In the Willows musical: watch a new music video as the show's album is released
Appearing on the album are Clive Rowe (A Christmas Carol, Blues in the Night), Harry Jardine (Shakespeare in Love, Les Misérables) as well as Hiba Elchikhe (Fiver, Everybody's Talking About Jamie), Sharon Rose (Hamilton, Motown The Musical) and Tim Mahendran (& Juliet, Spring Awakening).
The musical is written and directed by P Burton-Morgan (Little Mermaid tour, Jungle Book tour), with music and additional lyrics from award-winning composer Pippa Cleary (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole) and hip-hop composer Keiran Merrick. It is choreographed and stars deaf dancer Chris Fonseca (who appears below).
The album has musical supervision by Mark Collins, while the video features Philip Clyde-Smith is the video editor, with Deepa Shastri providing BSL translation and Laura Goulden as BSL interpreter.
P Burton-Morgan, who in 2020 won the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for musical theatre book writing for In the Willows explains, "This is not Disney. These animal students are recognisably human, young and for the most part abandoned by the rest of society.
"Their teacher Badger is one of the few adults who believes in them and in their potential to achieve. They are by turns angry, lost, mischievous but ultimately searching for a sense of belonging – a new family made up of their fellow classmates."
The show is produced by Metta Theatre, and toured in 2019. The album has been released via Spotify, iTunes and other digital media today.
