The hit UK re-working of the award-winning Broadway revival of the Cole Porter and P.G. Wodehouse musical Anything Goes will cruise back into the Barbican Theatre next summer.
A box office record breaker at the prestigious London venue the production which celebrated the highest-grossing week for a musical at the Barbican in its 39-year history earlier this month will play an eight-week encore season from 15 July until 3 September 2022 as part of a UK tour.
Commenting on the return of the star-studded revival of the classic musical, producer Howard Panter said: “We are delighted to be back with the glorious Anything Goes musical at the Barbican next summer! We were thrilled with the response to this energetic and uplifting show – audiences just couldn’t get enough and to achieve 15 weeks sold out night after night and a gross of £717,000 in one week really is quite some feat!
“We are equally delighted to take this majestic show on tour across the UK, so audiences around the country can enjoy the glorious set design, breathtaking choreography and stage direction, and of course the wonderful score!”
The tour will also visit the Bristol Hippodrome (11-16 April 2022), the Liverpool Empire (20-30 April), Edinburgh Festival Theatre (11-21 May) and the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury (24 May-4 June).
The lavish production which took its final bow at the Barbican on 6 November featured an acclaimed 50-strong company led by Broadway stars Sutton Foster (The Drowsy Chaperone, Thoroughly Modern Millie) and Rachel York (City of Angels, Victor/Victoria) and home-grown stars Tony, Olivier and BAFTA award winner Robert Lindsay (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Oliver!), Evening Standard Theatre Award winner Felicity Kendal (Much Ado About Nothing, Lettice and Lovage) in her West End musical debut, musical theatre favourite Gary Wilmot (Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and Tony and Olivier nominee Haydn Gwynne (Billy Elliot The Musical, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).
Marking the West End debut of triple Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall, the lavish new production boasts a company of over 50 including a full orchestra and 14 tap dancing sailors.
The madcap musical comedy set aboard an ocean liner bound for New York from Southampton boasts music and lyrics by Porter, an original book by Wodehouse and Guy Bolton with Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and a new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman.
Anything Goes debuted on Broadway in 1934 when it proved the perfect show to lift the spirits of American theatregoers during The Great Depression. The musical arrived in the West End a year later.
In 1962 the Off-Broadway revival of the show became the first to incorporate a number of songs from Porter’s other shows with ‘Take Me Back to Manhattan’ (from The New Yorkers), ‘It’s De-Lovely’ (from Red Hot and Blue), and ‘Let’s Misbehave’ (from Paris) joining Porter standards including ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ ‘You’re the Top’ and the title song ‘Anything Goes’.
Marshall’s 2011 Broadway revival of Anything Goes was nominated for nine Tony Awards and 10 Drama Desk Awards, winning the gongs for Best Musical Revival and Best Choreography.
Angela Thomas
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