Still Lives at the Old Waiting Room

Still Lives - Research and Development process

Still Life is a short play written by Noel Coward in 1936 and which was the basis for the classic British film by David Lean, called Brief Encounter. In this version Dan Rebellato and Rebecca McCutcheon have worked together with permssion of the Noel Coward estate to create a new version integrating rarely performed scenes from Coward's later play, Quadrille, creating a wider range of characters and stories in the world of the train station. The performances at the OWR mark the first public stage in the the production's development which will go on to a full scale production in spring 2024.

In Coward's play world, the train station waiting room is a pause, a space for stepping out of every day life and opening up the potential for joy and passion, escape and new beginnings - if only for a brief while. Join us to experience how this delicate and profound play about the human condition of love resonates within the secret hidden world of the Old Waiting Room.

In November 2023 as part of Making Connections, we spent a week working in the space to explore our ideas about this new version of the play in this atmospheric environment. Described by audience members as inspiring, beautiful and engaging, we went on to develop our production further for a full scale production in summer 2024

Below are images form our research sharing in November 2023, featuring Chisara Agar as Laura, Shane David Joseph as Alec, Miles Gallant as Albert and Grace Haydn as Beryl. Sign by Anna Burns.

Still Lives at the Old Waiting Room, 2024

The R&D process helped us develop our ideas and we made a successful Arts Council/Thriving High Streets bid, allowing us to create a full-scale version of this very special production in summer 2024, the first of its kind the Old Waiting Room.

We were interested in centring the female experience in the play - women are portrayed very sympathetically by Coward in terms of their desires and agency, but often with very few lines to articulate this with. We wanted to place Laura at the heart of the piece, and explore the huge, difficult journey Coward takes her on, and so the idea of an all female ensemble, multi-rolling in all the characters but all at certain points representing different versions of Laura, was born. Using our work in the space - the Old Waiting Room as a ‘memory palace’ of Laura’s - physical work and experimenting with voice, we created a version of Still Lives which opened up and offered glimpses into the inner life and anguish of the central character. Multi-rolling across male and female characters gave all of the performers a brilliant opportunity to dive into often playful expressions of gender. Our ensemble cast of six mighty talented performed was: Grace Haydn, Jade-Marie Joseph, Izzy Lee,Annabel Marlow, Georgina Peters and Flora Wellesley-Wesley.

Featuring stylised, clean design from Anna Burns, an Edward Hopper-esque lighting design from Jack Hathaway, a lyrical soundscape of human voice from Lucy Harrison, supported on sound design by Alex Comana. Senior Producer Emily Briseldon-Waters developed a strong visual and digital design for the play, and Producer Emma Lord joined the team.The production ran for just 2 weeks, gaining critical plaudits and selling out its capacity. We are exploring further opportunities to develop this beautiful show.