ABBA
Tweet

Greatest Hits Show Abbamania Opens at the Strand

ABBA fans will soon have two West End productions to sing along to. While blockbuster musical Mamma Mia! continues to pack them in at the Prince Edward Theatre, where it's been playing to sell-out houses since April 1999, new arrival Abbamania will move into the Strand Theatre. It begins performances on 5 June 2002 and will be initially be taking bookings through October.

A theatre spokesperson told Whatsonstage.com that theatregoers shouldn't expect a stage musical. There's no plot or storyline to speak of, just singing and dancing, in rock concert style, from one of ABBA's leading tribute bands. Founded in 1998, Abbamania has already toured the UK extensively. It is presented by the same producers of long-running hit Buddy, which closed at the Strand on 3 March 2002, after 12 years in the West End.

The Abbamaniaevening will include renditions of many of the pop group's greatest hits, which include "Dancing Queen", "Money Money Money", "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "Take a Chance on Me", "SOS", "Voulez-Vous", "Mamma Mia" and "Winner Takes It All".

Sweden's most famous export and one of the world's biggest pop groups of the 1970s, ABBA first burst onto the international music scene when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo". In the UK, ABBA had nine number one hits, a feat topped only by The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. The band, comprised of two married couples who later divorced, broke up in 1982.

- by Terri Paddock

Related Content