Felicity Kendal and Gary Wilmot are the latest star additions to the cast of the much-anticipated UK re-working of director Kathleen Marshall’s award-winning 2011 Broadway revival of the Cole Porter and P.G. Wodehouse musical Anything Goes.
Evening Standard Theatre Award winner Kendal (Much Ado About Nothing, Lettice and Lovage) will make her West End musical debut as Evangeline Harcourt alongside musical theatre favourite Wilmot’s (Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) Elisha Whitney in the production which is scheduled to sail into London’s Barbican for a limited engagement from 5 June 2021.
Commenting on her casting in the show, Kendal said: “It’s wonderful to be joining this classic joyous show after the past terrible year of loss and lockdown. We need to connect together again in our theatres and there is nothing quite like the thrill of a live audience experiencing a great show. I am sure that this is a perfect moment for this glorious, funny and uplifting musical and cannot wait to get started.”
Wilmot added: “Anything Goes is such a joyous musical and I’m thrilled to be joining the incredible cast for this wonderful revival. I look forward to being back on stage in London for some real toe-tapping fun!”
Kendal and Wilmot will join the previously announced pairing of Emmy and Screen Actor’s Guild winner Megan Mullally (Will & Grace, Young Frankenstein) who will make her West End debut as Reno Sweeney alongside Tony, Olivier and BAFTA award winner Robert Lindsay (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Oliver!) as Moonface Martin.
Tony Award winner Marshall will also make her West debut as director and choreographer of the lavish new production which will feature a company of over 50 including a full orchestra and 14 tap dancing sailors.
With 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, the new version of the madcap musical comedy set aboard an ocean liner bound form New York to Southampton is scheduled to play the Barbican Theatre until 22 August before embarking on a UK tour.
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’.
Angela Thomas
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