Sketch by Michael Annals showing the Peterloo Massacre at St Peter's Field, Manchester, in Robert Shaw's play, Cato Street, proposed for production by the National Theatre Company, 1971.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.

Cato Street was commissioned for production by the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, but financial constraints caused its cancellation. It was staged by the Young Vic in November 1971 with set designs by William Dudley and costumes designed by Deirdre Clancy. The play dramatises the events of the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820, a plot to murder the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and members of his cabinet.