Robin Herford - Director

Robin read Philosophy and English at St Andrews University and trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Much of his early career was involved with Alan Ayckbourn and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Joining the company in 1976 as an actor, he was appointed Associate Director in 1979, and Artistic Director from 1986-1988. Robin has appeared in the original production of more Ayckbourn plays than any other actor, from Ten Times Table in 1977 to Henceforward… in 1987, and including the monster 16-play, two-hander Intimate Exchanges.

He came to London with Season's Greetings and Suburban Strains (Roundhouse), Intimate Exchanges(Greenwich and Ambassadors) and Henceforward… (Vaudeville). While Artistic Director at Scarborough, he commissioned and directed Stephen Mallatratt’s phenomenally successful adaptation of The Woman In Black, which is still running in the West End after seventeen years, and has completed nine national tours.

In 1993, Robin travelled to Tokyo to direct the Japanese language premiere and in 1995, to Connecticut to direct the American premiere. Other London productions include The Glory Of The Garden, (Duke of Yorks), Rough Justice (Apollo), Joking Apart and The Impotance of Being Earnest (Greenwich). Other directorial credits include Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance , All My Sons, Twelfth Night , The Impotance Of Being Earnest, Clouds, Butley, She Stoops To Conquer, The Beaux ’ Stratagem, Blithe Spirit, Calling, Spokesong, Getting On, Tapster, Just Between Ourselves, Forty Years On, A Going Concern, and What Every Woman Knows (Scarborough), Hard Times (Croydon Warehouse), Ten Times Table, Sisterly Feelings , Woman In Mind, The Constant Wife ( Theatre Royal Windsor), Man Of The Moment (Chester), Absent Friends and Same Time Next year (World Tours), Bedroom Farce (Lyceum Edinburgh), A Going Concern (Nuffield Southampton), Time Of My Life, Taking Steps, Perfect Days (Derby Playhouse), Woman In Mind, April In Paris, Talking Heads , Blithe Spirit, Just Between Ourselves (Northcott Exeter), Time And Time Again (Salisbury) and The Rivals (Vienna). National tours include Relatively Speaking, Confusions, Time And Time Again, Corpse and Arsenic And Old Lace and his most recent productions were Just Between Ourselves at Sonning, Hay Fever at Basingstoke, Home, Driving Miss Daisy, The Turn Of The Screw and Proof all at Oldham Coliseum.

As an actor, Robin’s radio credits are numerous, and his TV credits include Only Fools And Horses, Casualty and The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole. He featured in the film Up On The Roof, and in the last twos year toured to Singapore, India and Hong Kong, playing the lead role of Arthur Kipps in his own production of The Woman In Black. Last year Robin directed the Australian tour as well as directing and starring in the Hong Kong season of The Woman In Black. This June/July Robin returns to the Southern hemisphere to direct and star in this play for the major New Zealand tour.

Mark Healy

Mark has previously appeared as The Actor in The Woman In Black at the Fortune Theatre in the West End as well the National No 1 Tour of the UK. Mark trained at The Welsh College of Music and Drama and the University of Hull.

His theatre includes Hamlet in Hamlet (Northcott Exeter), as Gerald Croft in An Inspector Calls (National Tour & Australia), Doctor John in Villette, as John Shand in What Every Woman Knows (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Jack Absolute in The Rivals (National Tour) , John Willoughby in Sense & Sensibillity (Nortcott Exeter and National Tour), Jack Worthing in The Inportance Of Being Earnest, Petruchio in the Taming Of The Shrew and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (Northcott Theatre, Exeter), Marlow in She Stoops To Conquer (The Magnificent Theatre Company), Orsino in Twelfth Night ( Haymarket, Basingstoke), Darcy in Pride and Prejudice ( National Tour), Coriolanus in Coriolanus (Norwich), Doctor Seward in Dracula (Derby Playhouse). Emperor Nero in Britannicus (Hanged Man Prod), Jackie Jackson in The Deep Blue Sea (Mercury Theatre, Colchester) Metellus Cimber in Julius Caesar (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Hamlet (Sheffield Crucible), Sticks and Stones (National Tour), Henry VIII, King Lear in New York, Chambers of Glass, Bar & Ger, She Stoops To Conquer ( All Chichester Festival), The Comedy Of Errors (RSC World Tour), Twelfth Night (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond) Television includes, Over Here, Ghost Squad, Doctors, Girls Weekend, Holby, Family Affairs and The Bill.

Writing inc a translation of Racine’s Britannicus, Adaptations of John Fowles’ The Collector and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Sense & Sensibility and Dracula, and Lord Of The Undead.

Damien Cooper

Lighting Designer

Damien’s lighting design for Theatre, Opera and Dance includes: A Hard God, The Cherry Orchard, Summer Rain, Metamorphosis, Boy Gets Girl, Julius Caesar, Far Away, Bed, Thyestes, Morph, The Shape Of Things, These People, King Lear, This Little Piggy, (Sydney Theatre Company); Stuff Happens, The Chairs, The Spook, In Our Name, Underpants, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Women He Loved In The Former Soviet Union, The Ham Funeral (Company B, Belvoir); Via Dolorosa (newtheatricals); The Magic Flute; Death In Venice (Opera Australia); Theft of Sita, Three Furies (Performing Lines); The Happy Prince, Gypsy Boy, Hansel And Gretel, Exotic Pleasures (Theatre Of Image) Sonket, What A Piece Of Work, Monkey Trap (Griffin Theatre Company); Universal Playground (Adelaide Festival 2004); Grand, Some Rooms, Shades Of Gray, Ellipse, Air And Other Invisible Forces, Body Of Work, Mythologia (Sydney Dance Company); Tivoli (Australian Ballet/Sydney Dance Company); Swan Lake (Australian Ballet); Flamma Flamma (Adelaide Festival/South Australia Opera); The Magic of the Music (newtheatricals); Penelope (Opera UNSW); Grandma’s Shoes (Theatre of Image/Opera Australia); Red Square (Barrie Kosky’s 1996 Adelaide Festival); The Age Of Unbeauty, Plastic Space, Birdbrain, Attention Deficit Theory, Spectre In The Covert Memory (Australian Dance Theatre); Corrupted 1 + 2, Fleshmeet, Bodyparts (Chunky Move); Frank:The Sinatra Story In Song (Tom Burlinson); The Lord Of The Rings Symphony (Sydney Opera House) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Revolutionary Productions); Heavy, Remote (Lucy Guerin Dancers); Runners Up, Under The Influence, Homelands (Legs on the Wall); Skipping On Stars, The Gift and Fusion (Flying Fruit Fly Circus).
Damien graduated from the NIDA Technical Production Course in 1996 where he now lectures in Lighting Design. During 2003 Damien received a Mike Walsh Fellowship which enabled him to travel to America and work with Director Robert Wilson. Damien won the Sydney Theatre Critics Award for Best Lighting Design for Summer Rain in 2005.

Michael Holt

Designer

Michael’s design career has taken him to theatres throughout the United Kingdom for productions of opera, ballet and drama. He has been associated with playwright Alan Ayckbourn at his theatre in Scarborough for over 20 years. His numerous designs for this author/director include The Safari Party, What Every Woman Knows, Taking Steps, Wolf at the Door, Man of the Moment, Time and the Conways, and the much praised Othello with Michael Gambon. He also designed the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings at the Joyce Theatre, New York.
Other international credits include opera productions for the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen, the Avignon Festival, the Knokke Opera Festival (Belgium), the Brisbane Festival in Australia, ballet designs for the Hong Kong Ballet company, and many plays for Den Nationale Scene, Bergen, Norway and the Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas. Most notable among his ballet designs are The Sleeping Beauty, Madam Butterfly and Romeo and Juliet for Northern Ballet. Michael’s numerous designs for Opera include notable productions of La Boheme (Sadler’s Wells Theatre), Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (Brisbane) and Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrims Progress (the Royal Opera House).
West End credits include the long-running West End success The Woman in Black; Absurd Person Singular (Whitehall Theatre), The Glory of the Garden (Duke of York’s Theatre), Rough Justice (Apollo Theatre), and June Moon (Vaudeville Theatre). He designed Julius Caesar at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and the highly successful centennial touring production of Charley’s Aunt.
Recent repertory theatre includes Misery, New Vic Theatre; Arsenic and Old Lace, Kenny Wax Ltd; A Chorus of Disapproval, Stephen Joseph Theatre; The Turn of the Screw and Driving Miss Daisy, Oldham Coliseum; Mixed Feelings, TEG Productions Ltd; House and Garden, Salisbury Playhouse; Way Upstream, Stephen Joseph Theatre; The Safari Party, Hampstead Theatre; Snakes and Ladders, TEG Theatre Productions; Just Between Ourselves and Taking Steps, Mill at Sonning Theatre; Romeo & Juliet and Big Maggie, for the New Victoria Theatre and The Things We Do For Love, Salisbury Playhouse. Michael has also written a number of books on stage and costume design and has published a book on the plays of Alan Ayckbourn.