Some of you will know I reviewed this show previously at the Landor Theatre.
It has now opened in the West End and is truly excellent. Do just book up and
go to see it.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood at the Arts Theatre- Explores Charles Dickens
unfinished final novel, who died half way through wr
The acclaimed London revival of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, staged to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, is to transfer to the West End after a successful run at the Landor Theatre in south London. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on Dickens’ final unfinished novel, with book, music and lyrics by Rupert Holmes, directed by Matthew Gould, will get a 4-week season at the Arts Theatre from Friday 18 May - Sunday 17 June.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Original Score, as well as 9 Drama Desk Awards, on its Broadway premiere in 1986. A thrilling and comical play within a play set in the world of music hall and pantomime, it follows the exploits of characters from the Theatre Royale Music Hall Company as they set about completing the unfinished story of Edwin Drood – with a little singalong help from the audience along the way. Who is the killer? The audience decides each night - and there are 525 possible
endings!
Wendi Peters, best known for playing Cilla Battersby-Brown in Coronation Street, heads the cast. It also includes Natalie Day (Les Miserables, Queens), Victoria Farley (Les Miserables, Barbican), Daniel Robinson (Jekyll & Hyde, UK Tour), Loula Geater, David Francis, Denis Delahunt, Richard Stirling, Christopher Coleman, Oliver Mawdsley, Paul Hutton, Tom Pepper, and Ben Goffe.
Rupert Holmes spent his early childhood in England. At the age of three, his first experience of theatre was a pantomime, complete with cross-dressing lead boy and audience sing-alongs. Then, as an 11- year-old boy fascinated by mystery books, he discovered the unfinished Dickens novel. Both of those seminal experiences would go on to have a major impact on him when he was first approached to write a new musical by New York impresario Joseph Papp. The result was The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
starring Cleo Laine and Betty Buckley, which opened at Papp’s legendary New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985, and then transferred to Broadway, where it ran more than 600 performances.
Holmes is also a well-known popular songwriter whose songs had been performed by the likes of Barbra Streisand, and who had himself recorded the No1 hit Escape (The Piña Colada Song) in 1979.
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