With award to New York (From Witney Gazette)

With award to New York

8:06am Friday 2nd March 2007 in Witney

FROM sweeping the stage of the Oxford Playhouse to holding up theatre's version of an Oscar - that's how far a West Oxfordshire set-designer has come in the past ten years.

David Farley, 30, from Clanfield, took home a prestigious Laurence Olivier award for his work on Sunday in the Park With George, a small-budget musical, running at the Menier Chocolate Factory, in Southwark, London.

Mr Farley, and co-designer, Tim Bird, picked up the prize at the London ceremony last month, where the musical swept the board with five awards.

He said: "I'm very proud that we managed to beat the big-budget productions, like Spamalot. I was part of a great team. I think the design was successful because it was so imaginative. We projected the ideas forming in the main character's mind on to a screen, so the picture was filled in as he was thinking.

"Starting off, I did work experience at the Oxford Playhouse, literally sweeping the stage. It feels like I've come a long way."

Mr Farley has already won the Evening Standard Award and Critics Circle Award for his set design of the Stephen Sondheim musical, which was inspired by the work of French painter George Seurat.

Mr Farley's father, Peter, who lives Clanfield, said: "It's really quite something that David received the award when he is only 30, but he has worked incredibly hard. He was very lucky to have such a good drama teacher, Holly Dean, at Carterton Community College, who really inspired him."

Mr Farley went to Carterton Community College and Henry Box School, before studying design at Oxfordshire School of Art and Design, in Banbury.

His next set designs will be for The Little Shop of Horrors, at the Duke of York's Theatre, and another Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd, opening at the Gate Theatre, in Dublin, later in March.

Sunday in the Park with George also won Lawrence Olivier Awards for best actor, best actress, most outstanding musical production, and best lighting. It transfers to Broadway next January, after a successful West End run.