A few years ago the playwright Hannah Khalil was queuing for the loos at Chichester Festival theatre when she spotted Omar Sharif, in a prince’s costume, on the wall. The photograph was part of a gallery showing stars who had graced the Chichester stage. “I was like: ‘Omar, what the hell are you doing in Chichester?’” says Khalil. “I really wanted to know more.”
You could call that moment a bolt out of the loo: instantly, it set her on the trail of her latest play, Love Omar. When had the Egyptian actor visited Sussex and what had local audiences made of him? Khalil’s director husband, Chris White, hails from Chichester. “I began asking his parents because they have lived there for a long time,” she says. “They vaguely remembered him coming to do the show.”
