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Footloose Does Second Tour Ahead of West End

As previously tipped (See The Goss, 11 Aug 2005), Footloose, the Broadway musical based on the 1984 teen film of the same name, will embark on a fresh UK tour in the New Year ahead of a planned West End transfer. The tour opens on 5 January 2006 at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre before continuing, until 25 March, to ten further venues.

Footloose centres on city boy Ren who moves with his mother to a small town in middle America where rock music and dancing are outlawed for religious reasons. Sparks fly when Ren and the minister's teenaged daughter Ariel rebel. The film version starred Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer.

Several of Kenny Loggins and Bonnie Tyler's songs from the movie - including "Let's Hear It for the Boy", "Almost Paradise", "Holding Out for a Hero" and the title song - became chart-topping pop hits.

The stage adaptation - with a book by Walter Bobbie and Dean Pitchford, who wrote the original screenplay - had its Broadway premiere in October 1998, running for nearly two years. The musical received its UK premiere in February 2004, launching an extensive tour from Plymouth (See News, 4 Jul 2003).

The UK production is directed and choreographed by Karen Bruce and produced by Mark Goucher, Michael Rose and Tristan Baker. Following Plymouth, it will visit Glasgow, Southampton, Birmingham, Stoke, Manchester, Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh and Woking.

- by Terri Paddock

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