Longrunners Extend: WWRY, Mousetrap, Les Mis
Hot on the heels of winning the Olivier Audience award Queen musical We Will Rock You has announced it is extending its booking period by four months, with tickets on sale until 22 October 2011.
Having for nearly nine years and been seen by over 5 million people, We Will Rock You has a cast led by Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy, Brenda Edwards, Ricardo Afonso and Sarah French.
The show has also recently embarked on a national tour which will see the show on the road until January 2012. Opening in Cardiff this week (22 March 2011) the musical will play dates in Southampton, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Bristol, Sunderland, Leeds and Edinburgh.
Set in the future, We Will Rock You tells the story of a world in which globalisation has meant the death of real music in favour of computer-produced cyber stars, a status quo which the rebel Bohemians, harking back to the Golden Age of rock (embodied by Queen), are trying to overthrow so that they can write and perform their own music. An unintentional hero ends up saving the kids of Planet Mall from the tyrannical Killer Queen and discovers the place of living rock.
We Will Rock You had its world premiere on 14 May 2002 (previews from 26 April) at the Dominion Theatre, where it’s currently booking through to 16 April 2011. The musical has a book by Ben Elton and features 32 of Queen’s greatest hits including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Under Pressure”, “Radio Gaga” and, of course, “We Will Rock You”. It’s directed by Elton, choreographed by Arlene Phillips and designed by Mark Fisher and Willie Williams.
Having celebrated its 25th anniversary in style with an all-star concert at The O2 last October, the West End production of Les Miserables has extended its booking period, with tickets now on sale to 28 April 2012.
Les Miserables had its world premiere at the Barbican on 8 October 1985. Based on Victor Hugo’s classic humanitarian novel set in 19th-century revolutionary France, the musical has a book by Alain Boublil, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer.
After its premiere at the Barbican, the landmark Royal Shakespeare Company production, adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird and designed by John Napier, transferred, care of Cameron Mackintosh, to the West End’s Palace Theatre where it ran for 18 years before moving down the road on 3 April 2004 to the Queen’s.
There’s a busy summer ahead for the show, with television comic Matt Lucas and opera tenor Alfie Boe returning to their respective O2 concert roles as Jean Valjean and Thenardier respectively, joined by Hadley Fraser as Javert. That cast will play the Queen’s Theatre from 23 June 2011.
Agatha Christie‘s The Mousetrap, which is in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s longest-running play, has increased its booking period by six months – tickets are now on sale to 12 November 2011.
The classic whodunit – which celebrated its 50th West End anniversary, with HM The Queen in attendance, on 25 November 2002 – has become a Theatreland institution. The show originally opened next door at the Ambassadors and transferred to St Martin’s, after 20 years in its original home, in 1974. The Mousetrap is directed by David Turner.
