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Dateline:
21st December, 2003
No Hope Now for the
Mermaid
There is now no hope that the Mermaid Theatre in Puddle Dock, Blackfriars,
will be saved. Although planning permission for the redevelopment of
the site was given in March, Mayor Ken Livingstone prevented its being
put into immediate effect, asking for clarification as to how the theatre
will be replaced.
Now the agreement has been signed and £6m will be paid by the
developers, Blackfriars (PD) Ltd., to new or existing theatres in the
area. The permission to redevelop runs for five years, but the redevelopment
is unlikely to begin soon as the property development market is depressed.
However no further moves to save the theatre are possible.
Hackney Empire Will
Re-open in January
There is better news for another London theatre, however. The Hackney
Empire will at last re-open after refurbishment which began in 2001.
The opening will be celebrated on 28th January and the first production
in the 2000-seater will be Opera International's Tosca, previously
seen at the Royal Albert Hall.
Tricycle to Revive
The Quare Fellow
Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre is to revive Brendan Behan's The Quare
Fellow, fifty years after it was first produced at the Pike Theatre,
Dublin. It will be presented by the Oxford Stage Company and directed
by Kathy Burke. The title was prison slang, referring to a man condemned
to death.
The Producers
- Confirmed At Last!
The West End premiere of the Broadway musical The Producers has
been confirmed. It will open on 9th November, 2004 (previews from 22nd
October), at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. There is also confirmation
that it will star Richard Dreyfuss as Max Bialystock and Lee Evans as
Leo Bloom.
Stones
Extends - and then Closes
Marie Jones' comedy hit Stones in His Pockets (New Ambassadors)
has announced a month's extension to 21st February, 2004, and it will
then close. It received its world premiere at the Lyric, Belfast, in
April 1999 and moved into the West End in May 2000.
Corrie
Star in Chicago
Former Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy, who played Curly
Watts in the Manchester-based soap, is to take over the part of Amos
Hart in the West End production of Chicago for fifteen weeks
from 2nd February.
The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe to Get the
New Zealand Treatment
Following the success of the three Lord of the Rings films, which
were filmed in New Zealand, the same country is to host the filming
of anohter fantasy classic, CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, the second and best known of the Narnia novels.
Extending
The following have announced extensions to their booking periods:
- Anything Goes (Theatre Royal Drury Lane) to 29th May
- The Lion King (Lyceum) to 26th September
- Jerry Springer the Opera (Cambridge) to 8th January, 2005.
Index
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Archive A-L
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