Set design by Michael Annals for Peter Shaffer's play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, National Theatre Company, Chichester Festival Theatre and Old Vic, 1964.

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.

The Royal Hunt of the Sun dramatises the Spanish Conquest of Peru in the 16th century. It was first staged by the National Theatre Company at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1964 and transferred to the Old Vic in the autumn of that year. The same production team re-created their staging in New York in 1965. Recalling the production in 1978, Annals said that it was the most difficult that he had to design. It was impossible to fly any scenery in the Festival Theatre and the play's construction, requiring frequent changes of location, meant that a permanent set could not be used. Annals solved the problem by placing the action on a bare stage and designing an emblem which indicated the setting. Inspired by the play's title, he devised a huge segmented disc, positioned at an upper level in the back wall. On it was a Christian cross to represent Spain. Each segment was hinged and, when open, the disc became a sun, symbolising Peru. The centre of the sun was the throne room of the Inca god-king, Atahuallpa. Removable gold pieces, actually made of polystyrene covered in copper foil, were attached to the sun's rays. These could be ripped away as the conquistadors plundered the Inca treasure and destroyed Atahuallpa's empire.