Jon Robyns and Kit Orton, who can both currently be found looking on the bright side of life in Spamalot, will leave legendary England behind this autumn to laugh their way through literary shrinker Dickens Abridged.
The pair, who swap Sirs Galahad and Lancelot for Fagin, Scrooge, Miss Havisham, David Copperfield and a host of other famous characters, are joined in the production at the Arts theatre by Damian Humbley, Gerard Carey and Matthew Hendrickson.
The 90-minute rollercoaster ride through Victorian villains, workhouses, street urchins and some of the world’s most recognisable characters, which runs from 27 November to 5 January, has been written and directed by Adam Long, co-founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which worked similar feats of drastic shortening on the works of Shakespeare, the history of America and The Bible.
Hendrickson is an old hand at the shortening game, having previously appeared in the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s productions at the Criterion theatre, while the remaining quartet are all musical theatre regulars. In addition to Spamalot, Robyns has appeared in Les Misérables and Avenue Q, and Orton has starred in Spend Spend Spend and Martin Guerre. Carey boasts credits in Mary Poppins and the original production of Spamalot, while Humbley was last seen in the hugely acclaimed Menier Chocolate Factory production of Merrily We Roll Along, a screened version of which will be screened in cinemas worldwide later this autumn through Cinema Live.