He will star in a new musical, The Go-Between, based on the 1953 novel by L P Hartley. The production will begin performances on May 27th at the Apollo Theatre for a limited season until Saturday 15th October
The Go-Between has been adapted several times for stage and screen. The musical's creative team includes composer Richard Taylor, writer David Wood and producers Joseph Smith and Bill Kenwright.
The story begins with the reminiscences of Leo Colston, an elderly man looking back on his childhood. Looking through his old things. He c omes across a battered old red box containing a diary from 1900 - the year of his thirteenth birthday. He slowly pieces together his memory as he looks through the diary back to Brandham Hall, the luxurious country home of his school friend Marcus Maudsley where he spent the summer of 1900 as the guest of wealthy school friend, Marcus Maudsley. On his journey he recalls the events surrounding his original visit, and became besotted with his friend’s older sister Marian, whose family hoped that she would marry local aristocrat Viscount Trimingham.. The young Leo,is a poor boy among the wealthy upper class with his comparatively humble background obvious to all and he does not really fit in there. His hosts do their best to make him feel welcome, treating him with kindness and indulgence and when Marcus falls ill, Leo becomes a secret "go-between" for Marian Maudsley, and nearby tenant farmer Ted Burgess. At first, Leo is happy to help Marian because she is kind to him and he has a crush on her. But he eventually realises their significance and gets caught up in a sequence of events that he cannot not comprehend or control. As an older man, everything that happened that summer become clearer. In a final twist to the story, 52 years later, Leo returns to Brandham. There he meets Marian's grandson and finds Marian living in a cottage – the place she had always told people she was going when she was really having clandestine meetings with Ted. Brandham Hall has been let out to a girls' school. Lord Trimingham married Marian, but died in 1910, and Marcus and his brother Denys were killed in the First World War. In the end, an elderly Marian Maudsley persuades Leo to act as a go-between for her once more.
The first production was mounted in 2011 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, at the Derby Live! Theatre , E and at the Royal & Derngate in Northampton. It production was awarded Best Musical Production at the 2012 Theatre Management Association's UK Theatre Awards, held at the Guildhall in the City of London.
Book tickets for The Go-Between
No comments:
Post a Comment