Maggie May

The first professional London production since its 1964 premiere of the hit British musical Maggie May.

A hard-hitting celebration of working-class life in Liverpool’s docks in the 1960s, Maggie May is the story of the doomed love affair between ‘street walker’ Maggie May Duffy and sailor Patrick Casey, the son of a union-martyr, initially reluctant but finally proud to assume his father’s mantle. Around them is a gallery of strongly-drawn characters: Willie Morgan, the corrupt demagogic union leader, Juddah, the ‘fixer’ and traitor, and Old Dooley, obsessed with past union struggles, all caught up in an allegoric musical drama with a devastating tragic climax.

Winner of the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Score of the Year, the show includes one the most musically diverse scores of the 1960s, ranging from bittersweet ballads, Mersey Beat rock’n’roll, and classic chorus numbers from Lionel Bart, the man that Andrew Lloyd Webber described as “the father of the modern British musical”.

Revived by the National Youth Theatre in an acclaimed West End production in 1992, this is the first professional London production since its premiere 55 years ago at the Adelphi Theatre, London, starring Rachel Roberts, Kenneth Haigh and Barry Humphries. This production also commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the death of Lionel Bart.