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Off-Broadway Bomb-Itty Transfers to West End, 7 May

As previously tipped, The Bomb-Itty of Errors - the off-Broadway hip-hop version of The Comedy of Errors that was an award-winning hit at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival - will transfer to the West End in the spring (See News, 29 Aug 2002). The show will open on 7 May 2003 (previews from 24 April) at the New Ambassadors theatre, where it will have a limited run to 12 July 2003.

Fusing Shakespeare's classic comedy with the original music of an onstage DJ, Bomb-itty traces the chaotic family history of two sets of male twins who are put up for adoption by their struggling hip-hop parents. After the boy's father is arrested for small-time drug dealing, their mother falls apart and splits the boys up between two foster homes and disappears. Twenty years later when the four boys meet up, there's no end of confusion for the wives, sisters, bill collectors, street hustlers, girlfriends, townspeople, jewellers and ladies of the night who can't tell them apart.

Created in 1998 as a senior theatre project at New York University, The Bomb-Itty of Errors went on to become a box office success Off-Broadway at New York's 45 Bleeker Theatre. In 2001 Bomb-itty won the Grand Prize in the theatre category at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival, which led to a deal with MTV. In autumn 2002 MTV premiered a new half-hour sketch comedy show (Scratch & Burn) featuring the original cast members/authors. The music channel has also optioned and is currently developing a movie based on the play.

The Bomb-Itty of Errors received its UK premiere this past August at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh, where it won the Bomb-itty International company The Stage award for Best Ensemble. The West End production will feature the same US cast who performed at the Festival - "ranney", Chris Edwards, Joe Hernandez-Kolski and Charles Anthony Burks. They play 16 roles between them and are supported by DJ and composer Kevin Shand, creating the music live onstage.

- by Terri Paddock

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