Dianne Pilkington will lead the company assembled for the world premiere run of the major new musical based on the much-loved Disney classic Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
The actress whose extensive West End genre credits include Wicked, Les Misérables and Young Frankenstein will star as the mysterious Miss Eglantine Price opposite fellow West End veteran Charles Brunton (Matilda, Love Never Dies, Chess) will take on the role of Emelius Browne.
The rest of the company includes Mark Anderson, Jessica Aubrey, Georgie Buckland, Kayla Carter, Jonathan Cobb, Jacqui Dubois, Matthew Elliot-Campbell, Sam Lupton, Rob Madge, Vinnie Monachello, Nathaniel Morrison, Conor O’Hara, Sadie-Jean Shirley, Robin Simoes Da Silva, Emma Thornett and Susannah Van Den Berg.
The Rawlins children will be played by Dexter Barry, Izabella Bucknell, Haydn Court, Poppy Houghton, Evie Lightman and Aidan Oti.
Produced by Michael Harrison with Disney Theatrical Productions, the eagerly-anticipated production is due to debut at the Newcastle Theatre Royal on 14 August ahead of a UK tour which includes a five-week Christmas season at the Leeds Grand Theatre.
Featuring the original songs by the legendary Sherman Brothers (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins), the 1971-part live action/part animation film has been re-imagined for the stage by directors Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison, the award-winning team behind the Vox Motus theatre company.
Set during the Blitz, Bedknobs and Broomsticks tells the story of three orphan children evacuated from London and placed in the reluctant care of a trainee witch who’s hoping to acquire magic skills to help in the war-effort.
The stage musical version is expected to retain the most iconic elements of the original film including the flying broomsticks and bed while adding new elements tailor-made for modern family audiences.
The magical musical trip to the bottom of the ‘beautiful briny sea’ will feature the original music and lyrics of Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman along with new music and additional lyrics Neil Bartram and a book by Brian Hill – the team behind Broadway musical The Story of My Life and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
As well as co-directing the production Jamie Harrison is creating the set and illusion design with costume design by Gabriella Slade, sound design by Gareth Fry, and lighting design by Simon Wilkinson.
The creative team also includes orchestrator Simon Hale, musical supervisor Tom Murray, choreographer and movement director Neil Bettles and production manager Gary Beestone.
Following on from the opening run in Newcastle, the tour will visit Canterbury, Southend, Milton Keynes, Woking, Norwich, Nottingham, Eastbourne, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, Birmingham, Aberdeen and Dartford.
Following the Christmas season in Leeds which will run from 8 December 2021 to 9 January 2022, the 2022 leg of the tour will include visits to Southampton, Edinburgh, Bristol, Cardiff, Leicester, Liverpool, Northampton, Plymouth, Wolverhampton, Hull and Belfast. Further venues will be announced at a later date.
Inspired by a series of book by the creator of The Borrowers, English author Mary Norton, Bedknobs and Broomsticks was famously in development at Disney when talks to buy the rights for Mary Poppins stalled. The project was put on the back burner when Mary Poppins went into production before being given the greenlight in 1969.
Directed by Disney regular Robert Stevenson, the film starred Angela Lansbury as novice witch Miss Eglantine Price and David Tomlinson as the bogus professor of witchcraft Emelius Browne.
Angela Thomas
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