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Love Song Posts Early Closing Notices for 17 Feb

The European premiere of Love Song - starring Hollywood’s Neve Campbell, Kristen Johnston, Michael McKean and Irishman Cillian Murphy – has posted closing notices at the West End’s New Ambassadors theatre. The offbeat comedy opened on 4 December 2006 (previews from 25 November) and had been booking until 3 March 2007. It will now finish, two weeks earlier than planned, on 17 February 2007.

Beane (Murphy) is an exile from life – an oddball. His well-meaning sister Joan (Johnston) and brother-in-law Harry (McKean) try and make time for him in their busy lives, but no one can get through. After Beane’s apartment is burgled, Joan is baffled to find her brother blissfully happy and tries to unravel the story behind Beane's mysterious new love Molly (Campbell).

Love Song’s author, American John Kolvenbach, made his UK debut four years ago with On an Average Day, which starred Woody Harrelson and Kyle MacLachlan at the Comedy Theatre and which was directed by John Crowley, who has also directed the new piece.

Cork-born Cillian Murphy started his career in theatre, appearing in productions of The Country Boy, Juno and the Paycock and The Playboy of the Western World at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, and starring in Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs at the Dublin Theatre Festival, on tour and in the subsequent screen version. His other film credits have included The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Batman Begins, 28 Days Later, Red Eye, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Sunshine, Breakfast on Pluto and Intermission.

Neve Campbell made her UK stage debut last year in Robert Altman’s European premiere of Resurrection Blues at the Old Vic. She’s best known as the victimised Sidney Prescott in the Scream comedy horror series. Her other screen credits include The Craft, Three to Tango, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, The Death of Harry Tobin and The Company on film, and Party of Five on TV.

Kristen Johnston – who has been forced to miss numerous performances after suffering an erupted duodenal ulcer in early December (See News, 12 Dec 2006) – is a two-time Emmy Award winner, is a familiar face from her television roles in ER and 3rd Rock from the Sun. On film, she’s been seen in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, while her New York stage credits include As You Like it, The Women and Much Ado About Nothing.

Since he found fame in the 1970s American TV sitcom Laverne and Shirley, Michael McKean’s screen credits have included Best in Show, Relative Strangers, The Aristocrats, Little Nicky, True Crime, Teaching Mrs Tingle, Mystery Alaska, The Guru, The Brady Bunch Movie and This Is Spinal Tap, which he co-created and wrote the music for.

Love Song is designed by Scott Pask, with lighting by Howard Harrison. It’s presented by Sonia Friedman productions, Robert Bartner for Tulchin/Bartner Productions and Bob Boyett. It will be followed by the transfer of Steve Thompson’s Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated comedy Whipping it Up, premiered in November at west London’s Bush Theatre (See Today’s Other News).

- by Terri Paddock

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