Sean Foley

On 19 March 2019 it was announced that Foley would become Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre beginning in summer 2019, with his first season of work starting 2020.

Foley will also adapt and direct The Man in the White Suit for the stage, starring Stephen Mangan and Kara Tointon, beginning at the Theatre Royal, Bath for 3 weeks before transferring to the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End from 9 October 2019.

Foley adapted and directed The Painkiller starring Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon during the Kenneth Branagh season at the Garrick Theatre in the West End in March 2016. He also adapted Eugène Ionesco's Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It starring Josie Lawrence and Trevor Fox in March 2017 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He directed his and Phil Porter's adaptation of Molière's The Miser starring Griff Rhys Jones, Lee Mack and Mathew Horne at the Garrick Theatre which was nominated for an 2018 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.

In 2013, Foley made his Royal Shakespeare Company debut, directing Thomas Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters. The production was well received by UK critics.

It was announced in June 2013 that Foley would be directing Matthew Macfadyen and Stephen Mangan in a theatrical adaptation of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, to be titled Perfect Nonsense, at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, from 30 October 2013. Foley also directed the X Factor stage musical, I Can't Sing! The X Factor Musical, which premiered in 2014.

He achieved significant West End success in 2012, when he directed productions of The Ladykillers (for which he was nominated for the 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director) and Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw. He also, with Patrick Barlow, co-directed and co-wrote a four-actor stage adaptation of Ben Hur at the Watermill Theatre, a regional English theatre.

Foley has played some major parts in traditional scripted roles, including Freud in Hysteria by Terry Johnson at Birmingham Rep in 2007, and the single role in the film of Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words I directed by Karel Reisz. He appeared alongside Mark Rylance in I Am Shakespeare at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in 2007. He was a member of the Oxford Youth Theatre during his time at the University of Oxford, where he studied history.

Foley made his stage directorial debut in 2007 with Pinter's People. He then directed several stage shows by stand-up comedians including Joan Rivers, Nina Conti and Armstrong and Miller.

Foley and Hamish McColl formed The Right Size in 1988. They devised and performed in the shows, with regular creative team collaborators such as director Jozef Houben, designer Alice Power, and songwriter Chris Larner. Their style combined elements of clowning, physical comedy, mime, slapstick, vaudeville and variety. The Right Size's major successes were Do You Come Here Often?, about two strangers stuck in a bathroom for 25 years, and The Play What I Wrote, a tribute to Morecambe and Wise. The Right Size were active until 2006.

Sean Foley (born 21 November 1964) is a British director, writer, comedian and actor. Following early success as part of the comedy double act The Right Size and their long-running stage show The Play What I Wrote, Foley has more recently become a director of successful West End comedy productions.