Imelda Staunton and Jenna Russell to star in Hello Dolly! at London's Adelphi next year

Imelda Staunton is taking on the iconic role of Dolly Gallagher Levi in a new West End production of Jerry Herman's (La Cage aux Folles, Mack and Mabel, Mame) Hello, Dolly!

Tony Award-nominee Jenna Russell will join her as Irene Molloy - a widow and a beautiful, smart, fun-loving milliner with a hat shop in New York Who Dolly has introduced to Horace Vandergelder but she yearns for romance. More casting news is to follow.

Produced by Michael Harrison Entertainment and David Ian Prod‬uctions the 1964 musical has lyrics and music by Jerry Herman,, and a book by Michael Stewart (42nd Street, Mack and Mabel, Barnum), is based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. 

The musical follows the story meddlesome socialite turned matchmaker Dolly Levi who travels to Yonkers, New York to find a match for the miserly, unmarried ‘half-a-millionaire’ Horace Vandergelder, but everything changes when she decides that the next match she needs to make is for herself. It includes classic numbers‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes’, ‘Ribbons Down My Back’, ‘Before the Parade Passes By’, ‘Elegance,’ ‘It Only Takes a Moment’ and of course, ‘Hello, Dolly!

This brand new production re-unites Imelda with Director Dominic Cooke following the critically acclaimed production of Follies at the National Theatre, It will play a limited 30-week engagement at the Adelphi Theatre from August 11th to 6th March 2021. Rae Smith is the costume and scenic designer, Nicholas Skilbeck is musical director, with choreography by Bill Deamer.

Imelda Staunton returns to the West End after her acclaimed performances in Stephen Sondheim's Follies and  award-winning performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy. Her  many other theatre credits include Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, for which she won an Olivier Award, Circle, Mirror, Transformation for the Royal Court and the role of Claire in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance at The Almeida Theatre. In total, she  has been nominated for eleven Olivier Awards, winning four. On film Staunton is perhaps best known for playing the title role in Vera Drake, for which she received the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and for the role of Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films.

Jenna Russell is an Olivier Award-winning star of stage and TV, is known for her roles in Les Misérables, Sunday in the Park with George, Fun Home at the Old Vic, and the UK premiere of Jason Robert Brown's The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier Chocolate Factory. She received a 2006 Tony Award nomination for the Broadway transfer of Sunday in the Park with George.