00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at the Sussex Newspapers.
00:06Lovely to speak again to Helena Berry, who is the Heritage and Archive Manager at Chichester Festival Theatre.
00:11Now, we're speaking for a very, very special reason, because Redlands, the story of the infamous February 1967 Rolling Stones drugs bust
00:19at a property not so very far from Chichester, is about to open at the Festival Theatre.
00:24And Helena, your job has been to create a foyer exhibition to really back up that story and to amplify it.
00:32Has it been good fun to do?
00:34It's been a lot of fun. It's a homegrown story.
00:37So as a kind of local girl as well, it's been really, really interesting to look into that history and that connection to the Rolling Stones at that period.
00:46It's been fascinating how Chichester was so connected with such a culturally significant moment.
00:51It's really exciting.
00:53And you've had a good response, haven't you, after appealing for memories, new pieces of inspiration?
01:00Yeah, we've been kind of overwhelmed with the community response, really.
01:03And even if people didn't have first-hand memories of the late 60s, of when the Stones were here,
01:09people are so connected to the Stones or to the story, they remember it or they've heard it through their family members.
01:15And we've had a wonderful creative response from people, either by donating poetry that they've written
01:22or we have a wonderful display of vinyl covers that we're going to have on display.
01:27And we have made vinyl covers of this, isn't it?
01:30Yeah, so we've worked with local community groups and volunteers who have set their task to creating some vinyl covers that we're going to display as part of the exhibition.
01:40And all of them are so unique, but based on that individual's response to the themes of Redlands or the story of Redlands as they know it.
01:47So it's been wonderful the last few weeks we've been getting them all in.
01:51So I'm really looking forward to seeing them up on the walls and people can come and enjoy them.
01:55And what's all that going to do for the people who've seen the show or are about to see the show?
01:59What's it going to give them extra?
02:01Well, I'm hoping it will be a kind of enhancement of the show before you come in.
02:06And the foyer, as you walk in the foyer, there'll be something interesting and dramatic for you to see.
02:11As I said, it's a homegrown story, so we're hoping to illuminate some actual history of the period.
02:16We've got some wonderful photos of Mick and Keith in Chichester when they were here in the 60s.
02:21And we've got timelines of the events that people can flip through with photos.
02:26So I'm hoping it will kind of give people a little bit of context and also a little bit of inspiration before they go into the world of 1967 that Justin has created on the stage.
02:37And this is increasingly your task, isn't it?
02:39As the Festival Theatre is wanting to use that foyer space more and more.
02:43Yeah, we have a wonderful Festival Theatre foyer. It's huge, a huge space to fill.
02:49But we're really looking to make that space more active and more open for people to come and enjoy.
02:54This is our third exhibition we've done this season and last season, and we hope to do some more next season.
03:02So we hope that people really enjoy coming and seeing something a little bit different before the show in the foyer.
03:09It sounds fantastic. The show itself sounds brilliant and to have the exhibition as well sounds super.
03:14Congratulations on pulling it all together and very much looking forward to seeing it.
03:19Thanks.
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