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Dateline: 8th May, 2004 The Big Life Extends The Big Life by popular demand has an extended run until 29 May. The ska-musical The Big Life currently running at the Theatre Royal Stratford East has proved to be a big hit, as British Theatre Guide reviewer Jackie Fletcher predicted. West End producers are flocking to see the show, all eager to transfer it to the West End. The success of The Big Life coincides with the retirement of Philip Hedley, artistic director of the theatre created in the sixties by Joan Littlewood, one of the great British theatre directors with a visionary view of the future of British theatre (see our obituary). Philip has been artistic director for twenty-five years, providing continuity with Littlewood's vision and working with the local community to produce an original form of musical theatre rooted in our own urban environment. This final production under his auspices is a triumphant tribute to his own vision and considerable efforts in keeping this theatre alive, struggling for subsidy, and rendering it a local theatre that can transfer and appeal to a wider audience. The Guardian reviewer subscribes to Jackie's appraisal of this musical: it will "inject the West End with the new blood it needs". According to the Independent: "The emergence of a strong, original-book musical into the London stage wilderness of cut-and-paste, back-catalogue plundering was always goint to be welcomed". The Big Life now runs until 29th May. Jackie Fletcher Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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