The Stage 25: Fly Davis

Fly Davis – Fly is an acronym for Francesca Lucy Young – has been a designer to watch for a while now, but has really made the next step up over the past 12 months with two productions making huge waves on both sides of the Atlantic.

A graduate of the RADA technical theatre and Motley theatre design courses, her bold, playful and often conceptual designs have graced stages as varied as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Gate Theatre in London’s Notting Hill and the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

In 2021, her work went to Broadway for the first time when Caroline, Or Change – which Davis has worked on since its inception at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2017 – transferred to New York, where the production has been garlanded with praise, having already received an Olivier nomination for costume design in 2019.

Meanwhile, back in London last year, her work has made an even bigger splash. The West End transfer of the National’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane has allowed her to reimagine the show’s impressive set for a proscenium arch theatre, with her striking design of a tangled thorn portal taking centre stage at the Duke of York’s Theatre.

These shows continue in 2022 and will be joined by a revival of Henry V at the Donmar Warehouse, for which Davis will reunite with director and regular collaborator Max Webster, and it would be no surprise to see her name on awards lists both in the US and UK.