Mead Makes Stage Return in Kenwright’s Crime
Following months of speculation regarding his next move, Any Dream Will Do winner Lee Mead has been confirmed to lead the cast in Bill Kenwright’s forthcoming revival of Oscar Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, which reaches Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre on 22 February 2010 as part of a UK tour.
Mead, who played the title role in the West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat following his victory in the 2007 TV casting show, has been linked to a number of other projects in recent months, including a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar and a West End production of Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms (See The Goss, 12 Oct 2009).
In Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, which marks his first stage role since Joseph, Mead plays Lord Arthur Savile, a pillar of Victorian society. Savile is on the verge of marriage to the lovely Sybil Merton, when a brief departure from late Nineteenth century convention leads him to an encounter with a chilling clairvoyant called Podgers.
Podgers secretly reveals that at some point in Arthur’s life, he is destined to commit murder. To protect his future wife, Arthur decides he must commit this bloody deed before he marries, but as he searches for the most convenient person to sacrifice, chaos ensues.
Mead is joined in the cast by Gary Wilmot, recently seen in the national tour of Chicago, Kate O’Mara, star of such TV hits including Dynasty, Howard’s Way and Bad Girls, David Ross, who recently starred in the BBC hit sitcom The Green Green Grass and Derren Nesbitt, best known for his role as Chief Inspector Jordan in the television series Special Branch.
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime is adapted by Trevor Baxter and directed by Christopher Luscombe, whose recent credits include his acclaimed revival of Alan Bennett’s Enjoy, starring Alison Steadman, which ran at the West End’s Gielgud Theatre earlier in the year (See News, 22 Sep 2008).
The tour kicks off at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, from 11 to 16 January 2010, and subsequently visits the Sheffield Lyceum (18-23 January), Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham (25-30 January), Richmond Theatre (8-13 February), Edinburgh King’s Theatre (22-27 February), Theatre Royal Plymouth (15-20 March), Malvern Festival Theatre (22-27 March), Leeds Grand Theatre (29 March-3 April), Worthing Connaught Theatre (5-10 April) and the Theatre Royal Bath (19-24 April).
