Musicals Extend: Anything Goes, Phantom, ChicagoDate: 20 February 2004
Several blockbuster musicals have announced extensions to their booking periods in the West End:
At the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Trevor Nunn’s revival of Cole Porter’s 1934 shipboard musical comedy Anything Goes - which earlier this month won six Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, including Best Musical Revival, Best Actress in a Musical (Sally Ann Triplett) and Best Actor in a Musical (John Barrowman) - has added another three months to its schedule, taking it up to 28 August 2004.
Nunn's Olivier Award-winning final musical as artistic director of the National Theatre originally opened in December 2003 at the NT Olivier, where it had a sell-out three-and-a-half month season, before reopening in the West End on 7 October 2003 (previews from 24 September).
Anything Goes has an original book by Guy Bolton and PG Wodehouse, with music and lyrics by Porter, whose other musicals include High Society and Kiss Me Kate. The score includes "I Get a Kick Out of You", "You're the Top", "Blow Gabriel Blow", "It's De-lovely", "Be Like the Bluebird" and the title song. The NT revival has a revised book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, choreography by Stephen Mear and design by John Gunter.
At Her Majesty’s, the West End's second longest-running musical, The Phantom of the Opera, now in its 18th year, has extended its booking period by nine months, taking it up to 1 January 2005. The cast currently features John Owen Jones (as the Phantom), Katie Knight-Adams (Christine) and Ramin Karimloo (Raoul).
The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on Gaston Leroux's gothic novel about a masked man who falls in love with an ingénue singer at the Paris Opera House, opened in London in October 1986. In 1999, it was named as the 20th century's most successful money-making show, dwarfing even Hollywood rivals like Titanic at the box office.
At the Adelphi Theatre, Chicago has added another five months to its booking period. Opened in November 1997, the multi award-winning Kander and Ebb musical is now taking bookings up to 13 November 2004. The current cast features Frances Ruffelle and Tiffany Graves as 1920s murderesses Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, joined by Zee Asha (Mama Morton), Alex Bourne (Billy Flynn) and show newcomer Kevin Kennedy (Amos Hart) of Coronation Street fame.
- by Terri Paddock
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