It's official! After increasing rumours - and hints from Mel Brooks - following the death of Gene Wilder in August, it's announced today that YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN will get its West End resurrection in 2017. The 'all-singing, all-dancing' new production of the musical, based on Brooks' cult 1974 film starring Wilder, will have a brief run in Newcastle before transferring to the West End next autumn...
Updated 9 Feb 2017: The West End transfer is confirmed. The producition will start performances at London's Garrick Theatre on 28 September. Further news here.
Mel Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN – which will open for a pre West End season at the Newcastle Theatre Royal (26 August to 9 September 2017) – is slated for a West End opening autumn 2017. Exact dates and venue to be confirmed.
Based on the Oscar-nominated smash hit 1974 film and co-written with Thomas Meehan, Brooks will once again collaborate with Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman for this all-singing all-dancing new production, bringing his and Gene Wilder’s classic movie to life on stage.
Young Frankenstein, the wickedly inspired re-imagining of the Mary Shelley classic, see’s Frederick Frankenstein, an esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor, inherit a castle and laboratory in Transylvania from his deranged genius grandfather, Victor Von Frankenstein. He now faces a dilemma – does he continue to run from his family’s tortured past or does he stay in Transylvania to carry on his grandfather’s mad experiments reanimating the dead and, in the process, fall in love with his sexy lab assistant Inga?
Full creative team and casting will be announced at a later date. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is produced by Mel Brooks, Michael Harrison, Fiery Angel and Hani Farsi.
When Mel met Gene...
The film of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN returned to US cinema screens in October - just in time for Halloween, natch - with an introduction by Mel Brooks. As part of the publicity drive for the re-release, Brooks appeared on American chat show Jimmy Fallon, when he recalled what happened when he first met Gene Wilder. Love this...
.@MelBrooks remembers meeting Gene Wilder for the first time... #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/fiU0X9zCrY
— Fallon Tonight (@FallonTonight) August 31, 2016
