A special interactive exhibition will fill the foyer at Chichester Festival Theatre during the run of the new play Redlands which tells the story of the infamous 1967 Rolling Stones drugs bust.
Category
š¹
FunTranscript
00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at the Sussex Newspapers.
00:06Lovely to speak again to Helena Berry, who is the Heritage and Archive Manager at Chichester Festival Theatre.
00:11Now, we're speaking for a very, very special reason, because Redlands, the story of the infamous February 1967 Rolling Stones drugs bust
00:19at a property not so very far from Chichester, is about to open at the Festival Theatre.
00:24And Helena, your job has been to create a foyer exhibition to really back up that story and to amplify it.
00:32Has it been good fun to do?
00:34It's been a lot of fun. It's a homegrown story.
00:37So as a kind of local girl as well, it's been really, really interesting to look into that history and that connection to the Rolling Stones at that period.
00:46It's been fascinating how Chichester was so connected with such a culturally significant moment.
00:51It's really exciting.
00:53And you've had a good response, haven't you, after appealing for memories, new pieces of inspiration?
01:00Yeah, we've been kind of overwhelmed with the community response, really.
01:03And even if people didn't have first-hand memories of the late 60s, of when the Stones were here,
01:09people are so connected to the Stones or to the story, they remember it or they've heard it through their family members.
01:15And we've had a wonderful creative response from people, either by donating poetry that they've written
01:22or we have a wonderful display of vinyl covers that we're going to have on display.
01:27And we have made vinyl covers of this, isn't it?
01:30Yeah, so we've worked with local community groups and volunteers who have set their task to creating some vinyl covers that we're going to display as part of the exhibition.
01:40And all of them are so unique, but based on that individual's response to the themes of Redlands or the story of Redlands as they know it.
01:47So it's been wonderful the last few weeks we've been getting them all in.
01:51So I'm really looking forward to seeing them up on the walls and people can come and enjoy them.
01:55And what's all that going to do for the people who've seen the show or are about to see the show?
01:59What's it going to give them extra?
02:01Well, I'm hoping it will be a kind of enhancement of the show before you come in.
02:06And the foyer, as you walk in the foyer, there'll be something interesting and dramatic for you to see.
02:11As I said, it's a homegrown story, so we're hoping to illuminate some actual history of the period.
02:16We've got some wonderful photos of Mick and Keith in Chichester when they were here in the 60s.
02:21And we've got timelines of the events that people can flip through with photos.
02:26So I'm hoping it will kind of give people a little bit of context and also a little bit of inspiration before they go into the world of 1967 that Justin has created on the stage.
02:37And this is increasingly your task, isn't it?
02:39As the Festival Theatre is wanting to use that foyer space more and more.
02:43Yeah, we have a wonderful Festival Theatre foyer. It's huge, a huge space to fill.
02:49But we're really looking to make that space more active and more open for people to come and enjoy.
02:54This is our third exhibition we've done this season and last season, and we hope to do some more next season.
03:02So we hope that people really enjoy coming and seeing something a little bit different before the show in the foyer.
03:09It sounds fantastic. The show itself sounds brilliant and to have the exhibition as well sounds super.
03:14Congratulations on pulling it all together and very much looking forward to seeing it.
03:19Thanks.