#robertbolt

Flowering Cherry

By Robert Bolt

Troupe in association with Neil McPherson for

The Finborough Theatre

Director – Benjamin Whitrow

Set Design – Alex Marker

Costume Design – Janice Hudson-Holt

Lighting Design – Peter Harrison

Sound Design and Original Composition – Lucinda Mason Brown

Cast: Ashley Cook, Catherine Kanter, Liam Mckenna, Hannah Morrish, James Musgrave, Phoebe Sparrow and Benjamin Whitrow

The first London production in over fifty years

“Fifteen acres of apple trees in blossom, with a few white hens on the grass, perhaps, and some high white clouds in a blue sky...it’s a sight for the gods, it’s Shangri-la.”

The first London production in over fifty years of Robert Bolt’s first West End play, Flowering Cherry.

Suburbia, 1957. Jim Cherry sells insurance, but wants to sell apples instead. He dreams of owning an orchard in Somerset and quitting the job he hates. But Cherry is a fantasist and his wife Isobel is at breaking point. As his dream begins to spiral out of control and the gulf between them widens, can she force him to face reality?

Hailed at its première as the British Death of a Salesman, and from the writer of A Man for All Seasons and the screenplays of Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, Flowering Cherry is the heart-breaking story of a man seduced by his own imagination. This rediscovery marks the first London production since its première in 1957, starring Sir Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson.

Nomination for an Off West End Award for Best Set Design

Press

**** Four Stars – Evening Standard

'Outstandingly designed by Alex Marker...'

Michael Billington – The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/nov/23/flowering-cherry-review-robert-bolt-liam-mckenna-catherine-kanter

'Bolt’s writing catches the everyday details of family life well, while the kitchen-cum-dining room that is the play’s single space fits the Finborough nicely, with Alex Marker’s design – flowered wallpaper, dresser with crockery – depicting the crowded environment of a family house where the children have grown up and are about to leave home.'

Tom Birchenough – The Arts Desk

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/flowering-cherry-finborough-theatre

'How this marks only its first London production since the premiere, which starred Celia Johnson and Ralph Richardson, baffles me. Nonetheless, hats off — and hung up neatly in an immaculately recreated Fifties design — to the Finborough for its richly rewarding rediscovery.'

Fiona Mountford – Evening Standard

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/flowering-cherry-theatre-review-exquisite-revival-of-a-fifties-jewel-a3120841.html

'Cherry suppresses his awful self-knowledge in drink and bluster, stretching his wife’s tolerance to the point where at one startling moment the neat split set – a sliver of garden alongside the suburban kitchen – sees them momentarily separated, each speaking.' 

Libby Purves – TheatreCat

http://theatrecat.com/2015/11/20/flowering-cherry-finborough-sw10/

 'Alex Marker’s set and Janet Hudson-Holt’s costuming are excellent and they have both clearly paid a great deal of attention to detail vis-à-vis historical accuracy.'

Tom Evans – A Younger Theatre

http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-flowering-cherry-finborough-theatre/

'The Finborough’s black-box space is beautifully transformed into a realistic late 50s home by Alex Marker and, while it’s deeply alien from today’s mod-con residencences, the familiarity of elderly relatives’ clocks and tableware lends a kind of hotline to who these people are.'

Sally Hales – Everything Theatre

http://everything-theatre.co.uk/2015/11/flowering-cherry-finborough-theatre-review.html

'They also happen to be the only family members who figure out how to escape Alex Marker’s beautifully designed naturalistic (read: no imagination required) set.'

Emma Smith – Exeunt Magazine

http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/flowering-cherry/

'Alex Marker's elaborate set takes us into the kitchen/living room of the Cherrys with tulips and roses lining the pathway to the house. '

Carolin Kopplin – UK Theatre Network

http://www.uktheatre.net/magazine.html

'Alex Marker's design convincingly creates their little world in slavish detail, right down to – yes – the kitchen sink.'

Gabriella Restelli – WhatsonStage

http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/reviews/flowering-cherry-finborough-theatre_39180.html

'The design is nicely detailed in the family's suburban kitchen with the willow pattern china displayed in the dresser and I loved the magazines coming through the post wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.'

Lizzie Loveridge – www.curtainip.com

http://www.curtainup.com/floweringcherrylon15.html

'The set is outstandingly conceived by Alex Marker and features a kitchen, a passageway behind the house and a garden, making exceptionally good use of the space available.'

Heather Jeffery - Pubtheatres1