Redgrave & Richardson Unite in Night Music???

A Little Night Music may be the next Menier Chocolate Factory Sondheim revival to cross the pond – and with some starry familial casting to boot. Mother and daughter British actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson have been tipped to appear in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Sondheim’s 1973 musical on Broadway later in the year. Both women have previously trod the boards in New York: Redgrave’s credits there in recent years include The Year of Magical Thinking and Long Day’s Journey into Night, Richardson’s include Anna Christie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret.

Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 Swedish film and written largely in waltz time, A Little Night Music concerns the tangled romantic lives of several couples in Sweden at the turn of the 20th century. The score includes the Grammy Award-winning ballad “Send in the Clowns”.

Ahead of anything that happens in New York, on this side of the Atlantic, A Little Night Music continues its sell-out run at the 150-seat Menier Chocolate Factory until 8 March and then transfers to the West End’s Garrick Theatre – with its original cast, led by Hannah Waddingham and Alexander Hanson – where it’s booking for a limited season from 28 March to 25 July (See News, 17 Feb 2009). It’s the Menier’s seventh West End transfer in five years. The venue’s most successful production to date, Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, won five Olivier Awards for its West End season and transferred to Broadway last year.