Greenwich Theatre, London –  29th July – 23rd August.  Reviewed By Claire Roderick

Trust me. If you see this show you will leave euphoric – no drugs required.

Under Michael Strassen’s direction, this show is all about the music and the performers. The band, led by Kevin Oliver Jones, is on stage and play phenomenally well. A practically bare stage, deceptively simple costume and lighting design all enhance the performance and are never distracting. There are no pinball machines to be seen! Instead Mark Smith’s choreography and wonderful use of a single prop transport you to the arcade.

Miranda Wilford and James Sinclair are fantastic as Tommy’s parents. Wilford captures Mrs Walker’s helpless love and frustration and Sinclair is suitably stiff and remote as a 1950’s father, making you want to both slap them and give them a hug as they struggle to cope with Tommy’s condition.

DIRECT FROM BROADWAY, TOM McGOWAN JOINS WEST END HIT WICKED
U.S. STAR TO MAKE WEST END DEBUT AS THE WIZARD FROM 21 SEPTEMBER 2015

WICKED, the award-winning classic musical that tells the incredible untold story of the Witches of Oz, is to welcome the American stage, television and film actor Tom McGowan to the role of The Wizard from Monday 21st September for a limited season until Saturday 12th March 2016. He will be making his West End debut.

Tom McGowan has been playing The Wizard in various North American productions of Wicked to great acclaim since 2009, including three separate engagements at the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway. His other Broadway credits include ‘Bessie’ in Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, directed by Joe Mantello; ‘Amos Hart’ in Chicago; Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov, adapted by David Hare and the original production of David Hirson’s La Bête (Tony® and Drama Desk Award nominations, Best Actor in a Play). Off-Broadway, he won an OBIE Award for his performance as ‘Otto’ in Nicky Silver’s The Food Chain. His many television appearances include recurring roles as KACL Station Manager ‘Kenny Daly’ in Frasier; ‘Bernie’ in Everybody Loves Raymond and ‘Joe’ in The War at Home; and guest starring roles in Veep; Modern Family; Desperate Housewives; Brothers & Sisters; CSI; Hot in Cleveland; ER and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Films include The Birdcage; Heavyweights; Ghost World; Bad Santa; As Good As It Gets; Bean; The Family Man; Twelve and Holding and Sleepless in Seattle.

Tom McGowan said: “I am thrilled to be invited to make my West End stage debut in Wicked playing the role that has been such a huge and fulfilling part of my career on Broadway and across North America at various times since 2009. I look forward to meeting and working with the amazing London cast.”

Executive Producer (UK) Michael McCabe said: “We are absolutely delighted that the wonderful Tom McGowan will be recreating his acclaimed Broadway performance as The Wizard in the West End production of Wicked, and we very much look forward to welcoming him to the Apollo Victoria Theatre in September.”

From Monday 21 September 2015, Wicked will star: Emma Hatton (Elphaba), Savannah Stevenson (Glinda), Oliver Savile (Fiyero), Liza Sadovy (Madame Morrible), Tom McGowan (The Wizard), Sean Kearns (Doctor Dillamond), Daniel Hope (Boq), Katie Rowley Jones (Nessarose), Natalie Andreou (Standby for Elphaba), Carina Gillespie (Standby for Glinda), Chloe Ames, Nicholas Collier, Laura Emmitt, Kerry Enright, Oliver Evans, Freya Field, Joseph Fletcher, Rosie Fletcher, David Gale, Sergio Giacomelli, Sheila Grant, Chester Hayes, Lauren James Ray, Aaron Jenkins, Jasmine Kerr, Natalie McQueen, Billy Mitchell, Scott Monello, Kane Oliver Parry, Steph Parry, Julienne Schembri, Paulo Teixeira, Joe Toland, Hannah Toy, Russell Walker and Helen Woolf.

Wicked Musical London
Apollo Victoria Theatre
17 Wilton Road, London, SW1V 1LG
Running Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Age Restrictions: Recommended for ages 7 and over (children under 4 not admitted).
Show Opened: 27th September 2006
Evenings: Monday to Saturday 7.30pm
Matinees: Wednesday and Saturday 2.30pm
Friday 31st July 2015

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER’S ACCLAIMED NEW PRODUCTION OF CATS STARRING BEVERLEY KNIGHT FIRST LOOK VIDEO
As previously announced, Beverley Knight is to star in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats to play the role of Grizabella. Returning to the London Palladium from 23 October 2015, Lloyd Webber’s acclaimed new production of Cats will run for a strictly limited 11 week season until 2 January 2016.

Based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Cats returned to the West End in December last year in a sell-out season reuniting the original creative team – Director Trevor Nunn, Associate Director and Choreographer Gillian Lynne, Designer John Napier and Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Previously Nicole Scherzinger and then Kerry Ellis played the role of Grizabella at the Palladium. Jane McDonald is currently playing the role of Grizabella in an 8 week season at Blackpool Opera House.

On just one special night of the year, all Jellicle cats meet at the Jellicle Ball where Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, makes the Jellicle choice and announces which of them will go up to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.

On 22nd July 2015 Andrew Lloyd Webber met with his new leading lady.

Cats, one of the longest running shows on the West End and on Broadway, received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981 where it played for 21 record-breaking years and almost 9,000 performances. The production was the winner of the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. In 1983 the Broadway production became the recipient of seven Tony awards including Best Musical, and ran for eighteen years. Since its world premiere, Cats has been presented in over 30 countries, has been translated into 10 languages and has been seen by over 50 million people world-wide. Both the original London and Broadway cast recordings won Grammy Awards for Best Cast Album. The classic Lloyd Webber score includes Memory which has been recorded by over 150 artists from Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis to Liberace and Barry Manilow.
Cats was originally produced by Cameron Mackintosh and The Really Useful Group Limited.

LISTINGS
CATS
Running Time: 2 hours and 16 minutes
Age Restrictions: Suitable for ages 5 years+
Evenings: Monday to Saturday 7.30pm
Matinees: Wednesday and Saturday 2.30pm

Booking From: 23rd October 2014
Booking Until: 2nd January 2016

Nadia Fall will direct Timberlake Wertenbaker’s OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD, opening in the Olivier Theatre on 26 August as part of the Travelex £15 Tickets season. The cast will include: Jonathan Coote, Matthew Cottle, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Peter Forbes, Jason Hughes (as Ralph Clark), Ellie James, Shalisha James-Davis, Paul Kaye, Ashley McGuire, Graeme McKnight, Jodie McNee, David Mara, Tadhg Murphy, Cyril Nri, Debra Penny and Lee Ross. The production will be designed by Peter McKintosh, with lighting by Neil Austin, music composed by Cerys Matthews, choreography by Arthur Pita and sound by Carolyn Downing and fight direction by Kate Waters.

Observed by a lone, mystified Aboriginal Australian, the first convict ship arrives in Botany Bay in 1788, crammed with England’s outcasts. Colony discipline in this vast and alien land is brutal. Three proposed public hangings incite an argument: how best to keep the criminals in line, the noose or a more civilised form of entertainment?

The ambitious Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark steps forward with a play. But as the mostly illiterate cast rehearses, and a sense of common purpose begins to take hold, the young officer’s own transformation is as marked and poignant as that of his prisoners.

A profoundly humane piece of theatre, steeped in suffering yet charged with hope, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier Award-winning OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD celebrates the redemptive power of art.

Timberlake Wertenbaker is the writer and translator of over 40 plays, including The Grace of Mary Traverse, The Love of the Nightingale, Three Birds Alighting on a Field, The Break of Day, After Darwin and The Ant and the Cicada.

Nadia Fall’s productions for the NT include Dara, Home, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Chewing Gum Dreams and Hymn; her other work includes Hobson’s Choice (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Disgraced (Bush Theatre), and Alan Ayckbourn’s Way Upstream at Chichester.

Cerys Matthews make her debut as a composer for the stage; she is a singer, songwriter, author and broadcaster. Her Sunday morning BBC 6 Music radio show, which she programmes and hosts, has the largest listenership of any single digital radio show in the UK. She is The One Show’s cultural reporter and writes and presents radio and television documentaries on subjects as diverse as Cuba, early classical composers, shark fishing and early female blues players. A collector of songs for over thirty years, Cerys has a weekly column in the The Guardian newspaper, and her sing-along book, ‘Hook, Line and Singer’, published by Penguin, became a Sunday Times bestseller. She is the author of two children’s books, ‘Tales from the Deep’ and ‘Gelert, A Man’s Best Friend’. Her ballet “Tir “, a collaboration with Ballet Cymru , is currently touring the UK.

Thanks to its partnership with Travelex, this year the National Theatre is once again offering over 100,000 tickets at just £15 for four productions (Everyman, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, The Beaux’ Stratagem and Our Country’s Good), with the rest at £25 and £35.

OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD Travelex £15 Tickets, Olivier Theatre
Previews from 19 August, press night 26 August, in repertoire until 17 October 2015.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

LOCAL ACTOR STEPS INTO BERWICK’S SHOES AS THE RAILWAY CHILDREN IS DUE TO DEPART

There’s been a replacement to the advertised service at York Theatre Royal’s production of The Railway Children this week as panto legend Berwick Kaler has been taken ill ahead of opening night. Berwick is playing the part of The Old Gentleman in York Theatre Royal’s The Railway Children which opens at The Signal Box Theatre, National Railway Museum tonight. The part will temporarily be played by local actor Michael Lambourne who has stepped in at the last minute.

On Wednesday Berwick was taken ill with a suspected back injury and is currently awaiting further advice from doctors. Whilst he was very keen to make the opening night’s performance, director Damian Cruden has suggested he stays at home to recover and to ensure Berwick’s condition is not further aggravated in what is a strenuous production.

Most people will know Berwick from his starring role in the annual York Theatre Royal pantomime, which he has performed as Dame in for the last 36 years. The theatre announced the panto would be moving to The Signal Box Theatre back in May when a post-medieval hospital was found in the auditorium during major development work. This prompted Berwick to take the role of The Old Gentleman to allow him to get used to the venue as he began writing the panto for the brand-new space.

Artistic Director Damian Cruden said

Berwick desperately wants to be back as soon as he can be. He was really looking forward to opening night and is very upset not to be with the rest of the company on this special night. I’ve passed on his good luck messages and well wishes to the cast and crew.

York based actor Michael Lambourne has bravely stepped into Berwick’s shoes while he recovers. Michael recently won critical acclaim for his role as Weasel in York Theatre Royal’s 2014 summer show The Wind in the Willows. This role will be his seventh for York Theatre Royal including roles inThe Legend of King Arthur and Two Planks and a Passion. He has also starred in Hull Truck Theatre’s last two Christmas shows and runs York Theatre Royal’s Adult Acting Course.

We all wish Berwick a speedy recovery and hope he’ll be back playing The Old Gentleman in The Railway Children very soon.

WEST END TRANSFER ANNOUNCED FOR ORESTEIA

Universally critically acclaimed production will play at the Trafalgar Studios for a limited season

Robert Icke’s visceral adaptation is hailed as the theatrical event of the year

The Almeida Theatre’s critically acclaimed, sold out production of Oresteia, by Aeschylus, re-imagined for the modern stage by Almeida Associate Director Robert Icke (The Fever, Mr Burns, 1984) will transfer to the Trafalgar Studios in the West End from August. Press night September 7th.

Cast includes Lia Williams, Angus Wright and Jessica Brown Findlay

Robert Icke’s Oresteia was acclaimed during its Almeida run as one of the theatre events of the year so far, creating a style of theatre-going that is the theatrical equivalent of binge-watching – audiences threw themselves into the epic and captivating style of the production. The contemporary relevance and prescience of the classic piece is brought sharply to life in Icke’s bold and immediate production. The cast at the Trafalgar Studios will include original cast members Lorna Brown, Jessica Brown Findlay, Annie Firbank, Joshua Higgott, Luke Thompson, Lia Williams, Angus Wright and Hara Yannas.

“We are thrilled Oresteia is having a further life at the Trafalgar Studios with SFP and ATG. That a production of this ambition and intensity can find a commercial life is testament to the sheer modernity of the work and Robert Icke’s breath-taking vision.  At the Almeida audiences were absolutely riveted throughout the run and following on from Chimerica, 1984 and King Charles III, I believe the West End is in for another galvanising burst of exciting new work from the Almeida team.”
Rupert Goold

“It’s been a long time since the West End has seen a Greek tragedy of this scale and magnitude.  Echoing the acclaimed West End transfers of Ghosts, Chimerica, 1984 and King Charles III with Sonia Friedman, this production of the Oresteia is yet again another remarkable theatrical achievement from the Almeida.  ATG and SFP are thrilled to be bringing this critically acclaimed production into the Trafalgar Studios which is undoubtedly one of the most exciting spaces in London. This greatOresteia, follows at Trafalgar our production of James McAvoy in The Ruling Class, Martin Freeman inRichard III and our co-production with the Royal Court of the sold out Constellations.”
Sir Howard Panter

Orestes’ parents are at war. A family drama spanning several decades, a huge, moving, bloody saga, Aeschylus’ greatest and final play asks whether justice can ever be done – and continues to resonate more than two millennia after it was written.

Oresteia opened at the Almeida in June 2015 to public and critical acclaim, as the inaugural production in the theatre’s Almeida Greeks season. To mark the arrival of the production in the West End, producers have decided to price over 6,000 tickets at Almeida Theatre rates. From August 22nd until September 5th tickets will be priced from £10 – £38.

Oresteia is directed by Robert Icke, designed by Hildegard Bechtler, with light by Natasha Chivers, sound by Tom Gibbons and video by Tim Reid. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG.

Robert Icke is the Almeida’s Associate Director, where he most recently directed The Fever and Mr Burns. Other Almeida credits include 1984, a co-production with Headlong and Nottingham Playhouse co-created with Duncan Macmillan, for which he won the 2014 UK Theatre Award.  1984 is currently running at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End, having already enjoyed one successful West End run and two UK tours. Robert was previously Associate Director at Headlong.

From the first performance on August 22nd until September 5th, more than 6,000 tickets will go on sale at Almeida Theatre prices, with tickets starting from £10

The transfer of Oresteia is produced by Almeida Theatre, Sonia Friedman Productions and Ambassador Theatre Group.

LISTINGS INFORMATION
ORESTEIA
by Aeschylus
A new adaptation by Robert Icke
Directed by Robert Icke

First preview August 22nd at 1pm
Press night September 7th at 7pm
Final performance November 7th
Mon – Sat at 7pm
Thu and Sat Matinees at 1pm
(No show on Monday 31st August)

Trafalgar Studios
14 Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY

August 22nd – September 5th
Tickets £10 – £38

September 7th onwards
Standard ticket prices £29.50 – £49.50.

Premium tickets also available.

Book online www.atgtickets.com/trafalgarstudios
Phone: 0844 871 7632
Groups 0844 871 7644
Access 0844 871 7677
Ticketmaster (24 hour booking line) 0844 847 2345
Or in person at the box office

Book online www.almeida.co.uk
Phone: 020 7359 4404 (10am – 6pm)
Or in person at the box office (Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London, N1 1TA)

THE INTERNATIONAL SMASH HIT MUSICAL IN LONDON!

We are delighted to announce that the World’s Favourite Rock ‘n’ Roll Musical is set to thrill London once again when it comes to the Playhouse Theatre for an exclusive limited run during September 2015, before embarking on the UK tour in December.

Even better, you can join Richard O’Brien, the creator of the timeless classic, as he returns to the cast for the first time in more than 20 years as the Narrator! WithDavid Bedella thrilling the stage again as the definitive Frank N Furter*.

This very limited run goes on-sale Friday 31 July from 10am and of course you have priority booking, just call 0844 871 7631 and quote ‘ROCKY FAN CLUB’ or CLICK HERE to get priority booking on-line.

As if that wasn’t enough, as fans of the Rocky Horror Show we want you to sharpen your stilettos for a very special event as the stage show will be broadcast live in cinemas for one night only in conjunction with Amnesty International on Thursday 17 September.

So if you are only going once (which we very much doubt) make sure you don’t just dream it – be it and book for this one off live broadcast performance. ON SALE DATE COMING SOON!

 ‘Still the sexiest and funniest show in town’ Evening Standard

Performance schedule on-sale Friday 31 July 2015
Fri 11 Sep                             7.30pm
Sat 12 Sep                            5.30pm & 8.30pm
Mon 14 Sep                         7.30pm
Tue 15 Sep                          7.30pm
Wed 16 Sep                         7.30pm
Thu 17 Sep                          6.45pm (Live Broadcast in Cinemas)
ON SALE DATE COMING SOON
Fri 18 Sep                             5.30pm & 8.30pm
Sat 19 Sep                            5.30pm & 8.30pm

*Richard O’Brien and David Bedella are performing at the Playhouse Theatre only.

Disney’s Aladdin has Open Auditions in London, Birmingham and Manchester – August and September 2015

ALADDIN, the hit Broadway musical will open in London’s West End in summer 2016. This spectacular new musical, based on the beloved animated film, is directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Casey Nicholaw (BOOK OF MORMON), and composed by Tony® Award-winner Alan Menken. It features lyrics penned by the legendary Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, with book and additional lyrics by Chad Beguelin.

SEARCHING FOR EXCEPTIONAL MALE AND FEMALE DANCERS AND SINGERS FOR THE FORTHCOMING WEST END PRODUCTION

DANCERS
Excellent, athletic, technically trained male and female dancers with very strong technique in all styles, including tap, with strong singing voices. Male dancers with acro, gymnastic and/or tumbling skills a plus but not essential.

SINGERS
Excellent male and female singers who dance well to make up the ensemble. Some will play featured roles.
Aladdin Auditions: Playing age 20s-30s.

ALADDIN on Broadway

The casting of ALADDIN will be in keeping with the exotic location in which it is set so we strongly encourage actors of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds to attend.

You must be 18 years old or above and eligible to work in the UK.

AUDITION DETAILS
Register when you arrive on the day, bring CV and photo stapled together. Be warmed-up and ready to dance at call times below. Bring water and keep your belongings with you at all times. Male dancers wear comfortable dance gear, bring jazz shoes, tap shoes and knee pads. Female dancers wear comfortable dance gear that shows the body line and bring character heels, heeled tap shoes and jazz shoes. Dancers and singers to bring sheet music to 16 bars of a musical theatre song that shows your full range. There will be a pianist on the day. No backing tracks please.

Visit the official Aladdin website for more details at http://www.aladdinauditions.co.uk/

Aladdin on Broadway
http://www.aladdinthemusical.com/