Top Hat Comes to West End’s Aldwych After Tour, 19 Apr

As previously tipped, the current acclaimed touring production of Top Hat, the stage musical adaptation of Irving Berlin’s classic 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, will transfer to London’s West End next year. It will play at the Aldwych Theatre from 9 May 2012 (previews from 19 April 2011), where it’s initially booking until 26 January 2013. 

The musical, which stars Summer Strallen and Tom Chambers alongside Martin Ball, Vivien Parry, Ricardo Afonso and Stephen Boswell, is currently playing the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and is also booked for dates in Edinburgh and Leeds before Christmas.

The show centres on American dancer Jerry Travers (played in the original motion picture by Fred Astaire and on stage by Chambers), who is working for bumbling producer Horace Hardwick in London.

Jerry’s practicing of his new dance routine late one night in Horace’s hotel wakes the sleeping Dale Tremont (Rogers on screen, Strallen on stage) below. When she goes upstairs to complain, the two are immediately attracted to each other, but complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace, who is married to her friend.

The musical, which director Matthew White and choreographer Bill Deamer have brought to the stage 76 years after its original cinema release, includes numbers from the film such as “Cheek to Cheek” and “Top Hat” as well as other Berlin numbers selected by the creative team.

Top Hat is presented by arrangement with RKO Pictures LLC, Warner Bros Theatre Ventures Inc. and the Irving Berlin Music Company. It is produced by Kenny Wax and partners Lee Menzies, Stewart Lane, Ted Hartley, Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon and Bonnie Comley.

Currently at the Aldwych Theatre, Andrew Loudon‘s production of Cool Hand Luke starring Hustle‘s Marc Warren will finish its West End run next weekend, playing its final performance on 19 November 2011.

Cool Hand Luke, the stage adaptation of Donn Pearce’s 1965 novel, which was famously adapted into a 1967 film starring Paul Newman, is followed into the theatre by the recently announced Riverside Studios transfer of A Round-Heeled Woman from 30 November (previews from 24 November) to 14 January and dance show Midnight Tango from 20 January to 31 March 2012.