Chichester premiere for first play from Deborah Frances-White

Never Have I Ever is the first play from Deborah Frances-White, host of the global hit podcast The Guilty Feminist. It enjoys its premiere in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre from September 1-30, with Alexandra Roach, Amit Shah, Greg Wise and Susan Wokoma in the cast and Emma, formerly resident director at the Almeida Theatre, in charge. Jacq and Kas’s boutique restaurant has gone bust, and telling their oldest friends Adaego and her rich husband Tobin that his investment is toast is only the start of the evening. Cash, class, identity and infidelity are all on the menu. As the last of the expensive wine flows, a dangerous drinking game reveals long-hidden truths and provokes an unspeakable dare…

“Deborah is the creator of The Guilty Feminist which is award-winning and has been running for a long time now and is hugely popular,” Emma says. “We worked together on The Guilty Feminist live at the Royal Albert Hall. She writes a lot and she's written a film and TV scripts. She's a very prolific writer. I've always been a big fan of the podcast. I sent her an e-mail via her agent about something that she had done in the podcast and saying that I would like to work together to create something into a show. At the time I was resident director at the Almeida and as part of that residency I had some funding for a workshop on something that I wanted to direct. Deborah pitched this play and we did the workshop and now it is happening. The pandemic put everything on hold for a while. It had a huge impact on everybody's lives. But it is great that it is happening now. I would call it a comedy drama but it is actually ferociously funny. Deborah is a very smart and very witty woman and this play is just bursting at the seams with jokes but it does an incredible thing in the script of making you laugh but immediately making you think. It's broadly speaking about identity politics and how we find our way through the world, what that means for our society and how our society is changing and how it needs to change. And all this is done through four old friends who have known each other for 15 years who met at university but there is something that happened back then it is about to unfold and I won't say what! This is just so exciting to be working on new play. What you are doing is unlocking and finding and mining the play for the very first time, and Deborah is the most collaborative, warmest, kindest woman. She has been with us all the time through rehearsals. That doesn't actually change what my role is because Deborah is very deferential to the whole process but what it does is makes it a very collaborative room. Deborah wants to know what the actors think and what they feel and there is always space for them to talk about their characters. The script is a living, breathing thing but by the time we get into the theatre we will have locked down our script.”