The Stage

Sondheim’s demon barber to celebrate 25th birthday in West End

Published Tuesday 22 June 2004 at 13:50 by Ruth Gillespie

Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd will transfer from the Watermill Theatre in Newbury to the recently opened Trafalgar Studios for a limited 12-week season as the play celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Opening on July 27 with previews from July 22, Sweeney Todd is directed and designed by John Doyle with arrangements and musical direction by Sarah Travis and lighting by Richard Jones. The production opened at the Watermill in February this year and has recently completed a national tour.

Formerly the historic Whitehall Theatre, Trafalgar Studios opened in May this year with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Othello. The venue comprises a 400-seat theatre space and a smaller 100-seat studio, which will open in the autumn.

Further casting has been confirmed for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical The Woman in White, which opens at the Palace Theatre on September 15 and is booking to March 5, 2005.

Joining Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman are Martin Crewes, Angela Christian, Oliver Darley, Jill Paice and Edward Petherbridge.

Meanwhile it has been confirmed that Gavin Lee will play Bert in Mary Poppins, based on the stories by PL Travers and the 1964 Walt Disney film, which will open at the Prince Edward Theatre on December 15 and is booking to September 24, 2005. Lee has just finished filming The Phantom of the Opera and Beyond the Sea. He joins Laura Michelle Kelly, who will play the lead.

The Donmar Warehouse and Ambassador Theatre Group will collaborate on a new production of Frank Loesser and Abe Burrow’s Guys and Dolls, which will open in the West End early in 2005.

Michael Grandage, the Donmar’s artistic director, will direct the production, which will be the theatre’s first external collaboration.

Grandage said: “It will be an enormous privilege to work on one of the greatest classic musicals of all time and it presents an exciting opportunity for the Donmar to develop its work and style in a larger theatre space.”