Still the Hours

Binaural and site-specific spatial sound work

Written and directed by Claire Doherty

Sound design and music by James Bulley

19 March–Sunday 30 March 2025, Hampton Court Palace, London, UK [tickets & visiting]

Still The Hours is an audio-led journey through Hampton Court Palace after hours. Conceived from the stories of women who lived or worked in the palace from 1541 to 1925, the promenade experience blends binaural audio with site-specific spatial sound across the palace’s rooms.

Produced in the centenary year of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Still The Hours is inspired by the novel’s exploration of time as both linear and circular. It is said that though the palace’s astronomical clock has functioned to mark the passage of time over 500 years, on certain occasions the clock has paused or stuttered, as if within the palace gates, time is unreliable.

Featuring the voices of Kathryn Hunter (Black Doves, Harry Potter, Poor Things), Miranda Richardson (Good Omens, The Hours), and Ayesha Dharker (The Father), alongside an ensemble cast of established and emerging actors, students from the Rose Youth Theatre and staff at Hampton Court Palace, Still The Hours listens in to women’s lives at the palace, their struggles for survival, their triumphs and losses over five centuries.

(text written by Claire Doherty)

Credits

Still The Hours was commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces.

Written and directed by Claire Doherty
Sound design and music by James Bulley

Voices

Giorgia Ciampi, Ayesha Dharker, Mary Doherty, Olive Gray, Molly Jenkins, Kathryn Hunter, Miranda Richardson, Kate Sissons
Rose Theatre Youth Company (Mahmouda Ali, Hannah Casati, Sara Fatihi, Hannah Grigg, Electra Jackson, Emily Kearney, Jana Maklad, Jasmine Proctor-Tarabanov, Amelia Sandy, Issy Skinner, Amelie Tu, Abigail Woodward) and members of staff at Hampton Court Palace.

Singers

Havva Bulley, Polly Hunt, Lori Secanska, Yarlinie Thana, Emily Wasp

Executive Producers: Claire Doherty, and Eva Koch-Schulte (Historic Royal Palaces)
Assistant Producer: Eden Richards (Historic Royal Palaces)
Lighting Design: Emma Chapman
Sound Systems Design: Simon Hendry
Dramaturg: Kaite O’Reilly
Technical production: Arron Smith for Artists & Engineers
Producer (Recordings): Matthew Schmolle

With thanks to: Kerren Harris and the Conservation team, Matthew Storey and Brett Dolman (Historic Royal Palaces), Sara Beer, Bridie Doyle-Roberts and Gareth Churchill, James Doherty, Sara Elman, Roger Davidson, Lewis Gibson, Alice and Ruby Prior and friends.

Recorded on-site at Hampton Court Palace, at Sound Company Studios, Goldsmiths College and the Visconti Studio at Kingston University.

Photography: Ali Wright

Film trailer: Matt Oliver and editor Dominic Stabb