Whiting's Penny for a Song Revived 30 Sept

John Whiting's 1951 A Penny For a Song will receive its first West End revival next month at the Whitehall Theatre. The comedy opens 30 September (previews from 28 September), as part of the Oxford Stage Company's West End residency, and continues until 6 November.

It's summer 1804 and England is poised on the brink of war with France. Napoleon's troops are massing on the French coast and, in an English country garden, the aristrocratic Bellboys family are making their inept prepartions for battle. As danger looms, characters descend down wells and ascend in hot air balloons in an attempt to intercept the enemy.

Julian Glover, who recently featured in the Almeida productions of Racine's Phedre and Britannicus at the Albery, stars. He is joined by Jeremy Clyde, Gabrielle Darke, Brian Protheroe, Charles Kay, Richard Lynch, Paul Imbusch and Peter Sproule. A Penny For a Song is directed by Paul Miller whose most recent credits include Jonathan Harvey's Hushabye Mountain at the Hampstead and Sugar Sugar at the Bush.

John Whiting wrote a numeber of plays in the 1950s before his premature death in 1963. In his lifetime, he was best known for The Devils, adapted from Aldous Huxley's novel for the RSC.

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