THE WINSLOW BOY

By Terence Rattigan

Non-Studio Submissions Pack

Chaplaincy, Term 3, Week 4


1. THE PRODUCTION TEAM

Our Production Team consists of a blend of first and second year students. So far, we have had several meetings in which we have watched the two films made of The Winslow Boy: the 1948 Anthony Asquith film with Robert Donat and Margaret Leighton and the 1999 David Mamet film with Nigel Hawthorne, Rebecca Pigeon and Jeremy Northam. The Director felt that these were appropriate to watch alongside reading the play as it would help to fire the designer’s thoughts and also to look at Terence Rattigan’s writing for the screen play of 1948. Other meetings have occurred within departments and much communication has occurred between the whole team and the Director and Producer. It is a group which already works well together and incorporates a large number of first year English and Theatre Studies Students who have a wealth or experience and enthusiasm for drama.

Director Genevieve Raghu

Producer Alexander Hutton

Stage Manager Radhika Ravi

Assistant Stage Manager Kate Richards

Set Designer Kat Koch

Marketing Manager Kim Atkins

Assistant Marketing Directors Nikki Anderson

Kay Michael

Publicity Designer Sam Chapman

Costume Designer Millie Marsh

Assistant Costume Designer Anna Tunnard

Genevieve Raghu (Director)

As a first year English and Theatre Studies student, Genevieve is thoroughly looking forward to directing The Winslow Boy. Her previous directing experience at school includes the pantomime Sleeping Beauty (1998) and (2005), her adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (1999). She wrote and directed: Kind Hearts and Calamities (2001) and Something New! (2002). Most recent direction experience has included excerpts from Alice in Wonderland (2003), Nicholas Nickleby (winner of inter-house competition 2005) and the A-Level Drama production of The Beaux’ Stratagem. She has done a large amount of Drama in Norwich and was a member of the Norwich Theatre Royal Youth Theatre. With this company she performed in Nicholas Nickleby as Kate Nickleby (2004), Skellig as a Narrator (2005) and Trojan Women as Helen (2006). She has also worked at the Theatre Royal in professional productions such as the musical Pickwick and Meet me in St. Louis and Pantomimes such as Babes in the Wood. She provided the narration for the DVD Thelwell’s Pony Capers (2005). Genevieve has taken and completed the LAMDA examinations in acting and has also had much dance and music training. When leaving school she was awarded the prize for ‘Drama and Theatre Arts’. Her experience as a Managing Director for Young Enterprise and as a Company Captain at school alongside her previous directing and acting experience will provide her with the skills and experience required for directing and taking a central role in the Production Team of The Winslow Boy.

Alexander Hutton (Producer)

Alexander is a first year History and Politics student. He enjoys taking on roles of responsibility in various capacities. Alex has written a collection of short plays heavily influenced by his love of post-war playwrights Beckett and Pinter. He is hoping to take these into performance at some point in the near future. He is also keen to explore the earlier British school of post-war playwrights, which Rattigan embodies. His interest in the theatre has led him to take on this role as theatrical producer for The Winslow Boy. It is not a role which he has taken on before. His interest in history and politics is an invaluable contribution to the team due to the play’s period setting of 1912. It has been planned for him to deliver presentations to help define the play within its historical context. Alex is an excellent communicator and works well under pressure as his school performance shows - he managed a UCAS application whilst competing at a national level in debating. Alex also has a regular column in the Warwick Sanctuary. He looks forwards to producing The Winslow Boy at the University of Warwick and is glad of the opportunity it has given him to broaden his skills and interest in the theatre.

Radhika Ravi (Stage Manager)

Radhika has always been involved in drama and theatre onstage and off during her schooling, college and now university days, which means that she is quite familiar with the processes that take a production from script to stage. At the University of Warwick, she has been involved in a few productions which has enhanced her experience and given it a more professional edge. She was assistant stage manager for The Night Heron, assistant costume and props manager for No Man's Land and assistant stage manager for Illustrations of Madness. These studio productions gave her the opportunity to work in the Warwick Arts Centre and operate within a professional environment. It is this experience that will contribute profitably to The Winslow Boy.

Kate Richards (Assistant Stage Manager)

Kate is a first year English and Theatre Studies student with a keen interest in stage and production management. It is her ambition to study stage management at post-graduate level after gaining her degree and she aims to build up as much experience as possible. Although this will be her first show at Warwick, she has been active in drama at school and as a member of an independent theatre company for several years, gaining experience in various backstage and technical positions as well as onstage. She thinks The Winslow Boy is a fantastic text, perfect for the chaplaincy, and can’t wait to be a part of the production team.

Kat Koch (Set Designer)

Kat Koch is a second year Art History and French Studies student. She received an A for her A-Level art and is the Liaison Officer for the Art Society. She has been involved with several theatre productions at Warwick such as designing and painting the set for Dr. Faustus and working as set designer and painting the set for Illustrations of Madness. She is very enthusiastic about putting together the set for The Winslow Boy!

Kimberly Atkins (Marketing Director)

Kimberley is a first-year English Literature student. Before coming to Warwick she had been actively involved in amateur dramatic productions, in both a performing and technical capacity. She has also had some previous marketing experience within her job at a leisure centre during her gap year but is looking forward to undertaking the new challenges and opportunities necessary for her role as marketing manager in The Winslow Boy.

Nikki Anderson (Marketing Team)

Nikki Anderson is a first year English and Theatre student. She has vast experience in acting in professional and amateur productions in theatre, television, film and live art. As a result of working with companies such as the BBC and Tiger Aspect she is very aware of the collaborative nature of a production team as well as the great organisation it requires. Since starting her course at university Nikki is learning more about and becoming increasingly interested in all types of the production process. As most of her experience is in acting, Nikki is excited to widen her understanding of other areas of production through being a member of the marketing team. Her work with the touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat as well as acting in “Progress” at the ICA in London has helped Nikki understand how a successful marketing team affects all others involved in the production. Marketing was also an obvious choice for her to become involved in as she has some experience in this field. She was public relations manager in her award winning Young Enterprise Company, as well as being involved in many publicity events for her part time job as an Explore Learning Tutor. Nikki was also involved in publicising many events for the Young Theatre at Beaconsfield, forming an advertising link with other theatre companies of Buckinghamshire. Nikki therefore wants to utilise the skills she already has in marketing and her knowledge and love of drama to contribute to the creation of an exciting production.

Kay Michael (Marketing Team)

Kay is a first year student of English and Theatre Studies and has performed in the WUDS Weekend Show, No Man's Land, Watching The Clouds Go By and was involved in assisting Pugilist Specialist for One World Week. Although not holding a position of publicity/marketing before within a production, she is enthusiastic about taking on this role as it will broaden her skills. At school she was Marketing Director for her Young Enterprise company which won several county awards. This determined team provided her with valuable experience which will be of use to her in the marketing team for The Winslow Boy. Being involved in several plays already at Warwick has given her the insight into what is involved for the marketing position. The ideas of involving the Warwick media (TV and radio) as much as possible within the publicity for the play excite her and she thinks it will be something unique in comparison to anything she's done before.

Sam Chapman (Publicity Designer)

In his second year at Warwick University studying English & Theatre Studies, Sam has been actively involved with 13 student productions. These include acting roles in Merchant of Venice, Spring Awakening, No Man’s Land, The It Girls, Catastrophe and Ohio Impromptu. His first taste of marketing came during the summer of 2006 when he designed the flyers for Agito Theatre’s Metamorphosis, a play that was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and sold very well in an especially competitive market. Since then Sam has successfully marketed performances of Ghosts in the Chaplaincy, Illustrations of Madness in the Warwick Arts Centre studio theatre, I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change in the Cooler, and Clockheart Boy also to be performed in the Warwick Arts Centre studio theatre. His main project so far has been marketing for the main theatre show Copacabana at the Warwick Arts Centre. In between school and Warwick Sam spent a year studying for a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. This has helped enormously with the designing of flyers, posters and publicity clothing for all of the shows.

Millie Marsh (Costume Designer)

Millie is a first year English and Theatre Studies student. She has been involved in theatre design for three years. She has previously produced costumes for the musical La Cage aux folles set in the 1920s, designed marketing and advertising for Rockage and designed lighting for the anti-naturalistic play Equus. During her studies of I.B Theatre arts in Singapore she also completed a detailed project in costume design for Japanese Kabuki theatre, and Beijing opera.

Anna Tunnard (Assistant Costume Designer)

Being a first year English & Theatre Studies student, Anna has always taken an interest in theatre and has been involved with many productions, both on stage and behind the scenes. Although The Winslow Boy is the first opportunity Anna has had to work specifically on costumes, she has been involved with them before, both sourcing and helping to create them. Having some experience with art has also allowed Anna to design costumes and develop ways of easily and quickly making changes to costumes so as to fit the feel and mood of a specific scene. Anna is looking forward immensely to being involved with this project, due to the people, the play itself. The period setting of the play allows for exciting costume exploration which she is highly looking forward to.

2. THE WINSLOW BOY

The Winslow Boy is considered by some to be Rattigan’s finest work. It is a play which provides a detailed insight into the social attitudes of the early 20th Century.

Young Ronnie Winslow is accused of theft and is subsequently expelled from the Royal Naval College at Osborne. Ronnie protests his innocence to his father and Rattigan's play goes on to follow the father's determination to clear his son's name and protect his family's honour. The case however is thwarted from the very beginning due to the impossibility of taking action against the Crown. Osborne’s inclusion as part of the Royal Navy meant that this was of a particular focus to the Winslow Case. The only other option is to acquire a Petition of Right, hoping that it will be granted and then taken to court. It is the father’s fight to ‘Let Right be done’ that captivates and enthrals the audience, and the family’s adamant struggle for truth in the face of injustice which we sympathise with and admire throughout the course of the play. Great acclaim has been given to the scene involving Sir Robert Morton’s cross-examination of Ronnie at the end of Act II just preceding the interval was described by B.A.Young as ‘one of the best coups de théâtre of modern theatre’.

The play is based on the case of George Archer-Shee who had been expelled from the Naval College at Osborne in 1908. In Geoffrey Wansell’s Biography of Terence Rattigan he comments on how moved Rattigan was by the details of the case:

‘The facts of the Archer-Shee case… had so fascinated and moved me that unlike many ideas that will peacefully wait in the storeroom of the mind until their time for emergence has come, it demanded instant expression,’ (Terence Rattigan A Biography, 152)

3. WHY THE WINSLOW BOY?