Chichester Festival Theatre Announces New Festival 2026 Productions
- L.S.
- 6 hours ago
- 7 min read
David Haig and Hadley Fraser in MAGIC by David Haig, directed by Lucy Bailey
24 April – 16 May, Festival Theatre
A new play by David Haig, Magic has its world premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre from 24 April – 16 May, with a press night on 5 May. The cast is led by David Haig and Hadley Fraser, directed by Lucy Bailey. Based on extraordinary historical events – 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Houdini’s death – Magic asks what we’re prepared to believe, and why.
Harry Houdini is the greatest illusionist the world has ever known. Arthur Conan Doyle is the creator of literature’s most brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes.
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Their mutual admiration blossoms into a profound friendship, even as they discover a shared obsession with spiritualism. Conan Doyle believes fervently in the psychic world and the promise of reunion with his dead son; Houdini is determined to demonstrate it’s a cruel fraud. Which of these sparring partners will be proved right: the genius writer of fiction or the infallible magician?
David Haig’s play Pressure (in which he also starred) premiered at Chichester in 2014 and went on to West End and international success; the movie will be released this year. An award winning actor whose many credits include Yes, Prime Minister and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me at Chichester, and on screen Killing Eve, COBRA, Etoile and Four Weddings and a Funeral, David Haig will also play Conan Doyle.
Hadley Fraser plays Houdini, returning to Chichester where he last appeared in The Deep Blue Sea; his London credits include The Lehman Trilogy, 2:22 and City of Angels. The company also includes Jenna Augen (Kyoto, Nachtland, Leopoldstadt) as Bess Houdini, Ben Jones, Claire Price (The Capture, In Praise of Love, King Lear) as Jean Conan Doyle, Marc Serratosa, Ella Tekere, François Testory, Jade Williams and Kristin Wei Wong. Director Lucy Bailey returns to Chichester where her previous work includes The Other Boleyn Girl and Tonight at 8.30.
The designer is Joanna Parker, lighting designer Aideen Malone, illusion designer John Bulleid, composer Orlando Gough, sound designer Beth Duke, video designer Dick Straker, movement director Ayse Tashkiran, fight director Kate Waters and casting director Ginny Schiller CDG.
Sarah Parish and Rupert Penry-Jones in ECLIPSE, written and directed by John Morton
8 May – 6 June, Minerva Theatre
Eclipse, written and directed by John Morton, receives its world premiere at the Minerva Theatre from 8 May – 6 June (press night: 14 May). The cast is led by Sarah Parish and Rupert Penry-Jones.
In the kitchen of an old Devon rectory, the daughter who stayed and the son who moved away make conversation with their current and former partners, the milkman, the postman, the care workers. They talk about the weather, the roads, the toaster, the bins. About anything except the simmering tensions between them, as their father lies mortally ill in the next room. Until the unspoken emotions and conflicts of years boil over. Eclipse is a painfully funny, acute and delicate play about our struggle to communicate, in the face of life and of death. And our infinite capacity for drinking tea.
Writer and director John Morton’s award-winning TV series include People Like Us, Twenty Twelve, W1A and the forthcoming Twenty Twenty Six in the run-up to the World Cup; this is his first stage play.
The company is led by Sarah Parish, whose recent TV credits include W1A, Piglets, Industry and Bancroft and who last appeared at CFT in Way Upstream; and Rupert Penry-Jones, returning to the stage after many screen series including Spooks, Silk, Whitechapel, The Strain and The Feud.
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Eclipse will be designed by Simon Higlett, with lighting design by Emma Chapman, and sound design by Ed Clarke; the casting director is Matilda James CDG, and the associate director is Fiona Dunn.
Eclipse was originally commissioned and developed by ROYO, in association with Wessex Grove.
ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan, adapted by Christopher Hampton and directed by Adam Penford
29 May – 20 June, Festival Theatre
Ian McEwan’s Atonement, adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton, runs at Chichester Festival Theatre from 29 May – 20 June (press night: 5 June), directed by Adam Penford.
On an English country estate during the blazing summer of 1935, 13 year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a passionate scene between her elder sister Cecilia and the son of their housekeeper, Robbie. In a disastrous desire for drama but only a dim understanding of its impact, Briony makes an accusation which will fatally alter Cecilia and Robbie’s lives and many others too – for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.
Stretching from the 1930s through the Second World War to the present day, Ian McEwan’s dazzling masterpiece was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and voted by Time Magazine and the Guardian as one of the 100 greatest novels of the past century. This world premiere stage adaptation is by Christopher Hampton, whose many plays and adaptations also include The Philanthropist and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which won the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play and is shortly to be revived at the National Theatre.
Adam Penford, Artistic Director of Nottingham Playhouse where his recent work includes James Graham’s award-winning Punch, also in the West End and on Broadway, makes a welcome return to Chichester following his 2023 production of The Sound of Music.
The designer will be Anthony Ward; composer & sound designer, Alexandra Faye Braithwaite; movement and intimacy director, Ben Wright; and casting director, Helena Palmer CDG.
Geraldine James in 45 YEARS (from the film by Andrew Haigh) - adapted for the stage by Hannah Patterson and directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah
12 June – 11 July, Minerva Theatre
45 Years, from the film by Andrew Haigh, adapted for the stage by Hannah Patterson, runs at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre from 12 June – 11 July, with a press night on 18 June. Geraldine James makes her Chichester debut, directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah.
Buried for decades, the body of a young woman is found in the melting ice. A thousand miles and 45 years away... a crack forms in the crystal of a marriage.
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It’s the week leading up to Kate and Geoff’s wedding anniversary and preparations for the party are in full swing. As they choose the music for their first dance, a letter from Switzerland quietly shatters their world. Is the past another country? Or are the secrets in the attic of our memory destined to return?
Adapted from Andrew Haigh’s critically acclaimed 2015 film, 45 Years is an achingly tense, intimate and moving dance to the music of time. Hannah Patterson’s plays include Eden (Hampstead Theatre) and Playing With Grown Ups (Theatre503), nominated for an OffWestEnd Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, which transferred to 59E59 in New York.
Geraldine James comes to Chichester for the first time in her distinguished career to play Kate. Her innumerable TV credits include Back to Life, Silo, This Town, Dope Girls and The Jewel in the Crown; recent stage roles include Creditors (Orange Tree) and As You Like It (RSC).
Director Prasanna Puwanarajah makes his CFT debut; his recent work includes Twelfth Night at the RSC, for which he won the 2025 UK Theatre Award for Best Director.
The production will be designed by James Cotterill, with lighting design by Guy Hoare; the casting director is Matilda James CDG.
Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY, with book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe - Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion Original production directed and staged by Moss Hart and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh
6 July – 5 September, Festival Theatre
A brand-new production of Lerner & Loewe’s glorious, evergreen musical My Fair Lady – which has never before been produced at Chichester – will be directed by Rachel Kavanaugh and run from 6 July – 5 September, with a press night on 15 July.
With an overflowing bouquet of ravishing songs including The Rain in Spain, I Could Have Danced All Night, With a Little Bit of Luck and Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, sparkling dialogue, brilliant lyrics, witty story and gorgeous costumes, this 20th century masterpiece has been described as the perfect musical.
Cockney Eliza Doolittle scrapes a living selling flowers on the streets of London. Her dream of being a lady in a florist’s shop is out of reach unless she can speak ‘proper English’. So when she encounters Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, she seizes the chance to transform her life.
Higgins blithely takes on a bet to turn the woman he dismisses as a “squashed cabbage leaf” into a high society paragon. But his impulsive wager becomes a journey of discovery for both him and Eliza.
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, Lerner & Loewe’s multi award winning musical broke Broadway records when it opened in 1956 and was later adapted into the 1964 Oscar-winning film.
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Director Rachel Kavanaugh’s previous Chichester productions include The Music Man, Shadowlands (now in the West End) and Half a Sixpence. The set and costumes will be designed by Peter McKintosh (Top Hat, South Pacific, Shadowlands), with choreography by Stephen Mear (Gypsy, Mack & Mabel, Kiss Me Kate).
The musical supervisor will be Stephen Ridley, musical director Cat Beveridge, lighting designer Howard Harrison, sound designer Ian Dickinson, and casting director Stuart Burt CDG. There will be a Dementia Friendly performance on 29 July and a Relaxed Performance on 1 September. A Summer Gala on 28 August will support our fundraising campaign for the next generation of theatre-makers.
ATLANTIS by Emily White - directed by Guy Jones in co-production with Theatr Clwyd
18 July – 15 August, Minerva Theatre
Emily White’s new play Atlantis runs at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre from 18 July – 15 August, with a press night on 22 July, directed by Guy Jones in a co-production with Theatr Clwyd (where it runs from 6 June – 4 July, with a press night on 10 June).
In a small coastal village in Wales, Bryn and Gwen learn they will be forced to abandon their cherished home in the face of rising seawater. Their crisis rekindles Gwen’s crusading spirit, cradled at the Greenham Common protests in the 1980s – a commitment inherited by her granddaughter Rhiannon. But as the years pass, their passionate activism threatens to divide mother from daughter, sister from brother, husband from wife.
Emily White’s lyrical, deeply touching and thought-provoking play, winner of the George Devine Award, follows four generations as they discover the cost of saving their home – and the planet.
Director Guy Jones (Blackout Songs Hampstead, O, Island! RSC) makes his Chichester debut.
The designer is Frankie Bradshaw, lighting designer Joshua Pharo, composer & sound designer Holly Khan, movement director Jess Williams, casting director Sophie Parrott CDG, with children’s casting by Keston and Keston.
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