Time And The Conways finds the Conway family celebrating the 21st birthday of Kay in 1919. Everything seems rosy for them; safe and well after the Great War, they look forward to future careers, marriages and a brave new world. Through JB Priestly’s masterful manipulation of time, the audience sees into their future and back again to where the seeds of their downfall were planted. Playwright Priestly was fascinated by the study of time. Writing in 1937 he saw how Britain was complacently failing to learn from history and charging headlong towards another conflagration.

Time And The Conways marks the National Theatre’s first return to Priestly’s work since the much-lauded production of An Inspector Calls which opened on the South Bank in 1992 and was described by the Daily Telegraph as “the defining production of the 1990s”.

The cast of Time And The Conways is led by Francesca Annis, whose most recent London stage appearance came in Under The Blue Sky at the Duke of York’s theatre in 2008. Annis’s film credits include Krull, Onegin and Reckless, while recent television work includes the BBC costume drama Cranford.

Director Rupert Goold makes his National Theatre debut at the helm of Time And The Conways. The Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre, Goold is one of the most praised directors of recent times on the London theatre scene. He won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for his production of Macbeth, which starred Patrick Stewart, and more recently has directed Six Characters In Search Of An Author and No Man’s Land in the West End. Goold also directs the revival of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

For more about Time And The Conways at the National Theatre, Lyttelton, read the First Night Feature or Big Interview with Hattie Morahan.