Lee Mead’s Lord Arthur Savile tours to Palace, 8 March

Lee Mead makes his way to Manchester soon in Bill Kenwright’s forthcoming revival of Oscar Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, which reaches Manchester’s Palace Theatre on 8 March as part of a UK tour.

Mead, who played the title role in the West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
following his victory in the 2007 TV casting show, has been linked to a
number of other projects including a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar and a West End production of Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms (See The Goss, 12 Oct 2009).

In Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, which marks his first stage role since Joseph,
Mead plays Lord Arthur Savile, a pillar of Victorian society. Savile is
on the verge of marriage to the lovely Sybil Merton, when a brief
departure from late Nineteenth century convention leads him to an
encounter with a chilling clairvoyant called Podgers.

Podgers secretly
reveals that at some point in Arthur’s life, he is destined to commit
murder. To protect his future wife, Arthur decides he must commit this
bloody deed before he marries, but as he searches for the most
convenient person to sacrifice, chaos ensues.

Mead is joined in the cast by Gary Wilmot, recently seen in the national tour of Chicago, Kate O’Mara, star of such TV hits including Dynasty, Howard’s Way and Bad Girls, David Ross, who recently starred in the BBC hit sitcom The Green Green Grass and Derren Nesbitt, best known for his role as Chief Inspector Jordan in the television series Special Branch.

Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime is adapted by Trevor Baxter and directed by Christopher Luscombe, whose recent credits include his acclaimed revival of Alan Bennett’s Enjoy, starring Alison Steadman, which ran at the West End’s Gielgud Theatre earlier in the year (See News, 22 Sep 2008).