Sunday, January 20

Katy Secombe and Rebecca Caine in Darling of the Day

Jule Styne and Yip Harburg's Darling of the Day premieres in the UK at London's Union Theatre previewing from March 20th and running from March 22nd until 20th April.

It has music by Jule Styne (Gypsy, Funny Girl), lyrics by EY (Yip) Harburg (the Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow), book by Nunnally Johnson which is based on the novel Buried Alive by Arnold Bennett

Paul Foster will direct Katy Secombe (Mamma Mia!, The Music Man, Les Miserables) and Rebecca Caine (Les Miserables, Phantom,Oklahoma! The Sound of Music) in the starring roles. There is a cast of 14 with more details to be announced shortly.

In 1905 London the famous Edwardian painter Priam Farll is brilliant, unconventional, shy and can be violently outspoken. He is due to receive a knighthood but is appalled by society's expectations of its "darling of the day" (a Victorian/Edwardian term for a fashionable celebrity) so he seizes the chance to "get out of the world alive" when his faithful butler Henry Leek suddenly dies, and  assumes his  identity. 

But things get complicated by the arrival of Alice Challice (Katy Secombe) a widow with amorous designs on him.  This role was originally played by Patricia Routledge for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Rebecca Caine plays Lady Vale

Set and costumes will be designed by Christopher Giles, with musical direction and arrangements by Inga Davis-Rutter and choreography by Matt Flint.

Tickets for Darling of the Day

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