Full cast announced for One Love New Bob Marley Musical

Updated 20th January:  the leads have just been announced - Alexia Khadime (Nala in The Lion King: Elphaba in Wicked; Eponine in Les Miserables and Nabulungi in The Book Of Mormon) is playing  Rita Marley — wife of reggae legend Bob. Bob Marley will be played by Amsterdam-based singer Mitchell Brunings, who portrayed the singer when the musical premiered in Baltimore.

Eric Kofi Abrefa (Labyrinth and Wildefire, Hampstead Theatre; The Glass Menagerie, Headlong; Humans, Channel 4) will play Bob's closest friend, Pablo. Cat Simmons (Sweet Charity, Manchester Royal Exchange; Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern, Out of Joint; Oliver!, National Tour) will play Bob's lover, Cindy Breakspeare.

Newtion Matthews (The Frontline, Shakespeare's Globe; Dancing in the Streets, UK Tour) will play Bunny Wailer alongside Jacade Simpson (The Book of Mormon and The Scottsboro Boys, West End) who will play Peter Tosh.
 

Adrian Irvine (King Lear and Romeo and Juliet, National Theatre) will play Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley while Simeon Truby (War Horse, National Theatre international tour) will play Leader of the Opposition, Edward Seaga. Ricardo Coke-Thomas (The Book of Mormon and Shrek the Musical, West End; Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, National Theatre) will play Tony Welsh. Birmingham-born Thomas Vernal, a recent graduate from The Arden School of Theatre, will play Claudie Massop.


DelRoy Brown (King David: Man of Blood, Mercury Theatre Colchester; The Harder They Come, Theatre Royal Stratford East; Scott and Bailey, ITV) will play Bob's manager, Don Taylor. Alex Robertson (Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion, Belarus Free Theatre; The Seagull, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) will play Chris Blackwell. Natey Jones (Doctor Faustus, Don Quixote and The Alchemist, all Royal Shakespeare Company/ Barbican) will play Don Letts.

Maria Omakinwa (Show Boat, Sheffield Crucible/ West End; The Bodyguard, West End) will play Judy Mowatt. Shyko Amos returns to Birmingham Repertory Theatre (where she last performed in This Island) to play Marcia Griffiths.

The ensemble will include Taofique Folarin, Martina Isibor, Melissa James, Lemuel Knights, Tanisha Spring, Ellena Vincent and Marcquelle Ward.

One Love  is  a new musical  based on the life of reggae legend Bob Marley which will play at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 10th March-8th April.

With support from  the Marley family it is being  created by Kwame Kwei-Armah, and will focus on the singer's life and activism featuring many of his classic songs. Currently in the development stage, Armah wants  to use the show to highlight the singer's attempts at peacemaking in his native Jamaica, which was in the midst of clashes between political factions and rival gangs at the height of his fame.

With all the  historical speculation about the singer's drug use and multiple children, the creator of the show  does not intend to approach the singer's life from a perspective of "sex and loose morality" telling the Mail "We start looking at Bob as a young man, trying to hustle and get his way into the music industry; and as he becomes successful, so grows his social responsibility"

Tickets for  One Love