# Jeremy Herrin

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. He was previously Artistic Director of the British touring theatre company; Headlong.
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 at the Royal National Theatre received a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play.
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 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 production of Graham's Best of Enemies was announced winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award.
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.

## Career

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, which subsequently transferred to the West End in 2008. In 2009 he was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best Director for Stenham's Tusk Tusk. 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 by Anya Reiss, Richard Bean's The Heretic, No Quarter, by Polly Stenham, in 2013 and in 2008 the UK premiere of David Hare's The Vertical Hour starring Indira Varma and Anton Lesser receiving critical acclaim.
Herrin made his Shakespearean debut at the Globe Theatre in 2011, directing Eve Best in Much Ado About Nothing. 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. South Downs was performed in the Minerva Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre in September 2011 and transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End in April 2012, produced by Neal Street Productions.
Herrin opened a well-received revival of Alan Ayckbourn's dark comedy Absent Friends at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2012, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions. 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." The production opened in February 2012 with a star cast including, Kara Tointon, Reece Shearsmith, Katherine Parkinson, David Armand, Elizabeth Berrington and Steffan Rhodri.
In 2013 he directed Roger Allam in Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare's Globe. 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.
His esteemed world premiere production of two plays adapted from Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies: Wolf Hall Parts One & Two. These were produced as two three-hour dramatised instalments 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. 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 and received positive reviews. Nick Curtis of the Evening Standard calling it a "magnificent theatrical hat-trick".
In 2013, Herrin succeeded Rupert Goold as the artistic director of Headlong which he ran until 2020. Whilst at the helm of Headlong he directed a number of hit productions including; the sold out and multi award winning production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, set in a digital future of virtual realms and imagined spaces, at The Royal Court Theatre with a transfer to the Duke of York's 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 featuring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig which won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 2018.
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, 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.
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. It played a sold-out run to great acclaim, with The Stage describing it as having a, "stylish, cinematic treatment". 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.

## Philosophy

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.
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.”
“Dramatic currency isn’t always best served by viscera or shock or loudness; the tiniest transaction in context can be massively important.”
Known to be a director that actors enjoy working with, Martin Freeman, who has worked with Herrin on multiple projects, described working with Herrin; “He’s very good at picking up little details that I miss, gently suggesting a different colour here and there.”
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.” 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.’
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.” 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”.
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."
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.

## Theatre

Stage productions directed by Jeremy Herrin :
| Year | Title | Author | Theatre | Notes |
| 2024 | The Spy Who Came in From the Cold | John le Carré adapted by David Eldridge | Chichester Festival Theatre | |
| 2024 | People, Places and Things | Duncan Macmillan | Trafalgar Theatre | |
| 2024 | Long Day's Journey into Night | Eugene O'Neill | Wyndham's Theatre | |
| 2024 | A Mirror | Sam Holcroft | Trafalgar Theatre | |
| 2023 | Ulster American | David Ireland | Riverside Studios | |
| 2023 | A Mirror | Sam Holcroft | Almeida Theatre Transferred to Trafalgar Theatre, 2024 | |
| 2021 | Best of Enemies | James Graham | Young Vic Transferred to West End, 2023 | South Bank Sky Arts Award Winner: Best Theatre Production |
| 2021 | After Life | Jack Thorne | Royal National Theatre - Dorfman Stage | |
| 2020 | The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes to Call | Friedrich Dürrenmett adapted by Tony Kushner | Royal National Theatre - Olivier Stage | |
| 2019 | All My Sons | Arthur Miller | The Old Vic | |
| 2017 | Labour of Love | James Graham | Noël Coward Theatre | Laurence Olivier Award Winner: Best Comedy |
| 2017 | The House They Grew Up In | Deborah Bruce | Chichester Festival Theatre | |
| 2017 | Common | D. C. Moore | Royal National Theatre - Olivier Stage | |
| 2017 | Junkyard | Jack Thorne | Bristol Old Vic, Theatr Clwyd and Rose Theatre, Kingston | |
| 2016 | The Plough and the Stars | Seán O’Casey | Royal National Theatre Lyttelton Stage | |
| 2016 | Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme | Frank McGuinness | International Tour | |
| 2015 | People, Places and Things | Duncan Macmillan | Royal National Theatre - Dorfman Stage, 2016. Transfer to Wyndham's Theatre, West End, 2017. Transfer to St. Ann's Warehouse, New York. UK Tour, 2017. | Laurence Olivier Awards, 2016 Winner: Best Actress - Denise Gough |
| 2015 | The Absence of War | David Hare | UK Tour | |
| 2014 | The Nether | Jennifer Haley | Royal Court Theatre - 2015 transfer to Duke of York's Theatre | |
| 2013 | Wolf Hall Parts One & Two | Hilary Mantel adapted for the stage by Mike Poulton | Swan Theatre, Stratford upon-Avon, 2013. Transferred to Aldwych Theatre, 2014. Transferred to the Winter Garden Theatre, Broadway, 2015. | Laurence Olivier Awards 2015: Winner: Best Costume Design - Christopher Oram Winner: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Nathaniel Parker Nominated: Best New Play Nominated: Best Director - Jeremy Herrin Nominated: Best Lighting Design - Paule Constable and David Plater Evening Standard Awards 2014: Winner: Best Director - Jeremy Herrin Nominated: Best Actor - Ben Miles Tony Awards 2015: Based on the novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies |
| 2012 | This House | James Graham | National Theatre - 2016 Transfer to Chichester Festival Theatre and Garrick Theatre, 2018. UK Tour 2018. | Nominated for 2013 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director |
| 2012 | Children's Children | Matthew Dunster | Almeida Theatre | |
| 2012 | Absent Friends | Alan Ayckbourn | Harold Pinter Theatre | |
| 2011 | Uncle Vanya | Anton Chekhov | Chichester Festival Theatre | |
| 2011 | Death and the Maiden | Ariel Dorfman | Harold Pinter Theatre | |
| 2011 | Haunted Child | Joe Penhall | Royal Court Theatre | |
| 2011 | South Downs | David Hare | Minerva Theatre, Chichester Transfer to Harold Pinter Theatre, West End, 2012. | |
| 2011 | Much Ado About Nothing | William Shakespeare | Globe Theatre | |
| 2011 | The Heretic | Richard Bean | Royal Court Theatre | Winner Best New Play Laurence Olivier Award |
| 2010 | Kin | E.V. Crowe | Royal Court Theatre | |
| 2010 | Spur of the Moment | Anya Reiss | Royal Court Theatre | Nominated for Evening Standard Award Best Director |
| 2010 | The Laws of War | various authors | Royal Court Theatre | |
| 2009 | The Priory | Michael Wynne | Royal Court Theatre | Winner 2010 Best Comedy Laurence Olivier Award |
| 2009 | Tusk, Tusk | Polly Stenham | Royal Court Theatre | Nominated for Evening Standard Award Best Director |
| 2009 | Marble | Marina Carr | Abbey Theatre | |
| 2008 | The Family Reunion | T.S. Eliot | Donmar Warehouse | |
| 2008 | The Vertical Hour | David Hare | Royal Court Theatre | |
| 2007 | Statement of Regret | Kwame Kwei-Armah | National Theatre | |
| 2007 | Blackbird | David Harrower | The Market Theatre | |
| 2007 | That Face | Polly Stenham | Royal Court Theatre | Nominated for Best New Play in the Laurence Olivier Awards |
| 2007 | Gathered Dust and Dead Skin | Joe Harbot | Live Theatre | |
| 2005 | The Lovers | Bridget O'Connor | Live Theatre | |
| 2004 | Our Kind of Fun | Alice de Smith | Live Theatre | |
| 2004 | Toast (new version) | Richard Bean | Live Theatre | |
| 2004 | Sudden Collapses in Public Places | Julia Darling | Live Theatre | |
| 2004 | Dirty Nets | Karen Laws | Live Theatre | |
| 2003 | Smack Family Robinson | Richard Bean | Live Theatre | |
| 2002 | Attachments | Julia Darling | Live Theatre | |
| 2001 | From the Underworld | Sean O'Brien | Live Theatre | |
| 2000 | The Last Post | Julia Darling | Live Theatre then tour in County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria | |
| 1999 | Personal Belongings | Julia Darling | Live Theatre | |

## Television

Television productions directed by Jeremy Herrin :
| Year | Title | Author | Producer | Notes |
| 2020 | Unprecedented | James Graham, Charlene James, John Donnelly | BBC1 | Series written and filmed in lockdown that responds to the radical way we have seen our world change during the coronavirus pandemic |
| | Talking Heads | Alan Bennett | BBC1 | New versions of Alan Bennett's much-loved monologues, with performers including Sarah Lancashire, Martin Freeman, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Jodie Comer and Maxine Peake |

## Film

Film productions directed by Jeremy Herrin :
| Year | Title | Author | Producer | Notes |
| 2007 | Linked | Joe Harbot | Bonafide Films | Starring Darren Howie, Paul Trussell |
| 2003 | Cold Calling | Julia Darling | Tyne Tees Television | 24” short, shot on digital |
| 2003 | Warmth | Julia Darling | | 6” short, shot on digital |
| 2010 | Dead Terry | Bridget O’Connor | | 12” short, shot on digital |
| In development | The Inventor | Peter Straughan | Film 4 | Feature Film currently in development |

## Radio

Radio productions directed by Jeremy Herrin :
| Year | Title | Author | Producer | Notes |
| 2012 | South Downs | David Hare | Catherine Bailey Limited for BBC Radio 4 | Radio adaptation of the Chichester Festival Theatre production of South Downs. Starring: Nicholas Farrell, Alex Lawther, Jonathan Bailey, Andrew Woodall, Bradley Hall |
| 2011 | Flare Path | Terence Rattigan | Catherine Bailey Limited for BBC Radio 3 | Radio adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play. Starring: Rory Kinnear, Rupert Penry Jones, Ruth Wilson |