All aboard for the 2015 season of stage spectacles

There's a cast of stars including Cutting It actress Sarah Parish and Jill Halfpenny from EastEnders. There's a full-size boat. And there’s a river, in the notoriously hard-to-stage Alan Ayckbourn play Way Upstream.

It has all gone horribly wrong before – a burst water tank flooded the National Theatre in 1982 – but this time around, director Nadia Fall is confident technology will triumph at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Here, the stage will be transformed into a river, complete with a full-sized boat as the setting for the hilarious story of four friends setting off on a cruising holiday, where relationships flounder and sink to new depths in the claustrophobic confines of the cabins. Emma is worried about her onboard safety, captain Keith and his shipmate Alistair have trouble brewing back at their novelty goods business, and sunseeker June is far from happy with the standard of the accommodation.

Waters get even choppier when the troubled crew bump into enigmatic seadog Vince, and his bohemian twitcher friend, Fleur. When they invite Vince on board, to hear tales of his remarkable seafaring adventures, relationships between these mismatched shipmates are about to become decidedly rocky on the little boat.

With Halfpenny as Emma, Parish plays June, a character described by the actress as “vulgar” and “gauzy” - the very qualities she says attracted her to the role. “I very rarely get to play parts like this on TV,” said Parish on her debut role at the Chichester theatre. “I have recently played quite still, contained people and it is quite nice to play somebody more outspoken.

“We do spend lots of rehearsals in fits of laughter. We are all in our 40s or 50s and are acting in spaces the size of a kitchen table.”

With the play beginning on April 23, cast and crew are now ensconced in Chichester, but during the rehearsals in London, director Nadia Fall remarked wryly, “I’ve been expecting tantrums among the actors. It would stretch anyone because it’s just so tiny inside the boat. Whenever one person moves, everyone else has to as well. The play is infamous for being a problem show – you can’t get away from the fact that it is on water and in a boat.”

The river on stage is actually more like a lake, she said. “Directing it has turned into quite a technical feat, where it’s more about the boat and where it is facing at any given time.”

But while the mechanics are a challenge, says Fall, she is keen to stress that it is the story and its hidden depths that drew her in. When Ayckbourn, the author of Absent Friends and A Chorus of Disapproval, wrote Way Upstream, it marked a departure from his more familiar suburban dramas and was perceived by some critics to be a political allegory, although he has always maintained that he is an apolitical writer.

“Ayckbourn said it was not a political play,” said Fall. “The play is about all sorts of things. My affinity with the play is in the underlying psychological themes – it is a study in leadership. There is an alpha couple who feel very entitled and the other couple are happy to be ‘slaves’, and when it all goes horribly wrong, it questions the point at which somebody will stand up for their rights and when do we, as reasonable English people, get involved? The play is very English, because it’s also a study in losing and when it is you who is responsible for it.”

Way Upstream, which also stars former Heartbeat actor Jason Durr and begins its run on April 23, marks the launch of a star-studded 2015 season at the theatre following its £22million redevelopment last year. Lenny Henry will be making his debut on the Chichester stage, starring in a revival of Educating Rita, the first version of the play to star black actors, where he appears alongside Lashana Lynch, who recently appeared in BBC1’s Death in Paradise and Crims on BBC3 and who is making her own debut at Chichester.

There will also be the first ever chance to see three early plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov together, these versions written by acclaimed Sussex playwright David Hare and starring Anna Chancellor, perhaps best known for her role as Duckface in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Samuel West. Major musicals include Mack & Mabel with Michael Ball, and the Gershwin classic A Damsel In Distress, plus there’s the world premiere of Michael Morpurgo’s Running Wild, and Four Weddings and a Funeral actor David Haig in hostage drama Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me.

As the season begins, the theatre has also announced the shock departures of its artistic director Jonathan Church and executive director Alan Finch next year.

They will leave at the end of September 2016, following Festival 2016. Under their tenure, the company has produced over 100 productions including 22 new plays, winning over 40 awards for the work and more than doubling audience numbers, playing to 95% capacity in 2014. During their leadership, the theatre has seen 48 productions transferring to the West End or securing international and UK tours.

Church said it would be “painful” to leave and added: “I hope, between us, we have helped contribute to the current strength of British theatre and demonstrated the important role of subsidy in creating vibrant regional arts organisations that are rooted in their community but also have the ability to provide national and international impact.”

Finch described the past 10 years as “the most exciting and rewarding of my career”, adding: “It’s the right time for us to pursue new opportunities and pass the baton to a new leadership team.”

The theatre will start its hunt for a new artistic director in August and expects to announce a successor at the end of the year. Once the artistic director designate is in place, it will then appoint a new executive director.

The theatre’s chairman Sir William Castell described Church and Finch as “inspiring leaders”. He added: “We will be sad to see them leave but they are committed to our phased succession plans and will deliver the next two festivals to ensure a smooth handover as we head into the theatre’s next chapter.”

For more details about the 2015 season at Chichester Festival Theatre, phone 01243 781312 or visit cft.org.uk.

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Educating Rita

Minerva Theatre from June 18 until July 25.

Award-winning actor and stand-up comedian Lenny Henry wowed West End audiences when he played Shakespeare’s Othello in 2009.

Now he is making his debut on the stage at Chichester as middle-aged alcoholic university lecturer Frank in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita. He plays opposite Lashana Lynch, also making her Chichester debut, as working class Liverpudlian hairdresser Rita, who is determined to get an education and signs up for an Open University course in English Literature. Her tutor is Frank, and he opens up her eyes to a bohemian lifestyle that’s a far cry from her own humdrum life.

Mack & Mabel

Chichester Festival Theatre from July 13 until September 5.

Hairspray star Michael Ball returns to the Chichester stage in Mack & Mabel, a musical comedy based on the true romance between two Hollywood legends.

In a tribute to the silent movie era, Mack & Mabel follows the love story that unfolds between Mack Sennett, played by Ball, and Mabel Normand, played by American actress Rebecca LaChance. After it opened on Broadway in 1974, it received eight Tony Award nominations.

Ball last appeared in Chichester in Sweeney Todd, which went on to the West End and earned him an Olivier Award in 2013. But he is perhaps best known for his performance as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, for which he won the Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical in 2008.

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me

Minerva Theatre from September 10 until October 10.

David Haig, memorable as Bernard in Four Weddings and a Funeral and a veteran theatre actor, returns to Chichester in Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me.

Written by Frank McGuinness, it’s based on the experiences of those taken hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s, the drama focussing on the bond forged between an American doctor, an Irish journalist and an English academic.

Haig appeared at Chichester last year in the highly acclaimed Pressure, which he also wrote.

It’s a first for director Michael Attenborough, whose award-winning productions while he was artistic director at the Almeida Theatre included Measure for Measure and The Knot of the Heart.

Young Chekhov: The Birth of a Genius

Chichester Festival Theatre from September 28 until November 14.

Acclaimed Sussex-born playwright David Hare has written new versions of three Chekhov plays that offer a new perspective on the master of modern drama.

Young Chekhov: The Birth of a Genius features Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, revealing a very different playwright from the one known for his later works such as Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard.

Among the stars appearing in the plays are Anna Chancellor, perhaps best known for her role as Duckface in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, Samuel West, currently playing Frank Edwards in ITV’s Mr Selfridge, and James McArdle, who appeared in Chichester in Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country.

Running Wild

Cass Sculpture Foundation from August 2-16 Chichester Festival Youth Theatre celebrates its 30th anniversary by staging the staging the world premiere of Running Wild, Michael Morpurgo’s touching and thrilling story of the Boxing Day tsunami.

In a new adaptation by Samuel Adamson, this promenade production will be staged against the spectacular backdrop of monumental sculptures and dramatic settings at the Cass Sculpture Foundation. It’s directed by Dale Rooks with puppetry by Finn Caldwell and Toby Olié.

A Damsel in Distress

Chichester Festival Theatre from May 30 until June 27.

The 1937 movie starred Fred Astaire and Joan Fontaine and now Chichester Festival Theatre is showcasing a new stage version.

Directed by Rob Ashford and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, A Damsel in Distress is based on a novel by PG Wodehouse and brings together a world-weary American composer and a beautiful, irrepressible English socialite in a charming musical.

Ashford’s credits include Shrek The Musical, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Scarlett Johansson, and Macbeth with Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston.

For Services Rendered

Minerva Theatre from July 31 until September 5.

W Somerset Maugham’s engrossing drama For Services Rendered explores the consequences of war, loss and trauma for an ordinary English family.

It’s directed by Howard Davies, who made his Chichester debut in 2009 with The House of Special Purpose and has won multiple awards for his productions for the RSC, the National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway.

The Rehearsal

Minerva Theatre from May 8 until June 6.

A “sumptuous” revival of Jean Anouilh’s clever comedy The Rehearsal will be directed by Jeremy Sams, who directed the Sound of Music in the West End.

The distinguished cast includes Edward Bennett, Niamh Cusack, Jamie Glover and Katherine Kingsley.

The drama is centred around The Count, better known as Tiger, who is planning a party that includes an evening of amateur dramatics. But when rehearsals begin, it seems his play will unleash as much passion, shock and intrigue off stage as there is on stage.