Press Information


1980-2010 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE

Spring Season 2010
The Steam Industry and Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre presents

by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee

The London Premiere

THE NOTEBOOK OF TRIGORIN
by Tennessee Williams
A free adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.
Directed by Phil Willmott. Designed by Kim Alwyn and Aimee Sajjan-Servaes. Lighting Design by Peter Bragg. Costume Design by Penn O’Gara.

Cast includes: Carolyn Backhouse. Stephen Billington. Richard Franklin. Andrea Hall. Rob Heaps. Morgan James.

Samara Maclaren. Daniel Norford. Elizabeth Uter.

“Two corresponding obsessions – two people devoted to art – But I have to escape them if I’m ever to accomplish my life . . . Surely you understand. What don’t you understand?...”

The London premiere of The Notebook of Trigorin,Tennessee Williams' free adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagullopens at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre on 30 March 2010 (Press Night: Thursday, 1 April 2010). The production – former Finborough Theatre Artistic Director Phil Willmott's 12th at the venue – celebrates both the theatre’s 30th anniversary year and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov.
Boasting a callously bisexual Trigorin, a particularly ferocious Arkadina and an especially long suffering Constantine, Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin is an intensely personal response to Chekhov’s The Seagullthat has more to say about the highs and lows of a lifetime in American Theatre then 19th Century Russia.

Chekhov’s masterpiece is the story of an actress, her family and estate. Beginning with her son’s attempts to win respect it charts his eclipse of the fading careers around him, the emotional deterioration of their household and culminates in disillusionment and tragedy.

As a struggling young writer Tennessee Williams was haunted by The Seagull and throughout his life he often spoke of adapting it. Just two years before his death, he finally realised his dream when the University of British Columbia sponsored a production of The Notebook of Trigorin at the Vancouver Playhouse in 1981 – at a time when Williams was at war with the critics and wracked by the drink and drugs he used to ward off loneliness and despair.

Award-winning director Phil Willmott roots the action of The Notebook of Trigorin in Tennessee Williams’ world, providing an intimate insight into a great playwright’s life-long love affair with one play and reflecting a career that gave him everything, broke his heart and left him in pieces.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was one of the world's most celebrated playwrights, and the winner of numerous awards including two Pulitzer Prizes and four New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. Born in Columbus, Mississippi, his works include The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Not About Nightingales, Summer and Smoke, Suddenly Last Summer, Camino Real, Lovely and Misfit and The Night of the Iguana. Previous sell-out Finborough Theatre productions of his work include the UK professional premiere of Something Cloudy, Something Clear and the sell-out triple bill – Blue Heaven, comprising Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry, This Property is Condemned and Auto-Da-Fë – in February 2009.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) first turned to writing as a medical student at MoscowUniversity, from which he graduated in 1884. Among his early plays were short monologues (On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, 1886) and one-act farces such as The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding (1888-1889). His first three full-length plays, Ivanov (1887), The Wood Demon (1889) and The Seagull (1896) were failures when first staged. But the MoscowArtTheatre’s revival of The Seagull, two years later was successful, and was followed by his masterpieces, Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard in 1904, the year of his death from tuberculosis.

Director Phil Willmott is Artistic Director of The Steam Industry, owners of the Finborough Theatre since 1994. He has staged more productions at the venue then any other director including acclaimed revivals of Pinero’s Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ and Country Magic, Galsworthy’s Loyalties, his new adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths (recently published by Oberon Books) and the sell-out F**king Men which transferred to the Kings Head and Arts Theatre breaking records as London's longest running Off West End hit . He is a recipient of a TMA Award for outstanding production of a musical, a Peter Brook Award for his outdoor productions of classical plays and family shows at The Scoop on London's South Bank and a recent "Best Regional Theatre" Whatsonstage nomination for his work at Liverpool Playhouse.

The cast includes Carolyn Backhouse, Stephen Billington, Richard Franklin, Andrea Hall, Rob Heaps, Morgan James, Samara Maclaren, Daniel Norford and Elizabeth Uter.

Carolyn Backhouse’s theatre credits include A Busy Day (Lyric Theatre), A Dream of People (Royal Shakespeare Company), Entertaining Angels (Theatre Royal Bath), Greenwash, Leaving, Larkin With Women (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Hobson’s Choice (Chichester Festival Theatre), An Ideal Husband (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), National Hero (National Tour), The David Hare Trilogy, Private Lives, Closer (Birmingham Rep), Colombe (Salisbury Playhouse), The Magistrate (Savoy Theatre), Educating Rita, Oleanna (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), Mrs Warren’s Profession, Hobson’s Choiceand Rebecca (all National Tours). Film includes Scoop and Robin Hood. Television includes Midsomer Murders, Blue Murder, The Bill, Rosemary and Thyme, Brides in the Bath and Heroes and Villains.

Stephen Billington has previously appeared twice at the Finborough Theatre – in Pains of Youth (2001) and F***ing Men(2008). Other theatre creditsincludeTroilus and Cressida, Macbeth, The White Devil (Royal Shakespeare Company), Romeo and Juliet (Ludlow Festival), Far From the Madding Crowd (National Tour), Much Ado About Nothing (Liverpool Playhouse), Who Killed Mr Drum? (Riverside Studios), Mean Tears (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), The Miser (Salisbury Playhouse), Strangers on a Train (Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and National Tour), Corpus Christi (Pleasance Edinburgh), Our Betters (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Gabriel (Soho Theatre). Film includes Exorcismus, Oh Happy Day, Exitz, The Tulse Luper Suitcases: From Sark to the Finish, Prophecy IV, Resident Evil, Callas Forever, Dracula 2: Resurrection and Braveheart. Television includes Wild West: Custer’s Last Stand, Doctors, The Inquisition, Young Arthur, Relic Hunter, Queen of Swords, Highlander: The Raven, Coronation Street, Jonathan Creek, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Out of the Blue, Rules of Engagement, Space Precinct and The Buccaneers.

Richard Franklin’stheatre credits includeLoyalties (Finborough Theatre), Same Time Next Year (Prince of Wales Theatre), As You Like It (Vaudeville Theatre), The Woman in Black (Fortune Theatre),Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Upstairs at the Gatehouse and King’s Head Theatre), One Night in November (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), Cinderella (Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage and Grand Opera House, York), Dick Whittington (Tameside Hippodrome), The Importance of Being Earnest (English Speaking Theatre, Frankfurt), Capulet (King’s Head Theatre), Spider’s Web (National Tour) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (International Tour).Writing includes The Killing Stone, The Cage, The Trial of Johnny Bull,Dr Weird and the Amazing BoxandThe Kween’s Speech. Film includes Feedback. Television includes Doctor Who, Crossroadsand Emmerdale. Radio includes The Father Gilbert Mysteries.

Andrea Hall’s theatre credits include Talkin’ Loud (Latchmere Theatre), Sta’m (Gate Theatre), Abena’s Stupidest Mistake (The Drill Hall), Hyacinth Blue (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Unexplored Regions (Encompass New Opera Theatre), Palace of Fear (Leicester Haymarket), Large Tales (Nottingham Playhouse), Grass Windows of the Gulf, The Second Noel, Big Times, Bloodlet (Yaa Asantewaa Arts and Community Centre), Sweat (The Space), Red All Over (Lewes Live Literature Festival), Mind Your Head (Futures Theatre Company) and Breaking News (Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company).

Rob Heaps trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His theatre credits includeShoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (National Theatre), Elder Latimer is in Love (Arcola Theatre), Dracula (Edinburgh Festival), Passport to Pimlico, Days of Significance, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Mad World My Masters, Twelfth Night, Epsom Wells, The Duchess of Malfi, Absolute Hell and The Cherry Orchard (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). Film includes Bright Star. Radio includes Cruickshank on New Zealand and Skin.

Morgan James’ theatre credits include F***ing Men (Finborough Theatre),Women Beware Women (Royal Shakespeare Company), 1,60,3600 (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), The Passion Plays (Old Vic), Winged, One Summer (Tristan Bates Theatre), Richard III (Pleasance Theatre), Hamlet (Theatre Museum), The Witch of Edmonton (Southwark Playhouse), Nine the Musical (Royal Festival Hall), Side by Side by Sondheim (Union Theatre), The Phantom of the Opera, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (National Tour), Riverdance (World Tour) and Company (Dublin).

Samara Maclaren’s theatre credits include Charley’s Aunt (Vienna’s English Theatre), Body Builders, Day or Night (Edinburgh International Science Festival), Fathers and Sons, Loveplay, Still, The Recruiting Officer, All’s Well That Ends Well, Angels in America, The Changeling, The Seagull, The Way of the World and Colder Than Here (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). Television includes Lip Service, Merlin and Walter’s War

Daniel Norford’s theatre credits include Multiplex (York Theatre Royal Youth Company), TheCaucasian Chalk Circle (Footprints Theatre Company), Frontline, Tartuffe, The Mob, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Smile, A Month in the Country, Commedia Dell’arte, An Inspector Calls, Measure for Measure, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and A View from the Bridge (East 15 Acting School).

Elizabeth Uter’s theatre credits include Many Roads to Paradise (Finborough Theatre and Jermyn Street Theatre), The Story Project: ‘230’ (White Bear Theatre), Diaspora Afric (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Rocks in Her Pockets (Riverside Studios), Those Who Trespass Against Us (Hackney Empire), Rainbow Uprising, African Macbeth (Shaw Theatre), Redemption Song (Birmingham Rep), A Day in the Life of an Onion, Embers (Southwark Playhouse), Adam (Yaa Asantewaa Arts and Community Centre) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Northern Tour).

Television includes EastEnders, Casualty, Growing Pains, Aftermath, A Licence to Live, Better Parenting and Variations on a Scheme.

The Press on The Notebook of Trigorin

“Notebook brims with the maturity of an ageing writer in the final season of life....[It] achieves its greatest power when understood as the last notebook of a great American writer.” The Colombus Dispatch

“Williams transforms the story into a new American work. Williams indeed ‘endured his vocation’ to make Chekhov’s classic play into a powerful contemporary drama.” CincinnatiCity Beat

“Though the storyline is mostly Chekhov's – with a few variations – the sensibility and the language is all Tennessee, lovely and lilting and poignant at points. The strength of the play lies in characterizations so vivid that they live on in the imagination long after the lights have dimmed. Williams renders his characters more sharply than Chekhov.” Curtainup.com

“Williams made The Notebook of Trigorin a trip deeper into the shadow of the human soul than Chekhov's.” my.en.com

“The voices of two great playwrights a century apart are joined in one work of art.” Allean Hale

PRESS NIGHT: THURSDAY, 1 APRIL 2010 AT 7.30PM

PHOTOCALL: TUESDAY, 30 MARCH 2010 AT 1.00PM-1.30PM
Finborough Theatre, The Finborough, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Box Office 0844 847 1652.
Tuesday, 30 March – Saturday, 24 April 2010
Tuesday to Saturday Evenings at 7.30pm. Sunday Matinees at 3.00pm.
Prices for Weeks 1 and 2 (30 March–11 April) – Tickets £13, £9 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £9 all seats, and Saturday evenings £13 all seats. Previews (30 and 31 March) £9 all seats.

£5 tickets for Under 30’s for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only.

£10 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on Saturday, 3 April 2010 when booked online only.

Prices for Weeks 3 and 4 (13–24 April) – Tickets £15, £11 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £11 all seats, and Saturday evenings £15 all seats.

Performance Length: 2 hours with one interval.

For more information, interviews and images, please contact

Neil McPherson on e-mail or 07977 173135 or

Susie Safavi on e-mailor 07875277913

Press releases and images are available to download from

118 Finborough Road, LondonSW10 9EDTelephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853

e-mail Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268.

Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, LondonSW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.