Footlights Society 2025/26 Programme

John Singer Sargent is known as the greatest portrait artist of his era. What made his ‘swagger’ portraits remarkable was his power over his sitters, what they wore and how they were presented to the audience. Through interviews with curators, contemporary fashionistas and style influencers, Exhibition on Screen’s film will examine how Sargent’s unique practice has influenced modern art, culture and fashion.

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio.

Step into the glittering world of fashion, scandal and shameless self-promotion that made John Singer Sargent the painter who defined an era.

Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton) joins Éanna Hardwicke (The Sixth Commandment) and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) in John Millington Synge’s riveting play of youth and self-discovery.

Pegeen Flaherty’s life is turned upside down when a young man walks into her pub claiming that he’s killed his father. Instead of being shunned, the killer becomes a local hero and begins to win hearts, that is, until a second man unexpectedly arrives on the scene…

Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Caitríona McLaughlin directs this darkly funny tale full to the brim with secrets.

Join us at the Parish Hall on Friday, 5th June for a special screening of Turner & Constable, the unmissable new feature documentary celebrating the 250th anniversary of two of Britain's greatest artists. Born within a year of each other — J.M.W. Turner in 1775 and John Constable in 1776 — the film explores their intertwined lives and the way they used landscape painting to reflect a changing world, bringing it to the forefront of art for the very first time. The documentary accompanies the groundbreaking Tate Britain exhibition and is not to be missed.

Following the film, we are delighted to welcome our very own Gillian Forrester for a Q&A. A village resident and one of the leading authorities on British art, Gillian has had a distinguished career spanning the Tate, the Yale Centre for British Art, and The Whitworth in Manchester. She has published extensively on both Turner and Constable — including a book on Constable for Tate Publications last year — and is a Trustee of Turner's House in Twickenham. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear from someone with an extraordinary depth of knowledge and personal passion for these two remarkable artists.

BAFTA Award-winner Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) joins Aidan Turner (Rivals) in a striking new staging of Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of the classic novel, where, among the glittering salons of the super-rich, one misstep can mean ruin.

Marquise de Merteuil is a master in the art of survival. Alongside the magnetic Vicomte de Valmont, they turn seduction into strategy and weaponise desire. But when their alliance collapses into rivalry, the battle between them threatens to destroy everyone in their path.

Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Marianne Elliott (Angels in America) directs this thrilling game of love, lies, and social warfare.