Several exciting new shows are opening in London’s West End this year.
The Commitments
The Commitments the new musical based on Roddy Doyle’s novel is live on stage for the first time coming to the Palace theatre in London’s west End this September. The show in London is packed with more than twenty soul classics. The Commitments is the story of Jimmy Rabbitte, a young Irish working class music fan, who shapes an unlikely bunch of musicians and friends in to an amazing live act, the finest soul band that Dublin has ever produced.
Tickets are half-price for previews from the 21st September 2013, with the opening press night scheduled for the 8th October 2013.
The Commitments performs are scheduled for Tuesday to Sundays at 7.30 p.m. with two matinees a week on Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m.
A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line, the ultimate musical about reality auditions, lights up the West End stage at the London Palladium. Shows in London have a fantastic offer with top price tickets from £42.50, normally £65 and second price tickets from £32.50. Book A Chorus Line cheap tickets now.
Barking in Essex
Barking in Essex will be opening at the Wyndham’s Theatre with tickets available for performances from the 6th September 2013. This comedy starring the manic Lee Evans will preview from the 6th September with the official press night scheduled for the 16th September.
Barking in Essex is an uproariously funny new comedy with an all-star cast, including aforementioned Lee Evans, as well as Sheila Hancock, Keeley Hawes, Karl Johnson and Montserrat Lombard.
Lee Evans stars as lowlife con man Algie Packer, whose done seven years inside and now he’s coming home to spend his carefully stashed £3.5 million in untraceable notes, or so he thinks. Algie’s family, the Packers are the archetypical totally dysfunctional, ‘well-dodgy’ Essex crime family with a BIG problem. Are they going to be able to cover their tracks before Algie arrives home? Maybe it’s time to go on the run…
Click here for tickets for Barking in Essex.
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity the musical will be opening at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End. The show previews from the 30th September with the opening press night scheduled for the 23rd October 2013.
From Here to Eternity the musical is the new Tim Rice and Stuart Brayson show in London. The musical is a stage adaptation of the 1953 epic film From Here to Eternity starring Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine and Donna Reed. The film itself was based on the book From Here to Eternity by James Jones.
The show is staged against the backdrop of the bombing of Pearl Harbour, the reason that the U.S. were dragged in to World War II. It’s Pearl Harbour, 1941, where the girls sing “don’cha like Hawaii”, the men of rifle platoon, G Company sing the blues, and where even on an army base in the middle of paradise, or rather Hawaii, love and desire are never very far away. The troubled and misunderstood Private Prewitt falls head over heels in love with the kind hearted escort club girl Lorene. His commanding platoon officer, Sergeant Warden, embarks on a dangerous affair with his commanding officer’s wife, Karen. The scene is set From Here to Eternity on an explosive collision course, the lives of both men are on a path they cannot control. Love, anger, fury and passion all against the backdrop of the approaching World War II, the worlds of the four lovers and the soldiers of G Company are dramatically tested, tensed and finally ripped apart in this dramatic but poignant musical epic that promises to set the London stage alight.
Don’t miss the world premiere of Tim Rice’s magnificent new epic musical From Here To Eternity. Adapted from one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, this gripping tale of illicit love and army life is a breathtaking, romantic and excitingly original new show in London that is set to join the front rank of great London musical shows.
Lyricist Tim Rice is a multi-award winning lyricist, having won Oscars, Golden Globes, Tony Awards and Grammy Awards for his work. Tim Rice is probably best is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz. Tim Rice has also written the lyrics for a host of Disney classics including: Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, King David and of course most famously Disney’s The Lion King at the Lyceum theatre.
The show in London is written by Bill Oakes and will be directed by Tamara Harvey, who has a host of previous theatre credits to her name.
The film, From Here to Eternity, won an amazing 8 Oscars out of 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best supporting Actor for Frank Sinatra and Best Supporting Actress for Donna Reed.
The iconic scene from the film From Here to Eternity is of course Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in their classic love embrace rolling around in the surf on the beach. More info on From Here to Eternity the musical
The Ladykillers
The Ladykillers will be opening at the Vaudeville Theatre with previews from the 29th June and the opening press night scheduled for the 9th July 2013. The Ladykillers returns to London’s West End after a hugely successful previous run when it won Best New Comedy Award.
The Laykillers is based on the Ealing Comedy film, this hilarious comedy is the classic black comedy. A tale of a sweet little old lady, alone in her house, pitted against a gang of criminal misfits who will stop at nothing. Posing as amateur musicians, Professor Marcus and his gang rent rooms in the lopsided house of sweet but strict Mrs Wilberforce. The villains plot to involve her unwittingly in Marcus’ brilliantly conceived heist job. The police are left stumped but Mrs Wilberforce becomes wise to their ruse and Marcus concludes that there is only one way to keep the old lady quiet. With only her parrot, General Gordon, to help her, Mrs W. is alone with five desperate men. But who will be forced to face the music?
Buy tickets for The Ladykillers
Private Lives
Private Lives will be opening at the Gielgud Theatre with previews from the 22nd June and the opening press night scheduled for the 3rd July 2013.
Private Lives is a dramatic, passionate Noel Coward play with an all star cast including, Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor. Elyot (Toby Stephens) and Amanda (Anna Chancellor) are glamorous, rich, reckless…and divorced. Five years later, their love for one another is unexpectedly rekindled when they take adjoining suites of a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses, Victor (Anthony Calf) and Sibyl (Anna-Louise Plowman). This chance encounter instantly reignites their passion, and they fling themselves headlong into a whirlwind of love and lust once more, without a thought for partners present or turbulences past.
Following a sell-out run at Chichester Festival Theatre, this much-anticipated transfer is set to blaze across London’s West End this summer in an explosive production that proves Noël Coward still has the power to thrill, provoke and delight. Book tickets for Private lives.
Fences
Comedian and actor Lenny Henry is to star in August Wilson’s play Fences at the Duchess theatre in London from the 19th June 2013, for a strictly limited season to the 14th September 2013.
Fences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson’s ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle. Fences explores race relations and the evolving African-American experience. The play won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway.
Fences is a brilliant play covering a diverse range of topics but fundamentally focusing on a family and their issues and problems including under-lying racial tensions.
Fences centres around Troy, a 53-year-old head of a household who struggles with providing for his family and with his obsession with cheating death. In his youth Troy was a great baseball player, having honed his skills whilst in prison for an accidental murder he’d committed during a robbery. Troy was unable to make good money from baseball due to the major leagues not allowing black participants. Troy is now employed as a refuse collector and lives with his wife Rosa and their son Cory.
Troy’s younger brother Gabriel is an ex-soldier whose war injury has caused him psychological damage. Troy has taken Gabriel’s compensation money to buy his house. Troy’s son Lyons, from a previous relationship, has come to borrow money from Troy, confident that he will receive it and promises to pay him back because his girlfriend Bonnie just got a job. Troy gives his son a hard time, but eventually gives him the requested ten dollars after Rose persuades him to do so.
It is later revealed that Try is having an affair, followed by the discovery that his girlfriend, Alberta, is pregnant. Troy’s younger son Cory has an opportunity for a college football scholarship, but Troy says he won’t let his son play football in fear of racial discrimination. A bitter argument ensues and Troy kicks Cory out of the family home.
Troy gets a call concerning Alberta informing him that she has died during childbirth. Rose agrees to adopt the baby girl, Raynelle, and take care of the baby as her own.
Seven years later, Troy has died. The play then reflects on the relationships and a poignant look back at what has happened in the ensuing years.
Fences is a powerful piece of historic drama examining some difficult topics but always with heart-felt sympathy.
