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King's Head Presents Too Marvelous Mercer MusicalDate: 27 December 2002
Andrew Halliday and Alexandra Jay (pictured) star in a new musical about US songwriting legend Johnny Mercer. Too Marvelous for Words started previews last night (26 December 2002) at the King's Head Theatre in Islington, north London. It opens on 2 January 2003 for a limited run to 2 February.
The new musical celebrates the life and works of Johnny Mercer (1909-1976), who, with a career spanning five decades, was the creative talent behind classics such as "Moon River", "Jeepers Creepers", "That Old Black Magic" and "Hooray For Hollywood", attracting legendary recording artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. Dubbed the Poet Laureate of America, Mercer wrote over 1,000 songs in total, won four Academy Awards (after being nominated for 18) and also founded Capital Records, one of the world's leading recording labels.
Too Marvelous for Words depicts Mercer's journey through 'the sunshine and shadows' from his rural roots in Savannah, Georgia, to the highs and lows of New York living where he eventually made a name for himself.
Andrew Halliday (Dorothy Fields Forever, Carousel, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats) stars as Mercer and is joined in the cast by Alexandra Jay (Cabaret and, most famously, Martine McCutcheon's much-called-upon understudy in My Fair Lady), Sally Hughes (Dames at Sea, The Flipside, Dead Guilty, artistic director of The Mill at Sonning) and Daniel Gillingwater (Chess, West Side Story, Side by Side by Sondheim).
Written and directed by Alvin Rakoff, Too Marvelous for Words is designed by Eileen Diss, with costumes by Jane Kidd, lighting by Roslyn Nash, choreography by Joseph Pitcher and musical direction by Jo Stewart.
- by Peggy Nuttall & Terri Paddock
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