Can you write a 'light-hearted musical' about male suicide? Two recent Mountview graduates have done just that and the show will now have a limited season in the heart of the West End. Catch CATCH ME at Above the Arts Theatre next week...
Catch Me, a new musical about male suicide, opens at London’s Above the Arts Theatre next week. It runs from 21 November to 3 December 2016, with a press night on 23 November.
Catch Me is a hard-hitting show about a topic many people prefer to ignore. The friends of 32-year old Dean gather the evening before his funeral. As they laugh, cry and reminisce, one question keeps on their mind: why did Dean kill himself?
This brand new musical captures the range of emotions which engulf people affected by suicide. As the friends share their memories – some painful, some funny – it becomes clear that they didn’t know Dean as well as they imagined. Secrets revealed and truth emerges, relationships tested, and comfortable illusions destroyed.
In the second act, we see Dean’s side of the story – though the big question that haunts his friends (“Why would he do it?”) can never be answered. With an intriguing score, witty lyrics, and a taut story which entwines moments of warmth, humour and intense drama, Catch Me is a unique new musical that can’t be missed.
Featured in the cast of Catch Me are: Neal Andrews (Blood Brothers, HMS Pinafore), Connor Arnold (Silent Witness, Jane Eyre), Reuben Beau Davies (Disturbed Monkey, Fourth Man), Matthew Munden (The Night of 1000 Stars, Dead Poets Society), Kathryn Pemberton (The Sopranos, Private Lives) and Jennifer Tilley (Musical of the Year).
Catch Me written by Londoners Arnoud Breitbarth and Christian Czornyj, two recent graduates of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts’ MA in Writing Musicals, the only full-time education in Europe that is focussed specifically on the craft of writing musicals.
The show is directed by Jill Patterson (Life as a Naked House Cleaner, Welcome to the Vox Box), who is passionate about removing the stigma around mental health. The fact that on average 13 men a day take their lives in the UK shows that there is a ‘need for change’, she says. “In a light-hearted way, this show encourages the conversations to keep going.”
Music direction is by Rebecca Grant, who specialises in developing new musical theatre writing. The show is supported by various charities and NHS mental health trusts.
