The Rivals
Furzey Gardens
Aug 2nd - Aug 25th 2025
The Rivals
Furzey Gardens
2nd Aug - 25th Aug 2025
The 250th anniversary production of Sheridan's comic masterpiece, presented with live music and song by the West End company of New Forest Open Air Theatre (previously London Touring Players).
If you enjoyed "Hay Fever", "Twelfth Night", "The Comedy of Errors" or "The Importance of Being Earnest", this is the same team.
Sheridan's famous comedy of love, hijinks and mistaken identity set in the Edwardian age with live jazz, swashbuckling soldiers, and hearts a-flutter.
A perfect summer evening treat at the idyllic Furzey Gardens for this celebration of joy, wit and good humour. Laughter guaranteed!
Gallery
Cast
This year's cast included some familiar faces from our previous productions.
Adam Morris, fresh from a national tour of Peter James', "Picture You Dead", returned to play curmudgeonly Sir Anthony Absolute, and Toby Baddeley ("Comedy of Errors", 2022) will be his wayward son, Captain Absolute.
Erika Poole (fresh from "Whatever Happened to Phoebe Salt" at the New Vic Theatre, Stoke on Trent) played the vocabularily-challenged, Mrs Malaprop, and Holly Jackson Walters ("The Importance of Being Earnest", 2021), her niece, Lydia Languish.
Tracey Ann Wood ('winsome' Jackie Coryton from "Hay Fever" last year) returned to play Lucy, Mrs Malaprop's duplicitous maid, and Pandora Clifford returned to Furzey to play the witty Julia.
Adam Morris
Erika Poole
Holly Jackson Walters
Pandora Clifford
Toby Baddeley
Tracey Ann Wood