Sheridan Smith in Bridget Jones the Musical workshop

As previously mentioned,  Lily Allen is writing numbers for a new Bridget Jones Musical.  Her embryonic score is due to be rehearsed with a cast to try out the show to see if it will work in the West End.  Stephen Daldry who directed both the film and stage hit Billy Elliot will run the workshop which will be presented at a rehearsal studio in London in the next week or so.

The cast assembled for the Bridget Jones workshop are Sheridan Smith (currently starring in Legally Blonde) playing will playing the title role which Renee Zellweger took in the films. Bertie Carvel and Julian Ovenden will play love rivals Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver (played in both movies by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant). Bridget’s parents will be performed by Marilyn Cutts and Billy Boyle, while other cast members include Tiffany Graves, Cassidy Janson, Richard Frame and Julie Legrande.

Allen and Greg Kurstin have been working with the novel’s author Helen Fielding on the score and lyrics for the musical based on the first book - Bridget Jones’s Diary. Allen, Kurstin and Fielding have written three or four songs which will be performed at the workshop which is being backed by Working Title who produced the film and the stage show of Billy Elliot.

If the workshop production is deemed to be successful then the musical will open in the West End either in the autumn of next year or in 2012.