets are available to theatregoers under the age of 26.

The Enron scandal that rocked the corporate world at the turn of the century presaged our current predicament, and is put under the microscope in the world premiere of Lucy Prebble’s Enron.

Based closely on the real-life events, and making use of music, movement and video, the piece is a co-production with the Royal Court Theatre.

“What’s extraordinary about Enron is that it’s a play and a scandal that’s all about corporate greed and what happens when you bury debt. How many years ago did this happen? It’s not just the odd company – whole countries bought into this bubble of false accounting. It’s like a blueprint for what’s happened across most of the planet.”

The historical emphasis is continued in another world premiere, Heidi Thomas’s The House Of Special Purpose, which follows the plight of the Romanov family during the Russian Revolution.

Jonathan says developing the theatre’s reputation as a producing house for these kind of plays is of paramount importance as the festival continues. “We’ve been very successful with the quality of the work and attracting audiences, so I want to keep going and gaining people’s trust.

“It’s said very often, but new work is the lifeblood of the theatre and I’m very proud of the new voices we’re seeing at the festival.”

See the TV and Leisure Magazine in The Argus on Saturday, March 14 where Felicity Kendal talks to Lisa Frascarelli


Chichester Festival 2009 Productions

  • The Last Cigarette by Simon Gray and Hugh Whitemore, Minerva Theatre from Wednesday until April 11. Stars Felicity Kendal, Nicholas Le Prevost and Jasper Britton
  • Hay Fever by Noel Coward, Festival Theatre from April 9 to May 2. Stars Diana Rigg and Simon Williams. Directed by Nikolai Foster.
  • Taking Sides and Collaboration by Ronald Harwood, Minerva Theatre from April 28 to May 16. Directed by Phillip Fransk and starring Michael Pennington and David Horovitch.
  • Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand and adapted by Anthony Burgess at Festival Theatre, May 8 to May 30. Stars Joseph Fiennes.
  • Wallenstein by Friedrich Schiller and adapted by Mike Poulton, Minerva Theatre from May 22 until June 13. Stars Ian Glen.
  • Oklahoma! By Rodgers and Hammerstein, Festival Theatre, June 5 to August 29. Directed by John Doyle.
  • The House Of Special Purpose by Heidi Thomas at Minerva Theatre, June 20 to August 22. Howard Davies directs.
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and adapted by Frank Galati, Festival Theatre, from July 10 until August 28. Directed by Jonathan Church.
  • Enron by Lucy Prebble, Minerva Theatre, July 11 to August 29. Rupert Goold directs.
  • Separate Tables by Terence Rattigan, Festival Theatre, September 10 to October 3. Stars Stephanie Cole and directed by Philip Franks.

Tickets, priced between £11 and £36, are available from the box office now on 01243 781312 or online at www.cft.org.uk