The Last Five Years to transfer to the West End this September with tickets now on sale
Molly Lynch & Oli Higginson in The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse (Photo credit: Pamela Raith)
After a critically acclaimed run at Southwark Playhouse last year and a highly successful worldwide stream with stream.theatre, Jason Robert Brown’s Drama Desk Award-winning musical, The Last Five Years, will play a limited season at the Vaudeville Theatre, previewing from 17 September, with an opening night on 23 September and running until 13 October 2021. Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, Molly Lynch and Oli Higginson will reprise their roles as Cathy and Jamie. This will be the first time the musical will have had a significant run of length in the West End.
The production at Southwark Playhouse was nominated for eight Offie Awards and won two for Best Director and Best Musical Production. Oli Higginson was nominated for a Stage Debut Award for his performance as Jamie.
The Last Five Years is an emotionally powerful and intimate story about two New Yorkers who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. The musical’s unconventional structure unfolds as Cathy, a struggling actor, tells her story in reverse, from the end of their turbulent relationship, whilst Jamie, a literary prodigy, tells his story chronologically from the spark of their initial meeting. In the musical, the two characters meet only once, at their wedding, which falls in the middle of the show.
Molly Lynch & Oli Higginson in The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse (Photo credit: Pamela Raith)
Jonathan O’Boyle’s new actor-musician production has the actors on stage at all times and playing the piano to add a new narrative dimension to the story, accompanied by a four-piece band. He said of the West End transfer, “I’m delighted that our production of The Last Five Years is transferring into the West End later this year to the gorgeous Vaudeville Theatre. Seeing the production grow, and the brilliant actors go from strength to strength, was a total joy during 2020. The fact that we now get to share it with a wider audience this autumn is tremendously exciting.”
Brown’s cult classic musical was first seen in 2001 and ran off-Broadway in 2002. It was turned into a film in 2014 starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.
Molly Lynch made her professional debut in the West End in ENO’s production of Sweeney Todd starring Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfl. She then played the role of Chava in Grange Park Opera’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, also starring Bryn Terfl. She played Betty in the UK Tour of Sunset Boulevard starring Ria Jones and Danny Mac and most recently appeared in The Light in The Piazza starring Renee Fleming at the Royal Festival Hall.
Oli Higginson’s previous theatre credits include The Haystack at Hampstead Theatre, Maggie & Ted at White Bear Theatre, Napoleon Blown Apart at Arcola Theatre and The Assassination of Marcus Garvey at Theatre 503. Most recently, he has been seen in the Netflix hit series Bridgerton and will next be seen on the small screen in The Pursuit of Love.
Producer Katy Lipson said of the production, “I could never have dreamed of having the opportunity to bring this show into London’s West End this year after our off-West End and digital outings last year. It will be our company’s West End musical debut and I am incredibly proud that it is with this production.”
Click the button below to grab your tickets to see this epic production.
Cinderella screenwriter Emerald Fennell wins 2 BAFTA’s
The Original Screenplay award goes to Emerald Fennell’s revenge tale, Promising Young Woman. #EEBAFTAs pic.twitter.com/EFzBpwKSXc
— BAFTA (@BAFTA) April 11, 2021
Emerald Fennell, writer of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s brand new Cinderella musical, has been announced as the winner of not one, but two British Academy Film Awards for the thriller/comedy, Promising Young Woman.
The British screenwriter, director, actress and novelist has gained wider recognition from her roles in the BBC’s period drama series, Call The Midwife and Netflix’s The Crown. She is also known as a showrunner/leading producer for season two of BBC Three thriller series Killing Eve.
In this years ceremony which took place virtually, Emerald took home BAFTA’s for Outstanding British Film and Original Screenplay which has got us feeling even more excited to see her work in the exciting new musical comedy, Cinderella.
Starring Carrie Hope Fletcher (as Cinderella) and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (as Stepmother), Cinderella is set to completely reinvent the world’s best-loved fairytale when it opens at the Gillian Lynne Theatre this year.
Get ready for Cinderella… like you’ve never seen her before. Check out the trailer above and grab your tickets now.
The National Theatre adds Bridge Theatre’s Julius Caesar to its streaming service
Julius Caesar at the Bridge Theatre (Photo credit: Manuel Harlan)
The National Theatre has today announced the Bridge Theatre’s Julius Caesar is the latest filmed production to be added to its streaming service National Theatre at Home.
Directed by Nicholas Hytner (One Man, Two Guvnors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), the Bridge Theatre’s critically acclaimed 2018 production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar saw the audience surround the action in a dynamic, immersive and contemporary staging. The cast includes Ben Whishaw (Paddington, James Bond), Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones, Gangs of London), David Morrissey (The Missing, The Walking Dead), David Calder (Motherland, Rush) and Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton, Line of Duty).
National Theatre at Home now has 19 productions to stream on the platform available at any time, including Angels in America Parts One and Two with Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane and Russell Tovey, Medea with Helen McCrory and Michaela Coel, Mosquitoes with Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams, Phèdre with Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper, the Young Vic’s Yerma with Billie Piper and Othello with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear. New productions are added monthly and, in addition to Julius Caesar, one other title is also due to be added later this month.
All productions on National Theatre at Home are available with captions. Julius Caesar will also be available with audio-description to support blind and partially sighted audiences worldwide. Nine other National Theatre at Home titles are currently available with audio-description: Angels in America Parts One and Two, Othello, Donmar Warehouse’s Coriolanus, The Cherry Orchard, Amadeus, Julie, Phèdre and the Young Vic’s Yerma and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Click here to find out more!