Casting news for Mack and Mabel

Michael Ball is shortly to go on his  If Everyone Was Listening concert tour promoting his new album before staring rehearsals for the major revival of  the  Musical Mack and  Mabel at Chichester Festival Theatre which runs there from July 13th until 5th September before embarking on a six-date tour, starting at the Theatre Royal Plymouth on October 1st and running  until the beginning of December.  He  is portraying early cinema pioneer Mack Sennett in  the musical about Sennett’s  bittersweet romance with Mabel Normand, the woman he plucked from a bathing beauty chorus line and made a star.

Rebecca LaChance, who is in the ensemble and understudies the title role in the Broadway version of the Carole King musical Beautiful (the UK version of which has just  received 8 Olivier Nominations)  will play Mabel opposite  Michael Ball. The character met an unpleasant alcohol and drug fuelled ending which are not going to be glossed over in this new reworked production.

She said: ‘I am absolutely thrilled to be embarking on this new journey alongside Michael Ball.’Michael attended  final auditions in London and New York and felt she had the right chemistry.

Other casting to date is that the excellent Anna-Jane Casey (currently in Jerry's Girls at the St James Theatre) will be playing Lottie who performs show stopper Tap Your Troubles Away (a role she has played before).  More casting new to follow.