With Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory shortly coming to screens, one of his earlier successes is to step out on stage as a piece of dance. Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands has finally announced its world premiere dates, after years of Bourne teasing theatregoers with its progress – they acquired the rights in 2000. On the back of his Olivier win for Mary Poppins this year, in November the story of the man-made boy left unfinished by his creator will open at the Sadler's Wells following a short out-of-town tryout in Plymouth. Tickets for the stage production go up to an astonishing £48, but with a cast of thirty it is Bourne's largest dance show to date. The haunting Danny Elfman score from the film will be adapted for stage by Terry Davies, collaborator on Bourne's Olivier winning Play Without Words, and designs will be by Lez Brotherson, another Bourne regular. It opens for the press on November 30th.
Cameron Mackintosh's award-winning production of My Fair Lady is to tour the UK before transferring to America to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. It will play 12 regional dates – including Mancheser and Birmingham - before heading to the States in 2006. The National Theatre revival, which won 5 Olivier Awards, already has a star cast attached to it – Christopher Cazanove (former Dynasty star) as Henry Higgins, comedian Russ Abbot as Alfred Doolittle and former Bond girl Honor Blackman as Mrs Higgins. Casting for Eliza has not yet been officially announced, but in the West End she was played by Martine McCutcheon, who won an Olivier Award despite only performing in half of her run due to illness, Joanna Riding and Mary Poppins actress Laura Michelle Kelly. It is directed by Trevor Nunn, with designs by Anthony Ward and choreography by Matthew Bourne. The tour opens in October.
All publicity is good publicity. So, days after As You Like It receiving mixed reviews, a big event to get itself back into the papers couldn't come fast enough. The star of the show Helen McCrory, suffering in the sweltering heatwave England experienced last week, announced midway through a scene on Thursday that she couldn't go on – and ran offstage in tears, apparently to much applause. The rest of the production had to be cancelled as her understudy was already taking her regular role in the performance. For the evening, after McCrory was diagnosed with gastro-enteritis, co-star Sienna Miller – who takes the much smaller role of Celia – texted producer David Lan to say that the she could take the role. With only minimum prompts, Miller stepped in – with fiancé Jude Law in attendance – and said she was just 'attempting to imitate' Olivier nominee McCrory.
Samuel West has unveiled his first season as artistic director at the Sheffield Crucible. As an actor he will play Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Josie Rourke, then later will direct the highly controversial play Romans in Britain by Howard Brenton, which when staged in 1980 led to an unsuccessful prosecution of the director due to its scenes of rape. Musical highlights include a Christmas revival of Burt Bacharach's Promises Promises and a summer production of Assassins, directed by rising young director Nikolai Foster. Concerning West End possibilities, as Sheffield transfers can often be found in the West End (the last being Broadway-bound Don Carlos), Promises Promises is already attracting commercial interest. In the smaller Studio Theatre highlights include world premieres by Tanika Gupta - a play about the death of a young British Asian in a young offender's institute, and Mark Ravenhill - a piece of dance that seems to be about meat taking over the world!
A new production based on the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun is to tour the UK with Rebecca Thornhill in the title role. The 1999 Broadway production, which ran for just over a thousand performances at the Marquis Theatre, starred Bernadette Peters, who won the Best Actress in a Musical Award at the Tonys as well as the production picking up Best Revival. Thornhill has many stage credits to her name, with notable performances including Roxie in Chicago, Sukie in The Witches of Eastwick and Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain, for which she was Olivier nominated. Joining her in the cast is Steve Houghton, best known for his TV role in London's Burning, but also an established stage actor. The musical, about a hillbilly girl who falls in love, features the classic Irving Berlin songs 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better' and 'There's No Business Like Showbusiness'. It opens in Bromley in August.
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