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Van Outen Launches Tell Me on a Sunday RevampDate: 11 February 2003
As previously reported (See News, 13 Dec 2002), Denise Van Outen will star in a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black's award-winning Tell Me on a Sunday. At a press conference held today at West End club Century to officially launch her return West End vehicle, Van Outen sang excerpts from the expanded show, including "Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes" and "Take That Look Off Your Face". The musical, which features five new songs in total, will open for a 12-week season at the Gielgud Theatre on 15 April 2003 (previews 4 April).
Originally written as a song cycle for Marti Webb in 1979, the then one-act Tell Me on a Sunday was combined in 1981 with Variations, performed by dancer Wayne Sleep, to form Song and Dance, which played for two years at the West End's Palace Theatre. That show was subsequently seen on Broadway, starring Bernadette Peters, and revived in 1990 at the West End's Shaftesbury Theatre.
The story centres around an English girl who moves to New York and has various relationships with American men. Lloyd Webber and Black have reworked the new Van Outen-led production, with additional contributions from comedian Jackie Clune. Van Outen has also recorded an album of the show, which will be released this spring Polydor/Really Useful Records.
Formerly best known as the presenter of such television programmes as The Big Breakfast and Something for the Weekend, Van Outen wowed critics when she returned to the stage in April 2001 to play murderess Roxie Hart in the West End production of Kander and Ebb musical Chicago. This year, she reprised the role in her Broadway debut before returning for a limited West End stint. Earlier in her career, Van Outen appeared on stage in A Slice of Saturday Night, Les Miserables, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Stop the World.
Tell Me on a Sunday is directed by Matthew Warchus (Our House, Art), with musical supervision by Simon Lee. It's produced by Bill Kenwrightand Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company. Currently at the Gielgud, the RSC's Jacobean season of five plays, also co-produced by Kenwright with Thelma Holt, continues until 22 March 2003.
- by Terri Paddock & Hannah Khalil
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