Jeff Merrifield’s play Hit Me! The Life And Rhymes Of Ian Dury will return to London in September to play three dates at the Garrick theatre in the West End.
A warts-and-all portrait of the late lead singer of the Blockheads, Hit Me! The Life And Rhymes Of Ian Dury premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 before playing London’s Leicester Square and Courtyard theatres. It returns to Edinburgh this summer before embarking on a UK tour which includes the West End from 9 to 11 September.
Merrifield’s two-handed play explores the highs and lows of Dury’s extraordinary life and career, from his Dickensian childhood at a boarding school for disabled children to international fame as a cult hero of punk with the Blockheads, before his premature death from cancer in 2000, aged 57.
The play includes several of Dury’s hits, performed live, including Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and Reasons To Be Cheerful.
The return of Merrifield’s play follows the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll, starring Andy Serkis, which put Dury back in the limelight earlier this year.
Currently at the Garrick theatre is All The Fun Of The Fair, which is booking until 5 September. JB Priestley’s When We Are Married moves into the theatre on 19 October.
CB