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Horne Adds Four Months, Stones Loses Two Weeks

Round the Horne...Revisited, the new stage play based on the 1960s radio comedy series, has extended its West End season by four months (See News, 9 Dec 2003). Opened at The Venue off Leicester Square on 22 January 2004 (previews from 12 January), it’s now booking up to 18 September 2004.

Brian Cooke, the last still living member of the original writing team, has written and adapted the Revisited based on two live radio episodes as well as previously unheard material. Kenneth Sebastian (pictured), Jonathan Rigby, Charles Armstrong and Kate Brown play the programme’s mad-cap bunch of comedians - Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Horne, Douglas Smith and Betty Marsden – who mercilessly send up the establishment.

The production, first seen at the fringe White Bear Theatre in October 2003, is directed by Michael Kingsbury. It's presented in the West End by London City heater and Joabri Productions.

Meanwhile, at the New Ambassadors Theatre, one of the West End’s longest-running comedies, Marie Jones’ multi award-winning Irish two-hander Stones in His Pockets, has pulled forward its closing date slightly.

The bittersweet comedy, about what happens when a Hollywood film crew moves in on a small Irish village, started life at Belfast's Lyric Theatre in April. It was first seen in London at the fringe Tricycle Theatre before transferring to the New Ambassadors Theatre in May 2000 and then on to the Duke of York's in August 2000. It moved back to the New Ambassadors in July 2003.

Last December, producers announced that the show would close on 21 February, but that date was pushed back to 15 May after an increased demand for tickets (See News, 16 Jan 2004). The final closing date has now been brought forward by a fortnight to 1 May 2004, after four years in the West End. Jean-Paul van Cauwelaert and Simon Delaney form the final cast, directed by Ian McElhinney. The production is presented by Paul Elliott, Adam Kenwright and Pat Moylan.

Stones in His Pockets makes way at the New Ambassadors for the first London revival of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things, which receives its West End premiere on 17 May (previews from 6 May), following initial dates in Plymouth and Brighton (See News, 11 Mar 2004).

- by Terri Paddock

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