Pamela Howard describes herself as the number one ladies’ detective agency. The scenographer and theatre set designer with an OBE can add it to a long list of talents that also includes artist, director, writer and teacher.

For her latest piece of design she took over an upstairs room in Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery.

There she has recreated the atmosphere of the Chichester Festival Theatre – with all the imagination and creativity she used to bring to the sets and costumes she designed for the theatre.

“People forget that set design is an art.

I treat the stage as a form of sculpture, so it’s flattering to finally have it recognised by a proper art gallery.”

Because Howard has contacts and friends in the business, Pallant House approached her to put something together to coincide with Chichester Festival Theatre’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The artist, who lives in an old railway carriage on the Sussex coast in Selsey, revelled in the task.

“Sets tend to be seen as ephemeral things. Actors steal the props after a show has finished and workers might dump the pieces in bins.

“Things also get reused in other shows, which means nothing tends to be saved or left hanging about. So I’ve had to go to great lengths to put this exhibition together.”

She even found two pictures under a sink.

“I’m like the number one ladies’ detective agency.

I get the scent and I’m in for the kill.”

Among the set models is a scale replica of Howard’s design for Terra Nova in 1980.

“It looked expensive but it’s muslin I found in an old warehouse in Brick Lane. It was the cheapest and simplest way to reproduce the Antarctic. In fact, it was so effective, I remember the audience shivering in the audience as if they were frozen.”

There is a 1980s neo-glam model of Stefanos Lazaridis’ design for The Mitford Girls and Ralph Koltai’s futuristic and ingenius sculpture for Prospero’s Island in The Tempest.

“In that show a stage hand whipped away a silk sheet from under the stage to reveal that brilliant design,” says Howard.

Chichester Festival Theatre’s thrust stage liberated theatre-goers but it also challenged designers to design in 3D.

“There could be no more fakery with the audience looking from three sides,” she explains, comparing the pentagon-shaped stage with the traditional proscenium arch layout.

It meant a new level of detail for costumiers and the number she designed for Alec Guiness in The Merchant Of Venice is on show.

Howard began as a headdress maker for one of the festival’s first productions, The Broken Heart, in 1962.

“We had a budget of £100 to do nine. I’ve seen the photos and they are terrible!”

She has tried to make the show at Pallant House like stepping into parkland – as it is at the theatre.

There are drawings and paintings and designs from the early period of the theatre, 1962-1988, in a space laid with AstroTurf on the floor and an Uncle Vanya bench in the middle. Next to the bench are bins filled with the old programmes.

“I wanted to tell the story of the artists,” she says.

“Too often set designers and costumiers were seen as part of the service industry. But that’s not accurate.

The artifacts they created tell the theatre’s story.”

Pallant House Gallery, North Pallant, Chichester, until June 3

Open Tues to Sat, 10am to 5pm, Thurs 10am to 8pm, Sun 11am to 5pm. Adult £7.50, child £2.30, student, £4, family £17. Call 01243 774557.

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