The Menier Chocolate Factory has announced further casting for Matthew White’s revival of Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend as the company begin rehearsals.
Joining Jack Butterworth (Bobby van Husen), Janie Dee (Mme Dubonnet), Adrian Edmondson (Lord Brockhurst), Tiffany Graves (Hortense), Dylan Mason (Tony), Amara Okereke (Polly) and Issy van Randwyck (Lady Brockhurst) are Tom Bales (Alphonse), Ryan Carter (Pierre), Chloe Goodliffe (Nancy), Matthew Ives (Pépé), Bethany Huckle (Lolita), Emily Langham (Fay), Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson (Maisie), Annie Southall (Dulcie), Peter Nash (Marcel) and Robert Portal (Percival Brown). The production opens on 3 December 2019, with previews from 22 November, and runs until 7 March 2020.
Sandy Wilson’s all-singing all-dancing love letter to 1920s musical comedies returns for the first major London revival in over 10 years. Set in Madame Dubonnet’s finishing school in the south of France, these perfect young ladies burst into song at the least provocation, and forbidden boyfriends are forever popping through the French windows to sing and dance with them. Since its premiere in 1953, this light-hearted soufflé of a show has delighted audiences worldwide and has become one of the most well-loved British musicals of all time.
The Boy Friend opened in London in 1953, before a West End run in 1954, and ran for more than five years. The subsequent Broadway run in 1954 made a star of the then-unknown Julie Andrews. Ken Russell adapted it into a 1971 film with Twiggy who won two Golden Globes for her performance.
Director Matthew White is joined by choreographer and associate director Bill Deamer, designer Paul Farnsworth, lighting designer Paul Anderson, sound designer Gregory Clarke, hair and wig designer Richard Mawbey, musical supervisor and director Simon Beck and orchestrator David Cullen.
