VICTORIA WOOD AND TOM MACRAE’S FOURTEEN AGAIN
TO HAVE ITS LONDON PREMIERE
AT THE MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY THIS WINTER
The Menier Chocolate Factory today announces the London premiere of the critically acclaimed production of Fourteen Again which ran at The Victoria Wood Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere this spring. Reuniting Ria Jones and Sally Ann Triplett, reprising their roles of Lou and Peggy, Jonathan O’Boyle’s production opens at the Menier on Wednesday 2 December, with previews from Saturday 21 November, and runs until Saturday 27 February 2027. Both actors have worked alongside Victoria Wood – Triplett created the role of Miss Berta in the original West End production of the musical Acorn Antiques: The Musical!; and Jones played Mrs Overall in the first national tour of Acorn Antiques which Wood directed. Full casting will be announced shortly.
The Victoria Wood Theatre, previously The Old Laundry Theatre, was renamed this year – the 10th anniversary of Wood’s death, by her close friends and collaborators, the husband-and-wife team, producer Charlotte Scott and designer Roger Glossop. To celebrate Wood’s life and work they commissioned Tom MacRae (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) to work with her songbook to create a brand-new musical, the inaugural production in the newly renamed venue.
Wood originally opened the venue, was a Trustee, and performed there many times. She also directed her own show Talent – which was co-produced with the Menier; and in 2013, her television film Housewife 49 was adapted for the stage especially for the venue.
Fourteen Again begins at the local Slimming Club, where Peggy is reunited with Lou, her best friend from school who she hasn’t seen since they were teenagers. As kids, no two friends were ever funnier or more fun, but here, now, today they are shadows of their younger selves – and a story unfolds of looking back to the future, full of comedy, love and pain, with Victoria Wood’s amazing songs moving the musical fast forward.
Priority booking for supporters of the Menier Chocolate Factory opens on 3 September, with public booking opening on 9 September.
www.menierchocolatefactory.com
Instagram: @menchocfactory
FOURTEEN AGAIN
Music and Lyrics by Victoria Wood Book and Additional Lyrics by Tom MacRae
Cast includes: Ria Jones, Sally Ann Triplett
Director: Jonathan O’Boyle; Musical Supervisor, Arranger & Co-Orchestrator: Nigel Lilley;
Choreographer: Sammy Murray; Set Designer: Roger Glossop; Costume Designer: Caroline Hughes; Lighting Designer: Jason Taylor; Sound Designer: Sam Glossop; Musical Director & Co-Orchestrator: Archie McMorran; Associate Designer: Caroline Dalton
21 November 2026 – 27 February 2027
Ria Jones returns to the Menier to play Lou – she previously appeared at the Menier in Habeas Corpus. Her other theatre credits include Sunset Boulevard (London Coliseum/Leicester Curve/ European tour), Gypsy (Royal Exchange Theatre), Guys and Dolls (Marigny Theatre, Paris), 42nd Street (Curve/Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris), Les Misérables (Palace Theatre/UK tour), Chess (Prince Edward Theatre), Cats (New London Theatre), Evita (Opera House, Manchester), Nine (Donmar), High Society (Shaftesbury Theatre/UK tour), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (UK tour/Hammersmith Apollo), Anything Goes, The Witches of Eastwick, Acorn Antiques (UK tours), Into The Woods (Esplanade Theatre, Singapore), Romance Romance; Victor Victoria (Bridewell Theatre), Personals (New End Theatre), A Twist of Fate (Jubilee Theatre, Singapore), Honk! (Victoria Theatre, Singapore), Jerry’s Girls (St James’s Theatre/ Jermyn Street Theatre), Closer Than Ever (Landor Theatre) and A Little Night Music (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester). Her television credits include Eric and Ernie, Torchwood, The Angina Monologues and Life and Debt.
Sally Ann Triplett returns to the Menier to play Peggy – she previously appeared at the Menier in Take Flight. Her other theatre credits include Top Hat (Chichester Festival Theatre/Royal Festival Hall), Cabaret (KitKat Club), The Witches (National Theatre), Oklahoma! (Wyndham’s Theatre), Cabaret (Lido 2, Paris), Billy Elliot (Leicester Curve), Taboo (London Palladium), Gypsy (Alexandra Palace), Piaf (Nottingham Playhouse/Leeds Playhouse), Anything Goes (National Theatre/Theatre Royal Drury Lane; WhatsOnStage Award), Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre), Chicago (Adelphi Theatre), Acorn Antiques (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales Theatre), Cats (New London Theatre), Grease (Dominion Theatre), Jolson (Victoria Palace Theatre/Toronto), Follies (Shaftesbury Theatre), Chess (Prince Edward Theatre), A Damsel in Distress (Chichester Festival Theatre), My Judy Garland Life (Nottingham Playhouse; UK Theatre Award nomination), Next to Normal (Drama Centre, Singapore), Carrie (RSC/Broadway), Much Ado About Nothing (Liverpool Playhouse), Absent Friends (Watford Palace), Becoming Nancy (Alliance, Atlanta), The Last Ship (Broadway/ Chicago), Finding Neverland (Broadway), Sweeney Todd (Barrow Street, Off-Broadway), Cradle Will Rock (Classic Stage Company, Off-Broadway), and Must (Theatre at St. Clement’s, Off-Broadway). Her television credits include Whitstable Pearl, and Down to Earth.
Victoria Wood won more Television BAFTAs than anyone in BAFTA history. She won awards for her stand-up, her drama and her light entertainment programmes. As a stand-up she toured for more than twenty years, and held the record at the Royal Albert Hall for fifteen consecutive sold out shows. In 2005 she wrote Acorn Antiques: The Musical! which had a sell-out run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket starring Julie Walters and Celia Imrie. The subsequent tour in 2006 was directed by Wood. In the same year she wrote the television drama Housewife 49 based on the Mass Observation Diary of Nella Last, which won two BAFTAs and an International Emmy nomination for Wood as Best Actress. Her three-part documentary Victoria’s Empire was shown the following year. In 2011 she wrote and directed the musical That Day We Sang for the Manchester International festival, which was about the famous 1929 recording of Nymphs and Shepherds by the Manchester Children’s Choir. She played the part of Eric Morcambe’s mother in Eric and Ernie, a BBC2 film about the early days of the double act, written by Peter Bowker from an idea by Wood. She also wrote and directed a short film, The Giddy Kipper, for the Little Crackers season on Sky One. Also in 2011, she was honoured with the Women in Film and Television Lifetime Achievement Award, won the Outstanding Contribution to Comedy at the Chortle Awards, was the first woman to receive the top prize from the Writers’ Guild Awards. Also that year at the Comedy Awards, she received the Best Female Television Comic Award for her performance in The Angina Monologues. Her other acting credits include The Borrowers and Case History. In 2012 her drama Loving Miss Hatto was broadcast on BBC1 over Christmas, and she also filmed a two-part documentary about the British love of tea for the channel. In 2014, she adapted and directed That Day We Sang starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton for the BBC. She was awarded a CBE in 2008.
Tom MacRae’s theatre credits include Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Book and Lyrics: Sheffield Theatres/Apollo Theatre/UK tour/Los Angeles – three wins at 2018 WhatsOnStage Awards including Best New Musical, winner of Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at 2017 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, winner of Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting at Writers’ Guild Awards 2019, five nominations at 2018 Laurence Olivier Awards including Best New Musical) and Crash of the Elysium (Punchdrunk at the MIF). His television work includes The New Librarians, The Librarians, Fungus the Bogeyman, Threesome, Doctor Who, Bonekickers, Lewis, Marple – At Bertram’s Hotel, Mayo, No Angels, Money Can Buy You Love, School’s Out, As If, U Get Me and Mile High; and for film, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (BAFTA, BIFA, London Critics Circle nominations).
Jonathan O’Boyle directs. His theatre credits include Million Dollar Quartet (Barn Theatre/Arts Theatre Marble Arch), Barnum (Watermill Theatre/UK tour), Picture You Dead, Calendar Girls: The Musical, Hair, Rain Man, This House (UK tours), Lucie Jones: Live in Concert (London Palladium), Death Comes to Pemberley (Mill at Sonning/UK tour), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Prince Edward Theatre), Fame (NYMT), Austenland, The Singing Revolution (Savoy Theatre), White Christmas, Top Hat (Mill at Sonning), Pippin (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical (The Other Palace/UK tour), The Last Five Years (Southwark Playhouse/Garrick Theatre/China tour – Off West End Awards for Best Director of a Musical and Best Musical Production and WhatsOnStage Award nomination for Best Off-West End Production), Proud (Turbine Theatre), The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit (Hope Mill Theatre), Aspects of Love, Pippin (Hope Mill Theatre/Southwark Playhouse), The View Upstairs (Soho Theatre), Peter Pan (Park Theatre), Rasheeda Speaking, bash (Trafalgar Studios), Dear Brutus (Southwark Playhouse), An American in Paris (Dominion Theatre), Fourplay (Theatre503), The Verb ‘To Love’, Made in Britain (Old Red Lion), The Surplus, All The Ways to Say Goodbye (Young Vic), The Monster Bride (Tristan Bates Theatre) and Last Online Today and Guinea Pigs (Sheffield Crucible New Writing Project). His opera work includes Manon (ROH).
LISTINGS INFORMATION
MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY
MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET
Until 12 September
TRU
19 September – 14 November
FOURTEEN AGAIN
21 November – 27 February 2027
MENIER ELSEWHERE
THE PRODUCERS
Garrick Theatre
Until 19 September
SABRAGE
Lafayette London
Until 6 September
Box Office: 020 7378 1713 (£2.50 transaction fee per booking)
Website: www.menierchocolatefactory.com (£1.50 transaction fee per booking)
www.menierchocolatefactory.com
Instagram: @menchocfactory