Michael Harrison and David Ian are delighted to present the UK and Ireland tour of the Curve production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s award-winning musical SUNSET BOULEVARD. Starring Ria Jones as Norma Desmond and directed by Nikolai Foster, SUNSET BOULEVARD will open at Curve on Saturday 16 September 2017 before touring the UK and Ireland. Tour schedule below with more dates to be announced soon.
One of the all-time great musicals, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award®-winning (Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical) masterpiece SUNSET BOULEVARD is a compelling story of romance and obsession, based on Billy Wilder’s legendary film, with Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s wonderful book and lyrics. This much-loved score includes the title number Sunset Boulevard, With One Look, As If We Never Said Goodbye, The Greatest Star Of All and The Perfect Year and will be performed by a full orchestra.
In her mansion on Sunset Boulevard, faded, silent-screen goddess, Norma Desmond, lives in a fantasy world. Impoverished screen writer, Joe Gillis, on the run from debt collectors, stumbles into her reclusive world. Persuaded to work on Norma’s ‘masterpiece’, a film script that she believes will put her back in front of the cameras, he is seduced by her and her luxurious life-style. Joe becomes entrapped in a claustrophobic world until his love for another woman leads him to try and break free with dramatic consequences.
Last year, Ria Jones played the role of Norma Desmond at the London Coliseum when Glenn Close was indisposed, receiving rave reviews and standing ovations for her performance. Ria has recently starred as Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Her West End credits include Fantine in Les Misérables, Grizabella in Cats and Florence in Chess. Her touring credits include Alex in The Witches of Eastwick, Mrs Overall in Acorn Antiques – The Musical, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes and The Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Director Nikolai Foster is Artistic Director at Curve, one of the UK’s leading regional theatres. His work at Curve includes Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing and Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, both on tour and in the West End; A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and the musicals Grease and Legally Blonde. He directed the hugely successful recent productions of Annie starring Craig Revel Horwood and Calamity Jane starring Jodie Prenger
The Original Theatre Company is delighted to announce that, due to popular demand, its production of Torben Betts’s critically acclaimed INVINCIBLE will tour the UK for a second time, directed by Stephen Darcy. The 2017 tour will open at Royal & Derngate in Northampton on 24 January 2017.
Alastair Whatley, Emily Bowker and Graham Brookes will reprise the roles of Oliver, Emily and Alan respectively. Elizabeth Boag joins the 2017 tour as Dawn.
Artistic Director of The Original Theatre Company, Alastair Whatley, said of the second UK tour:
“We are delighted to be taking Invincible back on the road in 2017. Torben’s state of the nation comedy reached out to audiences across the UK in 2016 with his vision of a nation divided, cleft in two down the Watford Gap. We look forward to navigating the play through post Brexit Britain in 2017.”
With the recession biting hard, Emily and Oliver have decided to downsize and shift their middle-class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England. One night, they open their doors to their next door neighbours, Dawn and Alan. Over the course of a disastrous evening of olives, anchovies, Karl Marx and abstract art, class and culture collide, resulting in consequences that are both tragic and hilarious.
INVINCIBLE had its world premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond in 2014 and transferred later that same year to St James Theatre, London. Invencible, a Spanish version of INVINCIBLE, has just begun a nine-month tour of Spain, starring Spanish film actress Maribel Verdu.
Torben Betts was born in Lincolnshire and studied at Liverpool University. He became the resident dramatist at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre in 1999. Poet and dramatist Liz Lochhead said Betts “is just about the most original and extraordinary writer of drama we have.” His play The Unconquered won Best New Play 2006/07 at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland. 2015 saw a revival of his acclaimed 2012 play Muswell Hill at London’s Park Theatre, his latest work, What Falls Apart, opened at Newcastle’s Live Theatre, and his version of Chekhov’s The Seagull was staged at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. In February 2016, Betts adapted Get Carter for Northern Stage in Newcastle.
INVINCIBLE is designed by Victoria Spearing, with lighting by Andy Purves and sound by Max Pappenheim. The national tour is produced by Tom Hackney for The Original Theatre Company, Adrian Grady for Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds and Ghostlight Theatre Production (a Bob and Co Company).
Photography by Manuel Harlan
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