Ellie Nunn plays the role of Isobel in new musical Desperate Measures at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London
Desperate Measures, a freewheeling new musical based on Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure will receive its world premiere at the Jermyn Street Theatre from 24 November to 20 December. The piece (script/lyrics by Robin Kingsland, music/lyrics by Chris Barton) is set in London in the ‘swinging sixties’ against a backdrop of starchy middle class morality and hypocrisy in a country on the verge of Beatlemania and the arrival of sexual and social permissiveness.
This is the world of Profumo, Christine Keeler and the Kray twins. Depravity and sexual licence are widespread. Members of parliament rub shoulders with glamour models and journalists are all too happy to take bribes.
MP Simon Di Angelo, in an attempt to stop the tide of ‘wickedness’ he sees permeating every corner of life, decides to revive the Sexual Congress Act. Pop singer Milo Feather breaks the law by getting his girlfriend pregnant and is condemned to hang under the new morality laws. His sister Isobel, a novice nun, sets out to rescue him. But she’s about to take Holy Orders, and events will threaten all that she lives for.
Desperate Measures stars Ellie Nunn as Isobel. Nunn has appeared in Gatsby (Arts Theatre), Shakespeare in Love (Noel Coward Theatre), Lady Windermere’s Fan (Kings Head Theatre), Bombshells (Jermyn Street Theatre,) and The Last Laundress of Queensway (the Drayton Arms).
The cast also includes Harry Al-Adwani, Angharad George-Carey, Emily-Rose Hurdiss, Alice Jay, Jojo Macari, Callum Macdonald, Charlie Merriman, Timothy Patten, Tosin Thompson and James Wilson.
Design is by Dee Shulman and the musical director is Jordan Li-Smith.
Robin Kingsland’s writing includes TV, radio, urban pantomimes, plays and musicals for young audiences, stage adaptations and ‘the shameless plundering of William Shakespeare’s back catalogue’. Pcuk – A Mid$ummer Night’s Remix – a modern idiom, blank verse, street dance reworking of another of Shakespeare’s works, was a critical and audience hit at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Prospero’s Children– a re-invention of The Tempest was toured to great acclaim by Quicksilver Theatre.
Kingsland’s stage adaptations include Around the World in Eighty Days for the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, and All Quiet On the Western Front for Nottingham Playhouse.
Chris Barton has directed for the Royal National Theatre, Watford Palace Theatre, Basingstoke Theatre Royal, California Shakespeare Festival and SNAP Theatre Company, and as associate director in the West End and on Broadway, with Ian McKellen’s Richard III and Stephen Daldry’s An Inspector Calls, which he also re-created in Tokyo.
His musical writing credits include More Tales From the Magic Carpet at the Royal National Theatre, and Hamlet House of Horror which was a sell-out success at the Old Red Lion in Islington.
Desperate Measures is presented by Banter Productions in association with Jermyn Street Theatre. Banter Productions formed earlier this year to produce Jonathan Lewis’ A Level Playing Field. It premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre to much critical acclaim. Desperate Measures will be the Christmas show at Jermyn Street Theatre.
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