Casting announced for stage premiere of ATONEMENT at Chichester Festival Theatre
Casting has been announced for the world premiere of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton, which runs at Chichester Festival Theatre from 29 May – 20 June, directed by Adam Penford.
Siân Phillips (Under Milk Wood, National Theatre) will play the older Briony Tallis, with Miriam Petche (Industry, BBC) as Cecilia and Jasper Talbot (The Line of Beauty, Almeida Theatre) as Robbie. The company also includes James Backway, Tom Chapman, Isabella Dempster (as the young Briony), Yanexi Enriquez, Debra Gillett, Gabin Kongolo, Natasha Magigi, and Jonathan Oliver.
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.
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.
The creative team also includes designer Anthony Ward lighting designer Aideen Malone, composer and sound designer Alexandra Faye Braithwaite, video designer Andrzej Goulding, movement and intimacy director Ben Wright, and casting director Helena Palmer CDG.