Alison Chitty (born 1948) trained at St Martin's School of Art and at Central School of Art and Design. She began her career at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, where she was appointed Resident Designer and created the sets and costumes for more than 40 productions. She subsequently worked in London and for eight years was Resident Designer at the National Theatre. Chitty is known internationally for her work in opera, has designed for film, notably for Mike Leigh, and, through her interest in theatre architecture, has become advisor on the design of playhouses in Stoke-on-Trent, Delhi, Johannesburg, and in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames where she worked on the Rose Theatre which opened in 2008.

Chitty designed the sets and costumes for the National Theatre production of Jean-Jacques Bernard's 1922 play Martine, directed by Peter Hall. The story is a minor tragedy of love. Julien, young, middle-class and well-educated, has recently returned from World War I. As he nears his grandmother's village in rural France he sees Martine, a pretty country girl, sitting beside the road under an apple tree. Julien is charmed by her innocence and beauty but to him their chance meeting is simply a pleasant interlude, to the uneducated Martine it is a life-changing experience, a glimpse of another world. She falls in love and rejects her peasant suitor, Alfred. But the unthinking Julien will marry his intelligent, articulate, fiancée, while Martine, who cannot express her true feelings, faces a life of drudgery with Alfred.

The model shows the play's first scene. Chitty has created a rural idyll which establishes the mood before a word is spoken. There is an impression of heat and long lazy summer days. It is evocative but also realistic. The carefully modelled figures of Martine and Alfred bear a strong resemblance to the actors, Wendy Morgan and Barrie Rutter, who played them. The rows of ripe 'corn', each taller than the next, form a poppy-dappled field that stretches away to the horizon, with the gauze drop curtain and painted blue cyclorama representing the wide summer sky. The suggestion of freedom and limitless possibilities contrasts with the later scenes, placed in claustrophobic interiors where the world closes in on Martine.