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Right Size's Ducktastic! Follows Play What, 17 OctDate: 24 May 2005
As previously tipped (See The Goss, 17 May 2005), after multi award-winning success with 2002’s The Play What I Wrote, the Right Size (aka Sean Foley and Hamish McColl) will return to the stage this autumn with a new comedy inspired by another famous duo. Ducktastic! will premiere at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal (2 to 17 September), before transferring to the West End’s Albery Theatre on 17 October (previews from 11 October).
Similar to how The Play What I Wrote was inspired by Morecambe and Wise, Ducktastic! is inspired by Siegfried and Roy, the flamboyant, German-born magicians who’ve been entertaining Las Vegas audiences for more than 30 years. However, whereas Siegfried and Roy have built their act around white Siberian tigers, the Right Size’s show is, as the title suggests, built around white ducks.
In Ducktastic!, McColl plays world famous illusionist Cornelius Ursula Sassoon who, after an accident with an emu, loses his license to perform in Las Vegas. He teams up with Foley’s Roy de La Rue (né Street), a pet shop proprietor from Portsmouth, to form Sassoon & Roy and put on a new West End show.
The new play reunites the Right Size with Kenneth Branagh and Alice Power, who respectively directed and designed The Play What I Wrote, as well as producer David Pugh, who told Whatsonstage.com that Ducktastic! is “the most exciting show I’ve worked on”. Pugh’s other previous hits have included Yasmina Reza’s long-running West End comedy Art. Las Vegas’ Patrick Woodroffe has been brought on board to light the new production.
Amongst The Play What I Wrote’s many accolades were two Laurence Olivier Awards (for Best New Comedy and Best Supporting Actor for diminutive dogsbody Toby Jones) and a Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Award for Best Ensemble Performance. In addition to two West End seasons, the play transferred to Broadway and toured the UK extensively. The Right Size’s other stage plays have included Bewilderness, Do You Come Here Often? and Mr Puntila and His Man Matti.
Prior to Ducktastic!, the Albery will host the Irish transfer of The Shaughraun, which opens on 8 June 2005 (previews from 25 May) and is booking until 24 September (See News, 6 Apr 2005). Impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who takes over management in October when the Right Size moves in, announced yesterday that the theatre will be refurbished and renamed in honour of Noel Coward at the end of next year (See News, 23 May 2005).
- by Terri Paddock
