1st Night Photos: Double Takes at Boeing-Boeing

Marc Camoletti’s Sixties sex farce Boeing-Boeing flew back into the West End last night (15 February 2007, previews from 3 February), opening at Comedy Theatre, with a top-flight class led by Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour and Mark Rylance.

Paris-based architect Bernard (Allam) thought he could easily cope with his three air hostess fiancées. It was all a question of timetables and his reliable, down-to-earth maid Bertha (De La Tour), who never forgot to change the photographs in the bedroom. Only when the 'Super' Boeing, with its faster flights, takes over is he landed with a triple problem. His old school friend Robert (Rylance) arrives unexpectedly and joins the set in a whirl of confusion and matchmaking.

TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF THE BOEING-BOEING 1st NIGHT PHOTOS,
JUST CLICK ON THE "NEXT >" LINKS BELOW THE FOLLOWING FRAME.

When Boeing-Boeing had its original London run, it held the record for being the West End’s longest-running comedy, playing for over 2,000 performances at the Apollo Theatre, where it opened in February 1962. In this retro revival, slightly rewritten from the original Beverley Cross translation, classical stage veterans Allam, de la Tour and Rylance (in his first stage role since stepping down as artistic director of the Globe) are joined by three familiar TV faces – Tamzin Outhwaite, Michelle Gomez and Daisy Beaumont – as Bernard’s fiancées.

The production is directed by Matthew Warchus - fitting it in ahead of his June opening of The Lord of the Rings at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane - designed by Rob Howell and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Act Productions, Matthew Byam Shaw and Robert G Bartner.

For 1st Night Photos, our Whatsonstage.com photographer Dan Wooller was on hand for the curtain call of Boeing-Boeing at the Comedy Theatre and at the post-show party at Ruby Blue along with the company and other guests including Leigh Lawson, Twiggy, Russell Tovey, Lynda Baron, Denis Lawson, Haydn Gwynne, Anne Reid and Nicholas Hytner.

- by Terri Paddock

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