Chichester Festival Theatre’s new artistic director Justin Audibert brings his production of Stiles and Drewe’s joyful hit musical The Three Billy Goats Gruff to the Minerva Theatre this Christmas (December 14-January 7).
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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers and lovely
00:06 to speak to Justin O'Leary-Baird, who is the Artistic Director of Gifts Festival Theatre.
00:10 And the first thing you are directing at Gifts Festival Theatre as Artistic Director is your
00:16 own production of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, which is going to be fantastic in the Manoeuvre,
00:20 covering a really important age range. You're looking at children three and up, aren't you?
00:25 That's right, Phil, yes. Lovely to see you. Yes, it's a really fun, energetic kind of
00:33 introduction to theatre for younger audiences and written by those kind of Chichester stalwarts
00:41 and West End stalwarts, Stiles and Drew. So it's a joy to collaborate with such masters
00:46 of their craft.
00:47 And this is a production you had in your back pocket from earlier this year. Perfect timing.
00:52 This is, yes, I did it at the Unicorn in London earlier this year and it did really well and
00:59 people really enjoyed it. There's plenty there for the adults as well as the children having
01:04 fun. The songs are incredibly catchy and it's a great, it's a proper classic story, isn't
01:11 it? The Three Billy Goats Gruff, everyone knows it. And yes.
01:16 What makes it so fun, this production? What's it all about?
01:19 So essentially, the three goats, Big, Middle and Baby, they're desperate to get over the
01:26 other side and taste some of that delicious grass. But they've got to cross the bridge,
01:30 as is the classic fairy tale. But each one of them has a kind of, they've just got slightly
01:35 different fun, interesting personalities. Like Baby Goat is incredibly cute, but really
01:40 naive about the world. The Middle Goat, he like, is kind of like, he thinks he's older
01:45 than he is and smarter than he is. And then Big Goat is the kind of sensible one. But
01:51 also all three of them have a little sense of mischief and Little Bo Frilly, who's there,
01:55 who is supposed to look after them, you know, and keep them on the straight and narrow,
01:59 she gets kind of persuaded by the three of them that going on this journey will work,
02:04 even though they know there's this dastardly troll lurking to get them and make them his
02:10 lunch.
02:11 It sounds fantastic. And the wider context is this is just one bit of a fantastic Christmas
02:16 programme that you have catering for all ages with a huge number of different shows and
02:20 things happening. You've gone very Christmassy this year in your first year.
02:24 We have. So we've got obviously Shonalee Bhattacharya's fantastic new adaptation of The Jungle Book
02:32 with songs by Ruth Chan. Really imaginative, obviously, it'll be everything one expects
02:40 of a Chichester Festival Youth Theatre Christmas show. There'll be 70 children performing on
02:44 stage, 70 young people performing on stage. The crew will also be, you know, our technical
02:49 youth theatre. It's an amazing showcase of like the work that Chichester Festival Youth
02:56 Theatre do. You know, and the standard is incredible. Matt Hassel, who's directed it,
03:03 and then the full creative team, including like Simon Higlett, who's the designer, who's
03:07 worked it loads. And, you know, Simon's done something with the stage that I think I have
03:14 not seen in the Modelboxes so far. And I don't think anyone would have seen. He's gone to
03:20 really gone to town because you've got that huge advantage, Phil, which, you know, when
03:25 you have 70 bodies on stage, you have a lot of people to wheel things on and off in interesting
03:30 manners. And Simon has gone to town.
03:31 That's fantastic. There's a huge pressure with that because you always think every year
03:35 they can't top this, but then they do, don't they?
03:40 Yeah. I think everyone is in for a real. And it's such a brilliant, you know, such a brilliant,
03:47 brilliant adaptation that Seananley's done, which is like really faithful to the kind
03:51 of original story, but really does contemporise it as well. And on top of that, we've also
03:59 got Santa's Grotto, Father Christmas is coming, sister, and parking in Oaklands Park. So,
04:05 yeah, I mean, as you said, Phil, we've gone to town a bit on Christmas this year, but
04:10 it feels like a year when people need brightness, don't they? It feels like a year for that.
04:15 Brilliant. Well, Justin, congratulations. That's a fantastic programme. Looking forward
04:19 to all of it. Thank you.
04:21 Thanks, Phil.
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