Jeremy Herrin (born 19 January 1970) is an English theatre director. He is a Founding Director of Second Half Productions with Alan Stacey and Rob O’Rahilly.[1] He was previously Artistic Director of the British touring theatre company; Headlong.[2]
For his work on the London stage, Herrin has received three Lawrence Olivier Awards for Labour of Love, The Heretic and The Priory. He won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Director and was nominated for the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Director for Wolf Hall Parts One & Two. His hit production of James Graham's This House[3] at the Royal National Theatre received a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play.[4]
Working as a theatre director since 1999, Herrin has directed a string of award winning productions that have transferred to the West End and Broadway. Notable productions include the adaptation of Hilary Mantel's eponymous novels Wolf Hall & Bringing Up the Bodies for the RSC, which transferred to West End (2014) and Broadway (2015). People Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan at the National Theatre (2015) starring Denise Gough who won a Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Actress[5] and which was recently revived at the Trafalgar Theatre (2024). Ulster American by David Ireland at the Riverside Studios (2023) starring Woody Harrelson. The revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Days Journey into Night at the Wyndham's Theatre (2024) starring Patricia Clarkson and Brian Cox.
In 2022 his acclaimed[6] production of Graham's Best of Enemies was announced winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award.[7]
His most recent production, the John le Carré novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold adapted for the stage by David Eldridge, was performed at Chichester Festival Theatre in Autumn 2024.
Having trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Herrin was appointed as an assistant director at the Royal Court Theatre, London, under Stephen Daldry from 1993 to 1995. Following this role he became a staff director at the National Theatre from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he became associate director at Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne, where his directing credits include plays by Richard Bean and Joe Harbot. He remained at Live Theatre until 2007.
His breakthrough show was the critically successful That Face by Polly Stenham at the Royal Court Upstairs in 2007,[8] which subsequently transferred to the West End in 2008.[9] In 2009 he was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best Director for Stenham's Tusk Tusk.[10] He became the deputy artistic director at the Royal Court Theatre to Dominic Cooke in 2009. Whilst at the Royal Court Theatre, he directed a number of new plays including Spur of the Moment [11] by Anya Reiss, Richard Bean's The Heretic,[12] No Quarter, by Polly Stenham, in 2013[13] and in 2008 the UK premiere of David Hare's The Vertical Hour starring Indira Varma and Anton Lesser receiving critical acclaim.[14][15]
Herrin made his Shakespearean debut at the Globe Theatre in 2011, directing Eve Best in Much Ado About Nothing.[16] 2011 also saw Herrin direct several West End productions, including the world premiere and West End transfer of Hare's South Downs, a drama set at Lancing College an English public school. The production starred Anna Chancellor with a company of young actors and was the theatrical debut of Alex Lawther.[17] South Downs was performed in the Minerva Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre in September 2011[18] and transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End in April 2012, produced by Neal Street Productions.[19]
Herrin opened a well-received[20][21][22] revival of Alan Ayckbourn's dark comedy Absent Friends at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2012, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.[23] Variety described the production; "It's not just the number of laughs that impresses in Jeremy Herrin's knockout production of Alan Ayckbourn's "Absent Friends," it's the length of them."[24] The production opened in February 2012 with a star cast[25] including, Kara Tointon, Reece Shearsmith, Katherine Parkinson, David Armand, Elizabeth Berrington and Steffan Rhodri.[26]
In 2013 he directed Roger Allam in Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare's Globe.[27] This same year he directed the This House by James Graham at the National Theatre and was nominated for Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Director. The play received a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play.[4]
His esteemed[28][29][30] world premiere production of two plays adapted from Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winning[31] novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies: Wolf Hall Parts One & Two. These were produced as two three-hour dramatised instalments[32] and opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 2013 before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in 2014 for a limited run and subsequently transferring to the Winter Garden Theatre, Broadway in 2015.[33] This production won numerous awards and saw Herrin win Best Director at the Evening Standard Awards 2014 and earned him nominations for the Best Director at the Laurence Olivier Awards 2015; Best Direction of Play at the Tony Awards 2015; Outstanding Direction of a Play at the Drama Desk Awards 2015 and Outstanding Director of a Play at the Outer Critics Circle Awards 2015.
In 2021 he directed the stage adaptation of Mantel's third novel in the trilogy The Mirror and the Light, which he co-adapted with Mantel. It played at the Gielgud Theatre[34] and received positive reviews.[35] Nick Curtis of the Evening Standard calling it a "magnificent theatrical hat-trick".[36]
In 2013, Herrin succeeded Rupert Goold as the artistic director of Headlong[37][38] which he ran until 2020.[39] Whilst at the helm of Headlong he directed a number of hit productions including; the sold out and multi award winning production[40] of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, set in a digital future of virtual realms and imagined spaces[41], at The Royal Court Theatre with a transfer to the Duke of York's[42][43] in 2015. The multi-award winning People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan at the National Theatre and Labour of Love by James Graham, at the Noël Coward theatre[44] featuring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig which won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 2018.[45]
In 2020, in partnership with producers Alan Stacey and Rob O’Rahilly, he founded the production company Second Half Productions.
In 2022 he directed Amy Adams, who made her West End debut,[46] in a production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, his inaugural production for Second Half Productions.
His production of Best of Enemies based on the acclaimed documentary by Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville transferred from the Young Vic theatre to the West End, winning the South Bank Show’s best Production award. The show was broadcast on National Theatre Live and is available as part of the NT at Home subscription.[47]
2024 has been a very active year for Herrin seeing him take on multiple large projects. in Autumn 2024 he staged the John le Carré novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold adapted for the stage by David Eldridge. This was the first time a le Carré novel had been granted rights for the stage.[48] It played a sold-out run to great acclaim,[49][50] with The Stage describing it as having a, "stylish, cinematic treatment".[51] The production starred Rory Keenan as Alec Leamas, Agnes O'Casey as Elizabeth Gold and John Ramm as George Smiley. It was performed at Chichester Festival Theatre in the Minerva Theatre. The set design was by long term collaborator, Max Jones. It was a co-production between Chichester Festival Theatre, Second Half Productions and the Ink Factory.
Herrin describes himself as the archetypal Royal Court Theatre director, putting the writer before the director:
You never want anything onstage that the writer doesn’t like. You need them to be entirely proud. What you want is to give them the deluxe version of their play... I try to disappear into the work. I’d hate for someone to say, in the way they do about other directors, ‘That’s a very Jeremy Herrin production.’ Ego’s a really dangerous thing in theatre. It’s a collegiate enterprise.[52]
Herrin has described his approach to his craft as;
“Directing is finding a language of performance – finding a bridge between an audience and a dramatic work. Allowing that synthesis to create something completely new. Sometimes the most invisible bit of directing is the most important.”[53]
“Dramatic currency isn’t always best served by viscera or shock or loudness; the tiniest transaction in context can be massively important.”[54]
Known to be a director that actors enjoy working with, Martin Freeman, who has worked with Herrin on multiple projects,[55][56] described working with Herrin; “He’s very good at picking up little details that I miss, gently suggesting a different colour here and there.”[57]
He is known for his positive attitude towards his audiences: "People aren't interested in coming to a place of entertainment to be told what to think. They like to chew over contradictions and difficult questions but they want to be entertained.”[58] In an article in The Guardian about his production of Wolf Hall he described, ‘“I don’t like to keep audiences waiting.” Discussing the adaptations, Herrin repeatedly mentions the importance of "moving forwards", stressing the dynamism of his approach.’[59]
Herrin has expressed his belief that theatre has a role as a mirror to society. He believes theatre should engage with the political and social issues of the time. “There’s a responsibility on theatre-makers to reflect the world we live in.”[60] Whilst he was the Artistic Director of Headlong, Britain voted to leave the European Union. He was vocal about the impact of Brexit on British theatre, emphasizing the need for the arts to address the divided nature of the UK. In an article by Tara Doolabh in 2016, Herrin expressed that, “Theatre is all about looking out and making connections”. “Brexit”, he continues, “is a reaction against that sort of energy, a desire to stop certain conversations”.[61]
Shortly after Brexit, in Autumn 2016, This House was remounted at Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End. In conversation with James Graham about the return of the play for London Theatre, Herrin chose to seat audience members on stage, “We wanted to show the feverish nature of what the chamber was like and that isn't 600 people on a busy vote night, so we're recruiting the audience on the benches onstage, they're very welcome to vote with us."[62]
Herrin has been instrumental in the founding of Stage Directors UK, an organisation and trade union that aims to create better working conditions, terms and interests of stage directors, choreographers and movement directors working in the UK.
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