Initial Casting Revealed For English-Language World Premiere of FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMANN at Bath Theatre Royal

Initial casting has been announced for Jean-Philippe Daguerre's Farewell Mister Haffmann, the English language world première of one of France's most successful new plays, which will open at Bath Theatre Royal in August. Translated by Jeremy Sams, this new play will be directed by Lindsay Posner with a cast including Alexander Hanson, Lisa Dillon and Ciarán Owens, with further casting to be announced. The production opens at the Ustinov in Bath Theatre Royal on 31 August, with previews from 24 August, and runs until 23 September.

The French play Adieu Monsieur Haffman by Jean-Philippe Daguerre has been a commercial and critical success in France, winning four Molière Awards, including Best New Play. It has been one of the longest running plays in France and was recently made into a film starring Daniel Auteil.

Jean-Philippe Daguerre  said today, “It's an honour to collaborate with this esteemed team bringing my play to life for the first time in the English language. It's such a wonderful gift as a playwright, and I cannot wait to see the production.”

Lindsay Posner added, “Set in Nazi occupied Paris Farewell Mister Haffmann provides an entertaining and moving exploration of individual and collective moral dilemmas. This play's political relevance cannot be over-estimated.”

Opening at the Ustinov Studio in Bath Theatre Royal, this will be the English language world première of Jeremy Sams' translation of Jean-Philippe Daguerre's play, directed by Lindsay Posner, one of the UK's most accomplished directors.

The year is 1942. Paris is under Nazi occupation. Jews are being rounded up.  Joseph Haffmann, a Jewish owner of a jewellery shop and his long- standing employee Pierre Vigneau change roles as part of a strange deal which could only take place against the background of an absurd and tragic reality. Joseph Haffmann will transfer the ownership of the jewellery store to Pierre, but asks that Pierre hides him from the Nazis. In return, Pierre insists that that Joseph enter a very unusual arrangement with Isabelle, Pierre's wife. 

Add to that a Matisse painting, an 'art loving' Nazi officer and his outrageous wife, marital difficulties amplified by the bizarre domestic situation, it is no wonder that Pierre is driven to the brink.

Director Lindsay Posner returns to the Ustinov Studio fresh from his widely acclaimed production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? One of the UK's most accomplished directors, his recent productions in Bath include Noises Off, God of Carnage, Stone in his Pockets, She Stoops to Conquer and Hay Fever.

Lisa Dillon plays Isabelle Vigneau. Her theatre credits includes The Fever Syndrome and Hapgood (Hampstead Theatre); The Roaring Girl, The Taming Of The Shrew, and Othello (RSC); A Flea In Her Ear and Design For Living (Old Vic); When The Rain Stops Falling, Hedda Gabler and Period of Adjustment (Almeida Theatre); Blithe Spirit, Private Lives,  Under The Blue Sky and The Master Builder (West End); As You Like It, The Cherry Orchard and Iphigenia (Sheffield Theatres); Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (Chichester/RSC/Haymarket); Present Laughter and The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (National Theatre). For television, her work includes Black Work, Dirk Gently II, Midsomer Murders, The Jury II, Cambridge Spies, Cranford and Hawking; and for film, Suffragette, The Beat Beneath My Feet and Bright Young Things.

Alexander Hanson plays Joseph Haffman. His extensive theatre work includes Noises Off (Phoenix Theatre); Follies (National Theatre); The Truth (Menier Chocolate Factory/Bath Theatre Royal/Wyndham's Theatre); Single Spies (Rose Theatre Kingston); Uncle Vanya (Chichester Festival Theatre); A Little Night Music (Menier Chocolate Factory/Garrick Theatre); Marguerite and Arcadia (Theatre Royal Haymarket); The Sound of Music (London Palladium); Talking to Terrorists (Out of Joint/Royal Court Theatre); Candide, The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida, and The London Cuckolds (National Theatre); Sunset Boulevard (Adelphi Theatre); and The Memory of Water (Hampstead Theatre). For television, his work includes Auf Wiedersehen Pet (as Tarquin in two series), Midsomer Murders, Killing Eve, Endeavour, Lewis, London's Burning, Heartbeat, and Rosemary and Thyme; and for film, The Stranger in our Bed, and Kidulthood.

Ciarán Owens plays Philippe Vigneau. His theatre work includes The Windsors: Endgame (West End); The Duchess of Malfi (Almeida Theatre); Rutherford and Son, and Love and Information (Sheffield Theatres); Abigail's Party (Theatre Royal Bath/UK tour); A Handful of Stars (Trafalgar Studios); Disco Pigs (UK & Ireland tour); The Brink (Orange Tree Theatre); King John (Shakespeare's Globe); So Here We Are (Manchester Royal Exchange/ High Tide); The Crocodile (Manchester International Festival); Oh What a Lovely War (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Candide, A Mad World, My Masters and Titus Andronicus (RSC); Mercury Fur (Trafalgar Studios); and Our Country's Good (Out of Joint). For television, work includes Peaky Blinders, Father Brown, Call The Midwife, The Last Kingdom, Strike Back, Crazyhead, Arthur and George, Spotless and Wallander. Film includes Red Joan and Where Hands Touch.

Jean-Philippe Daguerre is a French writer and director. His work over the last 20 years includes: Paroles de Prévert, Le Médecin malgré lui, Les Contes des 1001 Nuits, Alice au Pays des Merveilles, Aladin, Cyrano de Bergerac, Le Cid.  Jean-Philippe Daguerre is also the artistic director of "Le Grenier de Babouchka" Company. He was nominated for Molière Awards in 2016 for Aladin, in 2017 for Scapin, and in 2018 for Le Malade Imaginaire and for Clérambard. In 2018, the play Adieu Monsieur Haffmann, which he wrote and directed, won 4 Molières awards. Since then, he wrote and directed La Famille Ortiz, Le Petit Coiffeur, Le Voyage de Molière, La Chambre des merveilles and Huitième ciel.

Jeremy Sams is a translator, director, composer, and playwright. His translations and adaptations have been used at The National Theatre, on Broadway, in the West End, as well at ENO, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York. He has directed and written music for many shows at The National Theatre, on Broadway, in the West End, and pretty much everywhere else. His most recent credits are What's in a name?, Edmond de Bergerac, Roman Holiday (Bath) The Lavender Hill Mob, The Good Life (UK tours) as well as the operas Flight (Royal College of Music ) and Die Fledermaus (The Met).

Director Lindsay Posner has directed in every major London theatre as well as the RSC and on Broadway. His recent credits include the West End Production of Noises Off (Theatre Royal Bath, Phoenix Theatre & UK tour) starring Felicity Kendal and Edward Albee's classic Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Theatre Royal Bath). Next year Posner will direct David Morrissey in a double bill of The Lover and The Collection by Harold Pinter, and Tamsin Grieg in Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea at Bath's Ustinov Studio, in addition to the stage adaptation of Drop the Dead Donkey. 

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