Rosalie Craig, Josie Rourke, Hadley Fraser and Vanessa Williams talk City of Angels in the West End

Will Longman
Will Longman

When Josie Rourke's production of City of Angels went on sale at the Donmar Warehouse in 2014, tickets sold out in just 47 minutes, meaning there were plenty who missed out on seeing what went on to become an Olivier Award-winning production.

It's common for popular shows to transfer to big West End playhouses relatively quickly - Fiddler on the Roof at the Menier, Everybody's Talking About Jamie from Sheffield, and Noises Off from the Lyric Hammersmith all transferred within a year for successful runs in town.

But Cy Coleman and David Zippel's City of Angels, which won the best musical revival Olivier in 2015, has taken five years to find its way back to London, with Rourke reviving the show on a bigger scale at the Garrick Theatre, and bringing a couple of original cast members with her.

Rosalie Craig, Hadley Fraser and Vanessa Williams will all return to the show, which sees Fraser play a novelist who is adapting his story for the silver screen in Hollywood, while Craig plays his wife Gabby, and Trehearn playing Hollywood producer Buddy's secretary, Donna.

However, we also see the film Stine is writing played out on stage alongside his own timeline, with the set flicking between a chromatic film noir set, and his multi-colored life, while Craig and Trehearn double up as actors in the film.

There are a few newcomers to the productions to get excited about, too. Theo James takes on the lead role within Stine's film - a detective called Stone - alongside two West End debutants, Grammy-nominated former Miss America Vanessa Williams, and Girls Aloud singer (and The Masked Singer's Queen Bee herself) Nicola Roberts.

With preparations for the transfer underway, we spoke to Rourke, Craig, Fraser and Williams in rehearsals to find out a little more about the return of this classic Broadway musical.

City of Angels is at the Garrick Theatre from 5th March.

City of Angels tickets tickets are available now.

 

 

Originally published on

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