Casting announced for ENO's Carousel starring Alfie Boe and Katherine Jenkins

Updated 20th January: the latest bit of casting to be announced is that Only Fools and Horses and Goodnight Sweetheart star NICHOLAS LYNDHURST is performing  a non-singing part playing the dual roles of the Starkeeper and minister Dr Seldon in the show. Further casting includes Brenda Edwards (Nettie Fowler), Derek Hagen (Jigger Craigin), Alex Young (Carrie Pipperidge), Gavin Spokes (Enoch Snow), Susan Kyd (Mrs Mullin), Martyn Ellis (Mr Bascombe) and Davide Fienauri (Carnival Boy) with Matthew Whennell-Clark, Bruce Aguilar Rohan, Will Barratt, Jay Bryce, Danielle Cato, Jacob Chapman, Nolan Edwards, Alexander Evans, Lizzi Franklin, Alice Jane, Tessa Kadler, Hannah Kenna Thomas, Jasmine Leung, Leisha Mollyneaux, Rachel Muldoon, Saori Oda, Kane Oliver Parry, Daniel Perry, Alastair Postlethwaite, Joseph Poulton, Verity Quade, Genevieve Taylor, James Titchener, Adam Vaughan, and Anna Woodside. Final casting will be announced shortly.

Baz Bamiboye has just announced that mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins is to  make her stage debut opposite opera singer Alfie Boe in the ENO's version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's  landmark musical Carousel which is romantic New England fantasy set both in heaven and on earth. Jenkins will play Julie Jordan, the naive mill-worker who falls in love with hell-raising fairground barker Billy Bigelow played by Boe. Carousel has one of the most melodic scores ever written for the stage, but it harbours a dark, underlying tale that deals with Billy’s domestic abuse.  Further casting is to be announced.

After premiering on Broadway in 1945, it was  made into a Hollywood film starring Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae. The score includes the classic "Mister Snow", "Soliloquy", "What's the Use of Wond'rin" and "You'll Never Walk Alone".

The show will have  a five-week run of  41 performances at the London Coliseum from 11th  April to 13 May, with previews from 7th  April 2017.

Rehearsals begin in February, but Jenkins  has already done some work with New York-based director Lonny Prince telling Baz ‘I want to be as prepared as possible, and I was working with Lonny on the script and character all last week, which has been exciting in itself,’ Boe is currently on a pretty much sold out  Together concert tour with Michael Ball. 

The production is being produced  by Michael Linnit and Michael Grade and will be semi-staged like Sweeney Todd which starred Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel and  last year’s Sunset Boulevard starring Glenn Close, with a supporting cast, choir and 40 piece  orchestra

The last major production of Carousel in London was Nicholas Hytner’s fabulous multi-award-winning version at the National in 1992. It won phenomenal reviews and Cameron Mackintosh transferred it to the West End, and then Broadway.

Tickets go on general sale  from 9:00 am on 30th November