Rumour has it that a revival of the musical Me and My Girl is set for the West End in 2013 starring Homeland’s Damian Lewis as Bill Snibson.
Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody in Homeland
The Noel Gay musical had a successful original run in London’s West End in 1937 and extremely successful revivals in both London and New York in the 1980s.
The show in London, about London itself, famously features the iconic city anthem “The Lambeth Walk”.
The successful 1984 production opened at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre with a script by Stephen Fry. The show transferred to the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End in 1985 and closed eight years later after 3,303 performances in 1993. It starred Robert Lindsay (My Family) as Bill Snibson, Emma Thompson (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter) and Frank Thornton (Mr. Peacock in Are You Being Served, Last of The Summer Wine).
The show won two Olivier Awards for Musical of the Year and Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Musical for Robert Lindsay, while in the US Lindsay and Maryann Plunkett won Tony Awards to go with the Best Musical Tony that the show won.
Later cast changes included Enn Reitel and then Gary Wilmot as Bill Snibson, and Su Pollard and then Jessica Martin as Sally Smith. While Frank Thornton was suceeded by his Are You Being Served co-star Nicholas Smith. The show in London was hugely popular and a real feel-good musical.
The Daily Mail in London is reporting that Homeland star and Emmy award-winner Damian Lewis is set to star in a West End revival of the musical Me and My Girl, as also reported in the London Evening Standard.
“It’s early days and as yet there have been no formal negotiations — and no official offer,” the newspaper’s Baz Bamigboye wrote, but there have been “private conversations” between Lewis and producer Alex Armitage.
The role Lewis will play, if these conversations lead to an ideal conclusion, is the Cockney Bill Snibson, who discovers he’s heir to a title and the fortune that comes with it.
Damian Lewis attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and played the Prince and the Wolf in a 1998 London production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods.
Lewis had auditioned to play Snibson in an earlier London production of Me and My Girl and reportedly won the role. However, he was unable to accept it because of his film and television commitments, including hosting the BBC’s Have I Got News For You.
