The Deep Blue Sea - November 2019

Synopsis

DEEP BLUE SEA  by Terence Rattigan and directed by Chris Hearn

The play is set in the early 1950s during the course of a single day in September in the sitting room of a furnished flat in London. It is a portrait of a woman caught between forbidden love and the fear of loneliness, or the devil and the deep blue sea. The play opens with an unconscious Hester being discovered on the floor of the Ladbroke Grove flat that she shares with her younger lover, having attempted to end her life. She’s recently left her husband Sir William Collyer, a High Court judge, for Freddie, a charismatic but emotionally remote former pilot, a man numbed by his wartime experiences and unable to adjust to life in peacetime. She loves him in ways he cannot love her, can never love her; she sees this and it eats at her, leading to attempted suicide, only foiled, because she has forgotten to feed the gas meter!  At the end of the play, Hester is brought to a hard decision to live, partly through the intercession of another resident of the tenement house, Mr. Miller, an ex-doctor struck off the register for an undisclosed reason. These two outcasts, socially ostracised for their 'excessive' loves, find a curious and moving kinship.

Cast

Hester Collyer - Tamsin Reeve

Mrs Elton - Joyce Wells

Philip Welch - John East

Ann Welch - Madeline Reeve

Mr Miller - Chester Stern

William Collyer - Michael Cooke

Freddie Page - Joe Crisfield

Jackie Jackson - Gordon Drayson

Crew

Director - Chris Hearn

Production Manager - Theo Spring

Stage Manager - Rosemary Stern

Assistant Stage Manager & Props - Phil Wright

Technical Director - Alistair Kennard

Wardrobe - Linda Currion

Set Design & Construction - Alistair Kennard, Doug Wells and team

Lighting - Alistair Kennard

Sound - Andy Nicholson

Make-up - Madeline Reeve

Prompt - Theo Spring & Hazel Mason

Front of House Manager - Claire Connery

Publicity & Photography - Linda Currion & Theo Spring

Bar Manager - Ian Spring

Box Office - Janet Brimble