Magnolias Bloom Again at Tricycle Pre-Transfer???

Trevor Nunn’s musical version of Gone With the Wind hasn’t gone down too well, but producers are hoping that a comedy inspired by the classic film of the Margaret Mitchell classic will fare better.

Ron Hutchinson’s 2004 comedy Moonlight and Magnolias was a hit at the Tricycle Theatre, where it had its London premiere last October (See News, 6 Aug 2007), and was later nominated for a Whatsonstage.com Award for Best New Comedy. We hear it may return to the Tricycle later this year before transferring to the West End, a course taken two years ago by The 39 Steps, still running at the West End’s Criterion Theatre.

In Moonlight and Magnolias, movie mogul David O Selznick has just shut down production of Gone With the Wind. Determined to rewrite the script, he engages the reluctant services of “script doctor” Ben Hecht, who has never read the book, and director Victor Fleming, poached straight from the set of The Wizard of Oz. His reputation on the line, and with nothing but a stockpile of peanuts and bananas, Selznick locks the three men into his office and a marathon creative session begins. The Tricycle production starred Andy Nyman as Selznick and was directed by Sean Holmes.

Ron Hutchinson’s other plays include Rat in the Skull, Beau Brummell, Pygmies in Ruins, Head/Case, Lags and Topless Mum, which has its London premiere at the Tricycle next month (See News, 3 Apr 2008).