Trelawney of the Wells

by Arthur Wing Pinero

This National Theatre production opened at the Olivier Theatre on 7th July 1994 and ran in repertoire for the rest of the year.

Creative Team

Director – John Caird
Settings – John Napier
Costumes – Anthony Powell
Lighting – David Hersey
Music – Stephen Oliver
Musical Arrangement – Jonathan Dove
Movement – Jane Gibson
Company Voice Work – Patsy Rodenburg

Staff Director – Fiona Laird
Production Manager – Annie Gosney
Stage Manager – Ernest Hall
Deputy Stage Manager – Angela Bissett
Assistant Stage Managers – Paul Greaves, Emma B Lloyd
Sound – Jonathan Suffolk
Assistant Voice Coach – Jeanette Nelson
Assistants to the Designer – John Clarke, Sue Jenkinson
Assistant to the Lighting Designer – Huw Llewellyn
Assistant Production Managers – Christopher Patrick, Carl Root
Costume Supervisor – Irene Bohan

Poster Design - Mark Entwistle
Programme Design - Michael Mayhew
Production Photographer– Clive Barda
Production Caricatures – Bill Hewison

Cast

Theatrical Folk – of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Tom Wrench – Adam Kotz
Mrs Telfer – Betty Marsden
James Telfer – Michael Bryant
Augustus Colpoys – Kevin Williams
Ferdinand Gadd – Steven Pacey
Avonia Bunn – Emma Chambers
Rose Trelawney – Helen McCrory
Imogen Parrott – Nicola Redmond

Non-Theatrical Folk
- at Brydon Crescent

Mrs Mossop – Linda Polan
Mr Ablett – Robert Demeger
Sarah – Jonquil Cook

- at Cavendish Square

Sir William Gower – Robin Bailey
Arthus Gower – Ben Miles
Clara de Foenix – Shelley Willetts
Miss Trafalgar Gower – Bridget Turner
Captain de Foenix – William Chubb
Charles – Paul Stewart

Members of the Company of the Pantheon Theatre

O’Dwyer – Harry Towb
Mr Denzil – Doyne Byrd
Mr Mortimer – Charles Armstrong
Mr Huston – Antony Byrne
Miss Brewster – Judith Coke
Miss Baer – Joyce Fenby
Miss McIntosh – Thomasina Unsworth
Hall Keeper – Roger Bingham

Musicians

Music Director/Piano – Helen Ireland
Drums – Michael Gregory
Cello – Nia Harris
Violin – Anna Hemery
Tuba – Nicholas Hitchens
Trumpet – Colin Rae

Musicians

Clarinet/Flute – Melanie Bush

I chose the music for this production as a tribute to the life and work of Stephen Oliver, who died in April 1992, aged 42.  Over an extraordinarily productive life, Stephen wrote over forty operas and countless scores for plays, most of them at the RSC but also for the national and in the West End.  His scores for Peter Pan and for Nicholas Nickleby in particular will always be remembered  by admirers of his music.  His great love of the theatre and of theatre people would have found a delightful focus in Trelawney and I would have asked him to write an original score for this production had he lived just a little longer.
The waltz melody I have used for Trelawney was originally written, in a shorter version, for Sasha, an operetta based on Ostrovsky’s play Artists and Admirers.  In its full version it was used in a masque called Il Sogno della bella Rosina, performed in Florence in 1987, and it was played at Stephen’s memorial service in the spring of 1992 by Jonathan Dove who kindly agreed to arrange the music for this production.