THE Exeter Northcott Theatre has managed to secure some top names from theatre and TV for its first in-house production for six years, ‘Betrayal’ by Harold Pinter.

I spoke with Artistic and Executive Director, Paul Jepson about the future of the theatre and about its financial position which has seen some tough times. He said, “The long term plan was to get the theatre back into the black which we have done. We achieved this by working on a week-by-week basis, seeing what we are doing and when and filling in those dates so we knew we had income and how many seats we needed to sell.

Paul added, “This put us in the position whereby we were able to see if we could actually do a full in-house production, I’m happy to say that we can.

This opens the doors to other projects which we would like to do including more in-house and maybe some co-production with other (production) companies who are also doing great things.”

Actor Nick Moran (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Harry Potter) spoke about how he became involved in the production, “I know Paul (Jepson) from my days working on ‘Telstar’ which he directed, and I co-wrote. When he asked me to come and work in Exeter in ‘Betrayal’ I thought, yes, why not?! It is a great story and being Paul’s first full production at the Northcott it seemed only right to get involved.” He added, “London has 100s of theatres in a small area and being part of a new project is no big thing, but here in Devon it is more exciting - and so beautiful!”

The team at the Northcott are all very excited about the production and see it as a pathway to bringing more big names to Exeter and involving the Great Hall as a venue for bigger events.

Accompanying Nick on stage will be Simon Merrells (The Musketeers, BBC) and Sarah-Jane Potts (Kinky Boots and BBC).

I briefly spoke with both of them and they too were excited to get started and working together on the production, and bringing such a great story to the stage.

Betrayal performances will begin on Thursday February 18 and run until Saturday March 5. Tickets are available now.

For more details about the play and other upcoming events at the Exeter Northcott Theatre, please visit www.exeternorthcott.co.uk/whats-on/ .

Sean Constable