Chichester director promising Gothic tale of retribution and justice

It runs at Chichester Festival Theatre from April 8-30 – and director Róisín McBrinn believes the timing couldn’t possibly be better.

1912. In the isolated Blackthorn House on Sussex’s Fishbourne Marshes, Connie Gifford lives with her father. His Museum of Avian Taxidermy was once legendary, but since its closure Gifford has become a broken man, taking refuge in the bottle. Robbed of her childhood memories by a mysterious accident, Connie is haunted by fitful glimpses of her past. A strange woman has been seen in the graveyard; and a few miles away, at Chichester’s Graylingwell Asylum, two female patients have, inexplicably, disappeared. As a storm hits the Sussex landscape, old wounds are about to be opened as one woman, intent on revenge, attempts to liberate another from the crimes of the past.

The result is a Gothic tale of retribution and justice.