Taking The Piste Show Programme

THE UNBELIEVABLY TRUE STORY OF THE KIRKBY SKI SLOPE

Souvenir Programme

Welcome To

Hi and welcome to Liverpool’s Royal Court and this performance of Taking The Piste.

Here at the Court, we love scripts that are based on a true story. Every so often we get one that sounds made up, but turns out to be a real part of Liverpool’s history! This is one of those shows.

The Kirkby ski slope is the stuff of legend around here. Built in the 1970s, across a watermain, made of rubble and facing the wrong way it is a real symbol of what can happen if someone has an idea and runs with it. In the wrong direction.

Kieran Lynn is a fantastic writer who we have wanted to work with for a long time. When he came to us with the script we knew immediately that it was a Royal Court play. It’s embedded in our history, it led to the creation of the Liverpool Free Press and, most importantly for us, it’s daft enough to make for a very funny show. We are delighted to have Director John Young making his Royal Court debut. We’ve admired him from afar for a long time. Jasmine Swan has designed a set that will make you feel the Kirkby wind whip past your ears, Jamie Platt is shining a light on everything that is good and Kate Harvey is, as ever, sound.

The cast is a mix of Royal Court regulars and a couple taking their first run at the Royal Court nursery slopes. It’s welcome back to Paul, Elliott, Hayley and Mickey and a big hello to Holly and Vicky. We know that you will make them all feel the warmth of a Royal Court audience to fend off the chills of the ski slope.

In amongst all of the jokes that you will hear, there are some important messages in the show. The deals that were done between friends of friends are the sorts of things that have been seen over the years in local politics all around the country. The stance taken by Liverpool Free Press is one that must be admired. Holding those in power to account for their decisions is something that Liverpool has never shied away from in the past. We hope that it never does in the future.

For now, we want you to have a great night of entertainment. So pull on your salopettes, put down your apres-ski liqueurs and enjoy. It’s all downhill from here!.

Kevin Fearon Executive Producer Liverpool’s

Royal Court

Taking The Piste

A Liverpool's Royal Court Production

Written by Kieran Lynn

Starring Holly Mimi Bernice, Vicky Binns, Paul Duckworth, Elliott Kinglsey, Hayley Sheen and Michael Starke. Director John Young • Set and Costume Designer Jasmine Swan • Lighting Designer Jamie Platt • Sound Designer Kate Harvey

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Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Kieran Lynn has written Taking the Piste to tell one of the tallest tales from Merseyside, but it’s all true!

You know when you say “You couldn’t make it up!”? We all know that the truth can often be weirder, and wilder, than anything you could see on the Royal Court stage. The outrageous story of the Kirkby Ski Slope is a case in point. The ambitious artificial sporting attraction, built in the mid70s on wasteland alongside the M57, was doomed by a series of astonishing and disastrous decisions, eventually costing the local council more than £150,000 without ever opening - and leading to the builder, architect and council leader at the centre of the project being jailed for conspiracy to corrupt.

Now this tallest of tales, along with the determined team of independent journalists who uncovered it, is being celebrated in Taking the Piste, Kieran Lynn’s first show at the Royal Court, which tells an equally outrageous (if fictionalised) version of the extraordinary events of half-acentury ago.

Too young to have witnessed the debacle first hand, the playwright reveals he “stumbled upon” the story while reading about the Liverpool Free Press.

“The thing that appealed to me was the fact there are two sides to it,” he explains. “There’s not only the story of this almost unbelievable white elephant building project that ends up a total disaster, because it’s fair to say there have been a few of them over the years.

...The culprits were held to account which I found so satisfying dramatically

Kieran Lynn

“But what makes this story different is that Brian (Whitaker, one of the founders of the Free Press) and the team did thoroughly investigate what had gone on and the culprits were held to account which I found so satisfying dramatically.”

The real-life saga started in 1973 when Kirkby council was being wound up as part of local government changes. Rather than lose a pot of funding, bullish council leader

Dave Tempest (dubbed the ‘king of Kirkby’) determined to spend it on an eye-catching project for the town.

Civic architect Eric Spencer Stevenson suggested a dry ski slope and favoured contractor George Leatherbarrow was given the job of delivering it.

It was a disaster from the start – built back to front, on land it turned out the council didn’t own, next to a motorway slip road and on top of the town’s chief water main, what was nicknamed ‘Mount Kirkby’ was constructed on a catastrophically unstable pile of soil, slag and builders’ rubbish.

And to top it all, its 100,000 segments of plastic matting surface were laid not by professionals but by local schoolchildren who charged the council 25p an hour!

Look, if we’d made this up at the Royal Court you’d think we gone too far!

Kieran reveals: “One of the producers said: ‘We buy that it’s made of rubbish and they didn’t have planning permission,

and we buy that it’s the wrong way round, but we don’t quite buy that.’

“And I said – oh, that wasn’t me!”

Brian laughs: “The kids were really into collective bargaining at a very early age. Trade union principles!”

While it was the butt of many jokes – the BBC’s Nationwide famously broadcast a skit involving intrepid reporter James Hogg launching himself on a dummy run, it was the Liverpool Free Press which, acting on an anonymous tip off, unearthed the shady secret deals behind the ski slope and several other major Kirkby building projects.

The Free Press was originally established in 1971 by reporters who worked for the Liverpool Echo, but who were disillusioned with the paper’s ‘commercial’ considerations and wanted a free rein to investigate issues that mattered to the local community.

The probe into the close and chummy relationship between council leader, builder and architect, was long and involved, with eager young hack Steve Scott doing the bulk of the sleuthing.

What he uncovered was a web of corruption that ultimately led to all three men going to prison. As for what was billed ‘a monument to municipal folly’, with no one willing to insure the bumpy, weed-strewn ski slope, it was eventually demolished.

Strangely, while their investigation shone a spotlight on council corruption, not everyone was thrilled.

Brian, who went on to work for The Sunday Times, Guardian and News on Sunday, recalls while the Liverpool Free Press team anticipated complaints about giving Kirkby a bad name, that wasn’t the only criticism.

He says, wryly: “Because we spent four months on this research, so there had been a long gap between issues, we got complaints from people saying ‘actually, this is all very self-indulgent for journalists’ and we could have had another issue which could have discussed various community things and factory disputes or whatever.”

If the work of their real-life counterparts wasn’t fully appreciated, the fictional reporters are certainly heroes in Taking the Piste.

“While the facts of the story are pretty much true, we’ve dramatised the characters,” Kieran says. “But what we’ve tried to preserve above all is the spirit, particularly of the Liverpool Free Press and the idea of what journalism can do if it’s done well and free from, in this case, commercial influence.”

He adds: “The thing I love the most is that in the end, the good guys win, which just feels so rare that that happens.

“It’s an incredible story, and I’ve loved working on it.”

Words: Catherine Jones

THE UNBELIEVABLY TRUE STORY OF THE KIRKBY SKI SLOPE

Cast

Sandra Starkey/Astrid

Patricia Grimes

Donald Storm/Andy

Derek Whitaker

Kelly White

Geoff Ditchwater/Nigel

Holly Mimi Bernice

Vicky Binns

Paul Duckworth

Elliott Kinglsey

Hayley Sheen

Michael Starke

Company

Writer Director

Set and Costume Designer

Lighting Designer

Sound Designer

Production Manager

Technical Manager

Company Stage Manager

Deputy Stage Manager

Assistant Stage Manager

Wardrobe Supervisor

LX Programmer

Production Electricians

LX1

Production Sound Engineer

Sound No.1

Stage Crew

Kieran Lynn

John Young

Jasmine Swan

Jamie Platt

Kate Harvey

Sean Gannon

Daniel Taylor

Kate Eccles

Roxanne Vella

Caz Davies

Anna Souter

Jimmi Richardson

Miriam Bell, Phil Dickinson, Holly Freeman

Holly Freeman

Danny Haydock

Hayden Gallacher

Joe Baron & Joe Greenwood

Workshop

Workshop Manager

John Kavanagh

Scenic Art Manager

Jen Baron

Scenic Artists

Abbie Jones

Christopher McCourt

Gary at Envision

Thanks to

Barry at Colourcreate

Carpenters

Mike Gray

David Davies

Connor McLeod

From The Archive

The Liverpool Free Press is an integral part of the story of Taking The Piste. Here are some images from the paper, used by kind permission of the founder Brian Whitaker.

Rehearsal Photos

Cast Biographies

Holly Mimi Bernice

Sandra Starkey/Astrid

Holly Mimi Bernice graduated from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (2021). Her work has covered children’s theatre extensively, a theatre maker’s residency with Manchester’s Z-Arts and national touring with various theatre companies. Earlier this year for 4.5 months, she toured the USA with Tutti Frutti in Hare and Tortoise. Performing in over 20 states, some personal favourites of hers have been the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York, where Mark Twain and personal favourite Frank Sinatra have performed, with the latter previously head of their committee. Holly also thoroughly enjoyed performing at The Paramount in Charlottesville, Virginia where Diana Ross and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have performed previously.

This is Holly’s first time at Liverpool Royal Court’s main stage, having performed in the Studio previously. She is thrilled to be back and hopes you love Taking the Piste!

Vicky Binns

Patricia Grimes

Vicky has spent over twenty-five years working across stage and screen, appearing in major television dramas, long-running soaps and touring productions.

Screen credits include series regulars in both Emmerdale and Coronation Street, as well as Nature Boy, The Ward, Von Trapped, The Mill, Casualty, Crime Stories, Moving On, Doctors, Black Mirror and In The Kommandant’s Garden Theatre credits include The Memory of Water (Liverpool Everyman and Octagon Theatre), Yen (Alphabetti Theatre and Octagon Theatre), Faith Healer and That Can’t Have Happened! (Form & Pressure), Who’s The Dummy? (53Two), Home, I’m Darling (Theatre by the Lake), Early Doors (Arena Tour), Abigail’s Party (UK Tour), I Have Been Here Before (Jermyn Street Theatre), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Winter’s Tale, Alfie and Beryl (Octagon Theatre), Hatched & Dispatched (Park Theatre), Singin’ in the Rain (UK Tour), A Kind of Loving (Theatre Royal), Teechers and Perfect Pitch (Hull Truck Theatre).

Vicky is excited to be making her Royal Court debut and finally finding out whether everything she’s heard about the audience is true.

Paul Duckworth

Donald Storm/Andy

Theatre credits include: Grand Old Lady (Epstein Theatre); The Big I Am, Othello, Paint Your Wagon (Everyman Rep Company); Beating Berlusconi, Twelfth Night, Bright Phoenix, The May Queen, Urban Legend, Sweeney Todd (Everyman Theatre Liverpool); A Barry White Christmas (Liverpool Echo Arena); Sink or Swim, Baron Munchhausen, Backwater, Jason & the Argonauts, The Man Who Cracked (Spike Theatre Company); Mam I’m Ere (Life in Theatre Productions); Reds And Blues The Musical, Little Scouse on the Prairie, Scouse Pacific, Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, Down The Dock Road, Father O’Flaherty Saves Our Souls, The Lonesome West, The Scouse Nativity, The Scouse Cinderella, Yellow Breck Road, The Menlove Avenue

Murder Mystery, Bingo Star, Haunted Scouse, Lost Soul 2 and Red Or Dead (Liverpool’s Royal Court); Family Business (M6 Theatre Company); The Quiet Little Englishman (ZHO Productions); Microdots (Contact Theatre, Manchester); The Corrupted Angel, The Golden Boy (Base Chorus); River Fever (Unity Theatre Liverpool); My Bit of Sky (M.Y.P.T) and Horrible Histories (Christmas 2019, Blackpool Opera House).

Television credits include: The Courtroom (Lime Pictures); Brookside (Mersey Television), The 4 O’Clock Club (CBBC).

Film credits include: I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This, Donohue, Reds and Blues, Backbeat, To Know Him (short film).

Elliott Kinglsey

Derek Whitaker

Elliott (he/him) received his training at the Liverpool Everyman’s & Playhouse’s inaugural REP Season (2017) with support from The National Theatre, The Globe, Emma Rice, David Morrisey and Sir Ian McKellen.

Stage: Boys from the Blackstuff (National Theatre, West End and UK Tour); The Derby-Days (Liverpool’s Royal Court); The Tempest (Royal & Derngate); The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Liverpool Playhouse); Fiddler on the Roof, The Story Giant and Romeo & Juliet (Liverpool Everyman); Drag Nativity (Chester Storyhouse); Cinderella (Shakespeare North)

TV: Cobra (Sky), Antony (BBC)

Socials: @elljkingsley

Hayley Sheen

Kelly White

Hi, I’m Hayley and I’m really excited to be back at The Royal Court as part of Taking the Piste and I really hope you all love it.

Theatre Credits include: ‘Lindsay’ in Pass The Parcel ‘Sutcliffe/ Freda/Margaret’ in Boys From The Blackstuff in London’s West End, ‘Alice’ in The Scouse Dick Whittington, ‘Shannon’ in A Greasy Spoon, ‘Fairy Snowdrop’ in The Scouse Sleeping Beauty, ‘Sally’ in Mam I’m ‘Ere, ‘Snow White’ in The Scouse Snow White, ‘Cinderella’ in The Scouse Cinderella, ‘Mary’ in The Scouse Nativity, ‘Faryl’ in Golden Oldies, ‘Eve’ in Adam and Eve & Steve, ‘Blue Girl’ in Shout the Mod Musical.

TV Credits include; ‘Stevie’ in Make Me A Match (Vertical Drama), ‘Gemma’ in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks and ‘Contestant’ in ITV’s Grease Is The Word.

Michael Starke

Geoff Ditchwater/Nigel

Michael began his professional career at Liverpool Playhouse in the 1984 production of Cavern of Dreams by Carol Ann Duffy.

The next few years saw him appearing almost exclusively at the Everyman in Liverpool, where he appeared in such shows as The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew, She Stoops to Conquer, Three Sisters, and No Holds Bard. Michael was the first ‘guest star’ in the Olivier Award winning The Play What I Wrote, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Other theatre work includes Be Bop A Lula, Blood Brothers (Leicester Haymarket) Anything Goes (National Tour).

Film work includes: No Surrender by Alan Bleasdale, Distant Voices, written and directed by Terrence Davies, The 51st State directed by Ronny Yu and starring Samuel L Jackson. Michael is probably best known to TV viewers as Sinbad, a role he played for fifteen years in Channel 4’s Brookside. He then spent six years playing Ken Hopkirk in Yorkshire TV’s The Royal and Jerry Morton in Coronation Street. Michael was in the Christmas episode of Casualty. Michael also featured in the Channel 4 series The Virtues.

In 2010 Michael was one of the three Edna Turnblads in the national tour of Hairspray with Michael Ball and Brian Conley. He followed that with the role of Monsignor O’Hara in the Whoopi Goldberg produced national tour of Sister Act

His recent roles here have included A Nightmare On Lime Street, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Fazakerley, Scouse Of The Antarctic, Special Measures and Shed. He has also completed two films: Jack Ryan directed by Kenneth Branagh and a British film, Longtails, produced and directed by Elizabeth Arends.

Company Biographies

Kieran Lynn Writer

Kieran Lynn is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His plays include An Incident at the Border at the Trafalgar Studios, Pushing Up Poppies at Theatre 503, Bunnies at the New Diorama Theatre, The Recurring Rise and Fall at the Hampstead Theatre, Breaking the Ice at the Traverse Theatre, The Trap at the Omnibus Theatre, The Gangs of New York and Outlaws at Chester Storyhouse. His debut feature film, The Karate Club, has been optioned by O’Sullivan Productions. He recently completed the Netflix Family Film Incubator and was shortlisted for the Channel 4 Screenwriting Programme.

John Young Director

John trained on the National Theatre Directors Course and is a former Resident Assistant Director at The Finborough Theatre. Prior to this he completed the Emerging Trainee Director Scheme at Theatre Clwyd. John has twice been Staff Director at The National Theatre, later this year he will be returning to work in the Olivier Theatre as Associate Director on The Jungle Book Direction includes: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher (Liverpool Everyman); A Man of No Importance (Leeds Conservatoire); The Government Inspector (The Tobacco Factory); Beauty and the Beast (Storyhouse); The Crucible (Leeds Playhouse), Chester Mystery Plays (Chester Cathedral); Gangs of New York, Romeo & Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre); Into the Woods, Spring Awakening, Carrie, Alice by Heart and Jesus Christ Superstar (The Hammond); The Drag Nativity (United Services); Vincent River (Hope Mill Theatre); For the Fallen (Ballakermeen Studio); To Dream Again (Polka Theatre and Theatr Clwyd); A Brief History of Holding Hands (Vault Festival); Scattered (Theatr Clwyd, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Tour); We Know Where You Live (Finborough Theatre); A Place in the Woods (Tristan Bates); The Watchers (Southwark Playhouse); What the Walls Saw, The Thing Is and The Joy Show (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre Young Company) and Soft Beats the Heart (Theatre503).

Jasmine Swan Set and Costume Designer

Jasmine Swan is an award-winning set & costume designer working across theatre, dance, opera, live events and immersive experiences. She won Best Costume Design at the UK Pantomime Awards 2023 for Beauty & the Beast and was subsequently nominated for Best Set and Best Costume Design the following three years. She was a Stage Debut Award nominee in 2018 for Best Designer and a Linbury Prize finalist in 2017. Jasmine is interested in creating surreal, abstract and expressionistic spaces, with sustainability and a greener practice in mind.

Theatre credits include: Thespians (Mischief, HOME & Mercury UK Tour); End of The Rainbow (Soho Theatre Walthamstow); The Mesmerist (Watford Palace Theatre); Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula The Sea Witch (The Lowry & The Other Palace); Coven (Kiln Theatre); Animal Farm (Theater Trier); Mother Goose / The New Adventures of Peter Pan / Sleeping Beauty / Beauty & The Beast (Mercury Theatre Colchester); The Baddies (Edinburgh Lyceum & UK Tour); Coming To England (UK tour); Babies (The Other Palace); The Big Life (Stratford East); Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon (Garrick Theatre); The Full Monty (UK Tour); House of Flamenka (Peacock Theatre); The House with Chicken Legs (Les Enfants Terribles UK Tour & Southbank Centre); We Are As Gods (National Theatre River Stage & Battersea Arts Centre); The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Forest (Hampstead Theatre); The Misfortune of the English (Orange Tree); The Jungle Book (Watermill); Lava (The Bush); Eden (Hampstead Downstairs); Scoring A Century (British Youth Opera at Peacock Theatre); Here / Shook / The Bleeding Tree (Southwark Playhouse).

Jamie Platt

Lighting Designer

Jamie trained at RWCMD and has been nominated for a Knight of Illumination Award, a BroadwayWorld Award and five Offie Awards for Best Lighting Design.

Theatre includes: The Last Five Years (West End & International Tour); Jellyfish (National Theatre); Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Goodman Theatre, Chicago); RIDE (Old Globe, San Diego); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Kiss Me Kate (Leicester Curve); Word-Play (Liverpool’s Royal Court); The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Concert (Prince Edward); Something Rotten! in Concert, Pippin in Concert (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, Something Rotten!, Suddenly Last Summer, Sister Act (English Theatre Frankfurt); The Children, Moonlight and

Magnolias (Nottingham Playhouse); Footballers’ Wives (Assembly, Edinburgh); Pride & Prejudice, Kes (Octagon Theatre Bolton & UK Tour); The White Chip, Our House, Manic Street Creature, RIDE, The Last Five Years, Strike, Beast, Klippies (Southwark Playhouse); Firewing, The Harmony Test, Octopolis, Nineteen Gardens, Either, Paradise, Yous Two (Hampstead Theatre); Kinky Boots (New Wolsey Theatre); The Gang of Three (King’s Head Theatre); That Face (Orange Tree Theatre); The Rat Trap, 23.5 Hours, Cowboys & Lesbians, SUS, Never Not Once, Gently Down The Stream, Alkaline (Park Theatre); Sleeping Beauty, RIDE, Mythic (Charing Cross Theatre); The Gap, Head Over Heels, Vincent River (Hope Mill Theatre); Fame (Birmingham Hippodrome); Anna Karenina (Silk St. Theatre); My Fair Lady, Singin’ in the Rain (The Mill at Sonning); One Who Wants to Cross, Checkpoint Chana, Quaint Honour, P’yongyang, We Know Where You Live, Chicken Dust (Finborough Theatre); Ragdoll, Something in the Air (Jermyn Street Theatre); Daniel’s Husband (Marylebone Theatre).

Opera includes: La Fanciulla del West (Opera Holland Park); The Rape of Lucretia, The Elixir of Love, Blond Eckbert, The Snowmaiden (English Touring Opera); The Barber of Seville (Nevill Holt Opera).

Associate lighting designs include: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (International); Frozen, SIX (West End & International); Born With Teeth, INK, The Night of the Iguana, The Starry Messenger, Bitter Wheat (West End).

Kate Harvey Sound Designer

Corporate/Outdoor: Labour, Conservative, NUT. Symphony in the Park (Hoghton Tower), Liverpool Theatre Festival (Bill Elms Productions), Grimm Tales, Jungle Book, 80 Days Around the World, Alice in Wonderland (Williamson Park, Lancaster)

TV: Stan James World Match Dartsplay (Sky Sports), Strictly Ballroom (ITV), Danny La Rue (BBC), Spirit of Shankly (Granada DVD)

Cruises: P&O World Cruises, Island Cruises, Celebrity.

Arena: Hot Ice (Stageworks Worldwide Productions), You’ll Never Walk Alone (Alterean Media and Liverpool FC)

Music: The Christians, Chesney Hawkes, Sinitta, Slade, Bad Manners, Toyah, Limahl, Cream UK Tour, Petula Clarke, Bobby Crush, East 17, Liberty X, Jane McDonald.

Comedy: Jason Mansford, Peter Kay, Roy Walker, Jim Bowen, Brian Conley, Brendan O’Carroll, Paddy McGuiness.

Live Theatre: Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty (King Georges Hall); Mystique (Stageworks); Original TV Comedians (Blackpool Opera House); Paul Zerdin (Paradise Room Blackpool); Flags (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Mam I’m Ere (Life in Theatre); Eight Miles High, Council Depot Blues, Bouncers, Night Collar, Our Day Out, Shirley Valentine, Red or Dead,

Lennon, Noises Off, Lost Soul 1&2, Girls Don’t Play Guitars, Golden Oldies, Come Together, Vernons Girls (Liverpool’s Royal Court); Twopence to cross the Mersey, Lennons Banjo, By The Waters of Liverpool (Pulse Records); SHOUT! (Max Emmerson Productions); Out of Order, It runs in the family (Ray Cooney Comedy Company); Bang Bang (A production for John Cleese at Mercury Theatre, Colchester); Omnibus (Unity Theatre); Judy and Liza National Tour (Produced by Liverpool’s Royal Court); Midsummer Nights Dream (Filter Theatre Company/Lyric Hammersmith); Homebaked (Red Ladder Theatre Company); Insane Animals (HOME MCR); Cinderella (Imagine, Beck Theatre-Hayes); Kinky Boots (Storyhouse, Chester); Shirley Valentine (Liverpool Everyman); Jack and the Beanstalk (Watford Palace Theatre); Beauty and the Beast, Robin Hood, A Christmas Carol (Dukes Playhouse, Lancaster); Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast (Imagine, Crewe Lyceum); Jungle Book (Bolton Octagon); Jack and the Beanstalk (Stafford Gatehouse, Imagine – UK PANTOMIME AWARD 2025 BEST SOUND DESIGN); Atlantis (Theatre Clywd)

WRITTEN BY FRANK CLARKE | DIRECTED BY NICOLE BEHAN SET AND COSTUME DESIGN MARK WALTERS CONSULTANT MARGI CLARKE

“SHAMELESSLY

ROMANTIC...UNROMANTICALLY STREETWISE” THE NEW YORK TIMES

11 Sept to 17 Oct 2026

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Royal Court Staff

Executive Producer Kevin Fearon

Chief Executive Gillian Miller

Head of Finance & Administration Alan Hardman

Head of Producing & Programming Jess Bolger

Head of Marketing Kofi Ohene-Djan

Head of Operations Ailsa Morris

Executive Chef David Assall

HR & Finance Manager Alison Ward

Graphic Designer & Brand Manager Jamie Jenkin

Producer Clare Carlucci

Assistant Producer Abigail Middleton

Marketing Managers Iain Christie and Lily Hagan

Workshop Manager John Kavanagh

Head of Technical & Production Sean Gannon

Technical Manager Dan Taylor

Senior Venue Technician Phil Dickinson

Head of Lighting Jimmi Richardson

Lighting Technician Holly Freeman

Senior Sound Technician Danny Haydock

Senior Stage Technician Mark Ellis

Scenic Art Manager Jen Baron

Box Office & Sales Manager Lauren Macauley

Assistant Box Office Manager Laura Lees

Head of Wardrobe Mitch Fujii-Williams

Mangament Accountant Marie Williams

Purchase Ledger Izzie Litwin

Venue Administrator Phil McLoughlin

HR Officer Nichola Brady

Executive Assistant Joe Morris

Building Maintenance Technician Bob Smith

Box Office Assistants

Erika Drummond, Finn Goulden-Jennings, Carl Lees, Scarlet Lees, Anna Miller, Pat O’Neill, Susan Segar, and Angela Simms

Fire Officer Louis Carley-Smith

Stage Door Julia D’Arcy, Allan Dodd and Sven Key

Kitchen

Chefs Thomas Alexander, Maciej Gumieniuk, Jay Quinn, Harrison McLaughlin

Kitchen Supervisors Keane Pritchard, and Jack While

Kitchen Porters Hezekiah Abramson, Dillion Bagley, Louise Dodd, Harry Lawlor, Emmeline Linforth, Dean Robinson and Luke Sweeney

Front Of House

FOH Manager Kathy Hutson

Assistant FOH Manager Paul Imrie

FOH Supervisors Jordan Barkley, Sammie Hunter, Ellie Wilcox and Katie Sherman

Café 38 Supervisors - Tom Patterson, Sammie Hunter

Front of House Staff Kane Bagnall, Hazel Bawden, Rhianna Beesley, Mustafa Bshaena, Sam Byrne, Louis Carney-Smith, Emily Cook, John Donachie-Ashcroft, Holly Evans, Lily Hutson, Callum Johnstone, Raia Kiernan, Jackie Kirton, Abby Livingstone, Phil Lyne, Lukas Matuzevicius, Amy McCormick, Joseph O’Neill, Niamh Powers, Anila Rais, Isabella Renshaw, Theo Stock-Best, Aiva Tambourini, Ben Verdin and Samantha Woolley.

Cleaning & KP Supervisor Debbie Chisam

Cleaners Joanne Kinsella, Claire Wilson and Julie Wright.

And a big thank you to all of our freelance and security staff for their hard work throughout the year.

With more songs than Dolly Garston and Garth TueBrooks, you’ll be laughing until the cowboys come home!

31 July to 29 August 2026

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6 Nov 2026 to 16 Jan 2027

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