7 May - 6 June 2026

3pm, 6:30pm & 7:30pm

Love Omar

Theatro Technis Presents

Hannah Khalil's new play is a love letter to theatre

One hour until curtain up, and Omar Sharif isn’t happy. The show went well last night, but he feels aggrieved that he was upstaged by his fellow actor, again. He puts on his makeup and longs for a little moment of peace. But that isn't easy when he has to share a dressing room. It’s more than Omar can endure – he is the star, isn't he?

And then comes Mag, the assistant director, although Omar has hardly noticed her before. He thinks she's disturbing him to give feedback on last night's performance, but she has more important things to discuss. And Daphne, his dresser, has been given the task to find out whether Omar has dyed his moustache again. There have been complaints. These are escalating.

Being a successful actor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The play is set backstage at Chichester Festival Theatre in 1983, when Omar actually starred in Terence Rattigan's The Sleeping Prince. Playwright Hannah Khalil has spoken to his real co-stars and former staff at the theatre to create a fictional piece inspired by this moment of theatre history.

Peppered with anecdotes from their interviews, as well as from Omar’s autobiography, the result is a comedy-drama that asks big questions about fame and power; and celebrates our love of theatre.

This show will reunite Hannah with director Chris White, following a successful collaboration on the sell-out, critically acclaimed ‘My English Persian Kitchen’ at the Traverse Theatre, Soho Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Pavilion Dun Laoghaire, Lyric Belfast, and the James Tait Black nominated ‘Scenes from 68* Years’ at the Arcola, London.

“If there is an art to telling a story, playwright Hannah Khalil possesses it” The Stage on Hakawatis at Shakespeare's Globe

“Chris White’s direction is bold and wonderfully fluid...a remarkable piece of writing made outstanding by a dynamic production” Exeunt Magazine on Scenes from 68* Years

There will be a post show Q&A with the playwright and director on Wednesday June 3 following the show at 7:30pm.

1. Ishia Bennison (Photo Credit Ellie Kurtz).JPG

Cast and Creative Team

With additional creative team members to be announced.

Al Nedjari

Omar

Al has been an actor for nearly thirty years. Having trained at the Poor School in London, his first acting role was as a regular in the British soap opera, Coronation Street. Early in his career, Al worked with writer and director, Stephen Berkoff, and went on to develop a specialism in physical theatre. This culminated in the founding of theatre company, Gecko, with whom Al created and performed in four shows, appearing at theatre festivals throughout the world. More recently, he was a movement artist in the Oscar-winning space movie, Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Al has performed regularly at the National Theatre in London, most recently in My Brilliant Friend, an adaptation of the novels by Elena Ferranti. Having performed in the hugely successful War Horse at both the National Theatre and in the West End, he then movement directed BBC Prom 22 ‘The War Horse Prom’, at the Royal Albert Hall. Al can be seen on Netflix, in each of the first three seasons of Bridgerton, and in the British horror movie, The Strays. He has performed alongside Woody Harrelson in the film, Lost in London, notable because it was transmitted live into cinemas as it was being shot.

Lara Sawalha

Mag

Theatre credits include - The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs (Soho Theatre); Connect Now (The Old Vic); The Abyss (Royal Court Theatre and Edinburgh Festival); Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere? (Young Vic); Oil (Almeida Theatre); Another World (National Theatre); A Is for Ali (The Old Red Lion); and Nahda (Bush Theatre). Television credits include - FBI: International; Casualty and Doctors. Film credits include - Roads to Olympia; 45 Minutes to Ramallah; The Last Friday and High Heels. Lara is a highly experienced voice artist and some of her most notable credits include - Final Fantasy XVI, Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed. She was also nominated for best actress in the BBC Audio awards for the portrayal of Selma in the ‘Yafa Cherry Orchard’ radio play

Ishia Bennison

Daphne

Ishia trained at Manchester Polytechnic, recently seen at the RSC and on film as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet and on TV as Joyce in Happy Valley. Theatre credits include: Three Sisters, Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Merry Wives of Windsor, Mad World My Masters, Candide, A New Way To Please You, Sejanus- His Fall, Speaking Like Magpies, Cymbeline, Measure for Measure (Royal Shakespeare Company), Goats, Our Private Life (Royal Court), Half Life (Ustinov, Bath), Julius Caesar – all female (Donmar), The Importance of Being Earnest (The Rose, Hong Kong Festival), The Canterbury Tales (tour and The Rose), Strange Orchestra, Mother Courage (Orange Tree), Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (Manchester Library), Antony and Cleopatra (BAM, New York), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Brazil tour), Merry Wives (India tour), Richard III (Riverside Studios / The Tower of London), Samson Agonistes, Romeo and Juliet (Northern Broadsides), Medea (Lilian Baylis), Les Miserables (Nottingham Playhouse). TV credits include: Happy Valley, New Tricks, Last Tango in Halifax, True Dare Kiss, Holby City, EastEnders (BBC), At Home With The Braithwaites, Emmerdale, Coronation Street (ITV). Film credits includes: Much Ado About Nothing (BBC), King David (Paramount Pictures), Jesus Of Nazareth (ITC Entertainment).

Abi Morris

Company Stage Manager

Hannah Khalil

Writer

Hannah Khalil (Playwright) is Writer in Residence at Bristol Old Vic (2025-2050). Recent work includes critically acclaimed My English Persian Kitchen which had a sell out run at the Traverse as part of the Edinburgh Festival in August 2024, then transferred to Soho Theatre, London. It returns to London in Autumn 2025 followed by a UK and Irish tour. Hannah was the 2022 Resident Writer at Shakespeare’s Globe, while there the Globe produced three of her plays: Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights, Henry VIII and The Fir Tree (2021 and 2022). Hannah’s other stage plays include A Museum in Baghdad (Royal Shakespeare Company) which marked the first play by a woman of Arab heritage on a main stage at the RSC, Interference (National Theatre of Scotland) and the critically acclaimed Scenes from 68* Years - shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award (Arcola Theatre, London, 2016). Hannah was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is an Associate Artist of Shakespeare’s Globe.

Pip Terry

Set & Costume Design

Pip graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a degree in Theatre Design in 2020. She won the Linbury Prize for Stage Design in 2021 and worked as the Kiln Theatre’s Resident Assistant Designer throughout 2022. She has since worked as a model maker and design assistant on a number of productions, including My Master Builder (Wyndham’s Theatre), The Other Place (National Theatre) and The Lady From The Sea (The Bridge Theatre) Pip has worked as a design associate supporting shows such as The Time Traveller’s Wife (Apollo Theatre), Once On This Island (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) and Hamnet (RSC) as well as designing the set and costumes for several of her own shows, including My English Persian Kitchen (Soho Theatre), The Shivers (New Diorama Theatre, Polka Theatre) and a variety of touring shows including The Sex Education Musical (UK schools). As a scenic artist, Pip's credits include Disney’s Frozen (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Moulin Rouge! (Piccadilly Theatre) and Cabaret (the Kit Kat Club).

Michael Picknett

Sound Design & Composition

Originally trained as a composer, Michael Picknett is equally at home in the theatrical tech box as on the concert stage. He is a musician, sound designer, touring technical manager and academic specialising in devising techniques. He works mainly in contemporary dance and film, between the UK and the EU. As a sound designer, he specialises in creating immersive sound music for live performance – often using custom designed multi-speaker set-ups, and live manipulation of sound.

Thomas Quine

Production Manager

Thomas J. Quine is a Production Manager for Theatre and Events.

Chris White

Director

Chris White (Director) is a dramaturg and director specialising in international collaborations, Shakespeare, new plays, and projects with young people. He is an Associate Dramaturg for Paines Plough and an Associate Learning Practitioner for The Royal Shakespeare Company, for whom he leads projects and performances across the UK and internationally; including The Wood of Words or In Every Leaf, which he co-wrote and directed for the 2023 RSC Playmaking Festival. His most recent production is My English Persian Kitchen by Hannah Khalil, which sold out at The Traverse Theatre as part of their Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024 programme, and will return this autumn to Soho Theatre before a short UK and Irish tour. For Soho Theatre he co-led Writer’s Lab for ten years, developing plays by the UK's best emerging playwrights, as well as directing Soho Theatre Young Playwrights Festival. Other productions of new work in the UK include Chippy, Acorn Theatre, Penzance and Cornwall tour, The Lighthouse Keeper's Son, Beckett Archive, Reading University; Nothing in a Butterfly, Synergy Theatre/Omnibus; Gutted, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and UK tour; Trouble and Wonder, RSC; Booby’s Bay, London/Bristol/Cornwall; bottled, Vault Festival; Scenes from 68* Years, Arcola Theatre; The Sale, Chapter Arts, Cardiff; The Water When it Burns, Hampstead Theatre, International productions include The Truth, La Virgule, Lille; Fewer Emergencies, Teatro Litta, Milan, Hard Places, Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai and National Tour; The Suicide, Teatro Della Contraddizione, Milan, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, National Centre for Performing Arts, Beijing, currently touring across China. His production of Trouf, co-directed in Tunisia in 2019 for Nabeul Performing Arts Centre, premiered in the UK as part of the 2023 Shubbak Festival.

Martin Langthorne

Lighting Design

Marty Langthorne is a London-based artist and lighting designer whose work encompasses live art, theatre, performance, dance and fine art. Recent Credits: Feral Monster (National Theatre of Wales); Zoetrope & Mabon (National Dance Company of Wales); Showmanism & Remember Me by Dickie Beau (Hamsptead Theatre); Its Come to This by Meow Meow (Soho Theatre); When The World Turns (Oily Cart); Nice Things (Plesance); Shooting from Below by Midgitte Bardot (Southbank Centre); In the Heart of the Nest (Luxembourg Philharmonie) Previous collaborations with Chris White include My English Persian Kitchen (Soho Theatre); Nothing in a Butterfly (Omnibus); Gutted (Marlowe Theatre) Scenes from 68 Years (Arcola Theatre); Bottled (Vault Festival) He is co-creator of First Light, an immersive installation of light and sound for babies and their families. As Part of the Duckie Collective, he has designed many of their theatrical club events. As a light artist he creates installations investigating human response to colour in the natural world.

John Nicholson

Movement Direction

John is the Artistic Director of Peepolykus. 8 of his plays are published by Nick Hern Books. Writing: A Trespassers Guide To The Classics, Rik Mayall’s Bedside Tales series 1 and 2, Baskervilles, Marley Was Dead (BBC Radio 4); The Time Machine (Olivier nominated - 2024); Hound Of The Baskervilles (West End, Duchess); No Wise Men (Liverpool Playhouse); King Arthur (Bristol Old Vic); Madame Bovary (Jermyn Street Theatre); Spyski (Lyric Hammersmith); The Ramsbury Players (National Theatre); Richard’s Rampage (Old Vic, London); Arthur Conan Doyle’s Appreciation Society (Edinburgh Traverse). Comedy consultant: One Man Two Guvnors (Bolton Octagon); A little Hotel On The Side (Theatre Royal Bath); Watson and Oliver, The Wrong Door (BBC); Accidental Death Of An Anarchist (West End); Black Comedy (Orange Tree), 3 Men in A Boat (Rose, Kingston). Directing: Tweedy’s Massive Circus (RSC); Baskervilles (Theatre By The Lake); Partners in Crime (Queens Theatre); Dracula - the Bloody Truth (Plymouth Theatre Royal); Shaun The Sheep Live (Aardman); Nina Conti, Paul Merton (West End); Spymonkey’s Spookshow (Blackpool Winter Gdns); The Light Princess (Tobacco Factory, Bristol); A Christmas Carol (Exeter Northcott).

USEFUL INFORMATION

Estimated running time

approximately 1 hour 40 with no interval

Performance times

3pm, 6:30pm & 7:30pm

Ticket prices

From £13.50 plus booking fee

Concession

Full-time students, those aged under 16, senior citizens, the unwaged, members of Equity and BECTU

Access

Theatro Technis is fully wheelchair accessible. Guide dogs and hearing dogs are welcome in the auditorium. There is a Loop system fitted in the main auditorium. If you have any questions or specific requests, please email boxoffice@theatrotechnis.com.

Content Warnings

Real cigarette smoke, haze, strong language, racial slurs

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