Evelyn Hoskins, who appeared in the acclaimed Lyric Hammersmith and West End production of Spring Awakening, will lead Southwark Playhouse’s May revival of Carrie.
Hoskins will play the title character in the musical adaptation of Stephen King’s high school horror novel, which feels a little like what would happen if Roald Dahl’s Matilda discovered her special abilities in the middle of puberty and had a few less supportive influences on her life.
Outsider Carrie White, like Matilda, has telekinetic powers, but she also has a religious fanatic mother and classmates who want to humiliate her. That’s a bad idea, as after a prom prank played at Carrie’s expense the teenager goes on a spree of revenge.
Hoskins, also a familiar face from TV series Misfits and Casualty, is joined in the Carrie cast by musical theatre veteran Kim Criswell, whose London credits include Follies, Company, On The Town and Annie Get Your Gun, for which she received an Olivier nomination.
The production’s other cast members include former Rock Of Ages star Jodie Jacobs, The Scottsboro Boys’ Dex Lee and Wicked alumni Greg Miller Burns.
The Southwark Playhouse production is, somewhat surprisingly, the London premiere of the infamous musical first seen in Stratford-upon-Avon when it was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. That production, which starred Linzi Hateley in the title role, was hampered by technical problems from microphone-foiling fake blood to near decapitation by parts of the set.
The production transferred to Broadway, rather than the West End, where it ran for just 16 performances.
Clearly Thriller Live director and choreographer Gary Lloyd, who also carries out dual duties for Carrie, is not a man to be put off by such horrifying omens.