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Landor Stages Lloyd Webber Musical By Jeeves

Hot on the heals of last year's successful musical productions including Smokey Joe's Cafe, Closer Than Ever and Tomorrow Morning the Landor Theatre has today (5 January 2011) announced it will produce Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn's musical By Jeeves, 15 years after the show opened at the Duke of York's Theatre.

Directed by Nick Bagnall and based on PG Wodehouse's stories of Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves By Jeeves will play a five-week run from 8 February to 5 March (previews from 1 February 2011). The musical will also feature "tap-inspired" choreography by Andrew Wright, whose recent credits include 42nd Street at Chichester Festival Theatre.

Nick Bagnall's recent West End credits include the 2009 Trafalgar Studios production of Entertaining Mr Sloane and the 50th anniversary production of Billy Liar at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

The Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn project has a varied history. Originally produced under the title Jeeves the musical played Her Majesty's Theatre opening in April 1975 but closed after only 38 performances.

Heavily re-rewritten - only three songs remain lyrically intact - and with the new title By Jeeves, the show re-opened in July 1996 for a 12-week London run at Duke of York's following a production at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre. The show's second incarnation, which starred Steven Pacey as Bertie Wooster and Malcolm Sinclair as Jeeves, proved more popular with theatregoers and was extended to February 1997 transferring to the Lyric Theatre.

This latest small-scale production of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical follows Trevor Nunn's revival of Aspects of Love which played the Menier Chocolate Factory for a limited run in September 2010. That musical had enjoyed 1,325 performances at the West End's Prince of Wales Theatre, closing in June 1992.

The Landor Theatre's revival is produced by Thomas Hopkins, Jason Haig-Ellery, Julian Stoneman and Stage Live. The production has musical direction by David Rose and is designed by Morgan Large, whose West End credits include Flashdance, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Never Forget, and Footloose. The show has sound design by Matt McKenzie and lighting design by Mike Robertson and Howard Hudson.

- by Andrew Girvan

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