English & Shearsmith in The Producers
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Musicals Extend: Pack & Shearsmith's Producers

Two West End musicals - The Producers and The Rat Pack - have announced extensions to their current booking periods.

Now at the Savoy Theatre, The Rat Pack has added more than six months to it schedule and is taking bookings to 18 November 2006 (it was previously booking to 27 May). The musical tribute to Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin, featuring look and sound-alikes of the three crooners, moved to the Savoy on 3 June 2005.

After touring the UK extensively since 2000, previously visiting London for one-off dates at the London Palladium and a limited run at Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre, The Rat Pack opened for what was meant to be a limited West End season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in March 2003. After extending at the Haymarket, the show moved in June of that year to the Strand Theatre (now renamed the Novello), where it again extended repeatedly. It then moved to the Savoy, and is now entering its fourth year in the West End.

Set on a night at The Sands hotel in 1960, The Rat Pack has Frank, Dino and Sammy performing a parade of cool classics including "I've Got You Under My Skin", "That's Amore", "That Old Black Magic", "My Way" and "New York New York" to the accompaniment of a live 15-piece Big Band and a full supporting cast.

Meanwhile, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Mel Brooks’ The Producers - now starring The League of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith as Leo Bloom alongside Corey English’s Max Bialystock (See News, 26 Jan 2006) - has extended its run by just over two months, taking it into early next year. It was previously booking to 28 October 2006 and is now taking bookings up to 6 January 2007.

The Producers opened on 9 November 2004 (previews from 22 October). Based on Mel Brooks' 1968 film classic and set in New York in 1959, the plot revolves around washed-up theatre producer Max Bialystock who, with his timid accountant Leo Bloom, cooks up a scheme to make a fortune by presenting a sure-fire flop called "Springtime for Hitler".

The Producers has music and lyrics by Brooks, with a book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan. It’s directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman and designed by Robin Wagner.

- by Caroline Ansdell

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