One of the best-loved musicals of all time, West Side Story, comes to the Palace Theatre, Manchester next month.
Indeed the show owes a considerable debt to the city since its UK première performance there, in 1958, started to establish its reputation. One year earlier it had opened on Broadway to less than enthusiastic reviews. Four years later the film version won 10 Academy awards...
The score includes unforgettable songs like "Maria", "Tonight", "Somewhere", "America" and "I Feel Pretty" and the show will star Katie Hall as Maria, Louis Maskell as Tony, Djalenga Scott as Anita and Jack Wilcox as Riff.
Hall was most recently seen as Christine in the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera. She was a boot camp contestant for the BBC1’s search for Nancy in I’d Do Anything and a final round contender for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s search for the Eurovision entry, Your Country Needs You.
Based on Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is set on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and explores the rivalry between two teenage gangs; one white, the other Puerto Rican.
This production features the entire original Jerome Robbins choreography. Last Christmas it played a sold out season at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, having previously sold out in cities around the world. It was last seen in the UK in 2008/9 when it also sold out for a season at Sadler’s Wells and played to capacity houses throughout a year long UK tour, including The Lowry in Salford.
It runs from next Tuesday to January 4.