Go-Between Musical Seeks West End Home???
The Go-Between, a new musical adaptation of LP Hartley’s 1953 romantic novel, could be London-bound following its current run at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton.
The show is written by prolific children’s author David Wood and composer Richard Taylor and premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in September.
Set in the heat and humidity of the rural Norfolk summer in 1900, it centres on a young boy who comes of age as he is unwittingly enlisted as a messenger in an adult affair of deceit and desire.
Writing in his blog for Whatsonstage.com recently, Royal and Derngate producer John Manning revealed he and his fellow producers on the lookout for a West End home for the show. “I’m delighted to tell you that there’s certainly been a lot of interest
and over the last week” he said, “we’ve been descended upon by a whole host of
commercial producers checking the show out.”
“One problem with the West End is the distinct lack of smaller theatres
with capacities around the 500 seat mark in which chamber musicals can
play and maintain a level of intimacy”, Manning, who is blogging as part of our Year of the Producer series, adds. “We’ve approached the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House to see if it would fit there.”
If it does transfer to London it would mark something of a homecoming for the show, which was first seen as a work-in-progress at Trafalgar Studios 2 in 2009 as part of the Whatsonstage.com-supported Perfect Pitch initiative.
