Sign of the Times – Save £28.50

Save £28.50 on tickets to Sign of the Times at the Duchess Theatre

Tim Firth (Calendar Girls) brings his warm and witty play into the West End starring Matthew Kelly as a disillusioned sign erector whose life is changed by a clumsy teenager – played by Shameless star Gerard Kearns.

Save £28.50 on tickets to Sign of the Times by Tim Firth, the writer of Calendar Girls, one of the most successful British films of all times.

The show stars Olivier Award winner Matthew Kelly (Of Mice and Men, Waiting for Godot) and, making his West End debut, Gerard Kearns, best known to millions as Ian Gallagher in the hit TV series Shameless.

Frank Tollit has put up giant letters on the sides of buildings for over twenty-five years. From forty-foot yellow IKEAs to five-foot red COMETs, Frank’s done them all. But in his heart, he’s always yearned to work with smaller letters… novels… spy novels. Stories of unexpected encounters in dangerous places, disasters, treachery and daring rescues. However, a lifelong lack of success is driving Frank to the edge. Not even in one of his wildest plots could Frank have dreamed that salvation would turn up in the shape of a clumsy young teenager.

Sign of the Times is a heart-warming, human comedy about finding happiness in unpredictable times.

Save £28.50 on tickets to Sign of the Times at the Duchess Theatre

Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre

Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

SORRY THIS SHOW HAS NOW CLOSED

Other shows you might enjoy:

Grumpy Old Women at the Novello Theatre – BOOK TICKETS

Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre – BOOK TICKETS

Mamma Mia! at the Prince of Wales Theatre – BOOK TICKETS

Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the Palace Theatre – BOOK TICKETS

Sister Act at the London Palladium – BOOK TICKETS

Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket – BOOK TICKETS

The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium – BOOK TICKETS

MORE ABOUT CALENDAR GIRLS IN LONDON

Noel Coward Theatre, London

Opened: 4 April 2009

Closed: 9 January 2010

Based on a true story, Calendar Girls is about a group of extraordinary women, members of an ordinary Yorkshire WI, who spark a global phenomenon by persuading one another to pose for a charity calendar with a difference! As interest snowballs, the CALENDAR GIRLS find themselves revealing more than they’d ever planned… The play is a very British story, and is by turns uplifting and inspiring, quirky, poignant and hilarious.

Calendar Girls is based on the hit film that starred Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. The play was adapted by Tim Firth and directed by Hamish McColl.

The original West End cast included Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge and Sian Phillips.

Camp Calendar Casting

All hail David Pugh, producer of Calendar Girls and clearly a casting genius. In what’s becoming the Vagina Monologues of its day, the Calendar Girls cast is having another clear out and importing a dizzyingly camp and comedic troupe of new actresses.

Disrobing from 3 November, the new cast will include camp icon and longtime Coronation Street actress Julie Goodyear; model, presenter and actress Kelly Brook; respected Olivier award-winning actress Janie Dee; ex news reader and I’m A Celebrity contestant Jan Leeming; and an array of great British female comedy talent, including wild-eyed Helen Lederer, the Fast Show’s Arabella Weir and TittyBangBang’s Debbie Chazen.

The new cast will perform at the Noel Coward Theatre until 9 January, when the show will move to a new theatre to make room for the Royal Court’s celebrated production Enron.

Discount tickets to Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre London

Special offer on Calendar Girls

Save £14.50 on tickets to see Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre

With glowing reviews and a hugely successful UK tour behind it, Calendar Girls is proving a runaway smash-hit in the West End. And now westendtheatre.com brings you a very special offer on tickets to see this feel-good show. Save up to £14.50 on tickets, valid Monday to Friday performances until 3rd July.

Based on the successful film, this is the uplifting and inspiring true story about a Women’s Institute group who spark a global phenomenon.

Quirky, poignant and hilarious, Calendar Girls stars Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Gaynor Faye, Brigit Forsyth, Julia Hills and Elaine C. Smith

• “A marvellous, uplifting night at the theatre”  Daily Mail
• “A show whose feel-good factor is sky high”  The Guardian

Save £14.50 on tickets to see Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre

London theatre – summer preview

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London theatre is pulling out all of the stops this summer to ensure that the capital’s theatre scene remains a chief attraction for millions of UK and overseas visitors.

A host of big hitting stars and large scale musicals are lined up to showcase a range of new productions, including performances by Jude Law, Helen Mirren, Ethan Hawke, Gillian Anderson and Ian McKellen.

The death of drama in the West End has been greatly exaggerated given the wide ranging slate of classic and contemporary plays premiering this summer. One of the most high profile will be Jude Law, taking to the stage in Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet, directed by Michael Grandage as part of his Donmar in the West End season. A strong supporting cast includes Penelope Wilton as Gertrude and Kevin McNally as Claudius, from 29 May at the Wyndham’s Theatre.

From Danes to Dames and Helen Mirren returns to London and the National Theatre from 4 June in Racine’s tragic play Phedre. The play concerns a woman (Mirren) consumed by passion for her stepson, which is highly plausible given that the stepson is played by hot young thing and Mamma Mia! The Movie star Dominic Cooper.

Helen Mirren starred in successful British movie Calendar Girls – which is now coming to the stage in a brand new production starring Patricia Hodge and Sian Phillips. Written by Tim Firth, the story of a group of middle-aged Women’s Institute members who pose for a calendar with a difference is playing at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Stage legends Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are reuniting after their onscreen antics in the X-Men movies to give us Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket Theatre from 20 April, in what promises to be a standout production of Samuel Beckett’s classic.

Talents from New York and London will converge at The Old Vic from 23 May for The Bridge Project – a three year partnership between The Old Vic, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Neal Street Productions. Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes will direct a new version of The Cherry Orchard plus Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, in a cast that features Ethan Hawke, Simon Russell Beale, Sinead Cusack and recent star of Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, Rebecca Hall.

The Cherry Orchard is a new translation by Tom Stoppard, who will also see his 1993 play Arcadia revived in a new production at the Duke of York’s Theatre starring his son Ed Stoppard and Samantha Bond and Dan Stevens. In its first run at the National Theatre the play won a slew of awards including Critics’ Circle, Evening Standard and Olivier Awards.

Other notable players making their way into town include Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers) in Carrie’s War at the Apollo Theatre, and Gillian Anderson, who will star in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Donmar Warehouse, joining a stellar cast that includes Christopher Eccleston, Toby Stephens, Tara Fitzgerald and Anton Lesser.

Musical theatre is firmly “based on a film” this year as a blockbuster stage production of Sister Act joins a West End brimming with adaptations of movies, including recent addition Priscilla Queen of the Desert starring Jason Donovan and long-runners Hairspray with Michael Ball, Dirty Dancing, The Lion King, Billy Elliot, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Sunset Boulevard – and Grease, which will star Dancing on Ice winner Ray Quinn as Danny from 11 May.

Sister Act, which runs from 7 May at the London Palladium, is produced by the film’s original star Whoopi Goldberg and features Sheila Hancock and rising star Patina Miller, with music courtesy of Alan Menken (Disney’s Beauty & The Beast).

Other movie-to-stage shows on the horizon include the Broadway production of Legally Blond opening at the Savoy Theatre at the end of the year and a stage adaptation of Oscar winning film Ghost, directed by Matthew Warchus, set for 2010.

Chief amongst the new musicals opening in London in the later part of 2009 will be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s world premiere of The Phantom of the Opera sequel Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre in early November. The show is set to star current London Phantom Ramin Karimloo and will follow its London opening with productions in Toronto, Shanghai and then Broadway.

A number of shows that have run successfully in other venues are also making their way into the West End including Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply) and Henry Goodman in Duet For One at the Vaudeville Theatre; the acclaimed production of Steven Sondheim’s A Little Night Music starring Maureen Lipman at the Garrick Theatre; the National Theatre’s War Horse, a family drama set during World War I about a boy’s adventures to find his beloved horse, at the New London theatre; and following its smash-hit run on Broadway – a new UK production of uber hip musical Spring Awakening at the Novello Theatre.

Other long running musicals that continue to extend their runs and pack them in include Avenue Q – now at the Gielgud Theatre, Blood Brothers, We Will Rock You, Chicago, Wicked, Jersey Boys, Stomp, Oliver!, Mamma Mia!, Les Miserables, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Joseph, Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel, Thriller Live featuring the songs of Michael Jackson and an award-winning production of La Cage Aux Folles.

Long-running plays in London include scary thriller The Woman in Black, hilarious comedy The 39 Steps based on Alfred Hitchcock’s film and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

Finally, the V&A Museum in London has opened its new Theatre and Performance galleries following the closure of the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden in 2007. The new galleries will celebrate the UK’s heritage in culture and performance with hundreds of exhibits including costumes, set models, stage props, original posters and playbills, theatrical prints, paintings and photographs from some of London’s most famous theatrical productions.

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Transfer News: Juliet Stevenson, Avenue Q, Prunella Scales and War Horse

It’s all change in the West End as a number of shows close to make way for transfers from other theatres. In an increasingly risk-averse climate for producers, a hit in a small venue or success in a limited run could mean money if it transfers into the West End.  The subsidised National Theatre and Almeida are bringing in War Horse and Duet for One respectively, Cameron Mackintosh decides to keep Avenue Q running and Carrie’s War and Saturday Night transfer from smaller venues.

Duet For One

The Almeida’s recently acclaimed production Duet for One will transfer to the West End in May.

Tom Kempinski’s two-hander stars Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman and centres on a concert violinist (Stevenson) who goes to a psychiatrist (Goodman) in the wake of a tragedy.

Directed by Matthew Lloyd, it will transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre from 7th May.

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Avenue Q

There’s nothing like the threat of missing out to boost a show. Avenue Q - which has already run for 3 years at the Noel Coward Theatre, had announced its closure to make way for Calendar Girls.

But a new demand for tickets to catch the show before it exits London has promoted Cameron Mackintosh to transfer it to another one of his theatres – this time the Gielgud. It will reside there from 1 June.

Avenue Q will replace Enjoy starring Alison Steadman and David Troughton.

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Carrie’s War

Heart-warming family drama Carrie’s War – about two young evacuees during the Second World War and based on the classic kid’s novel by Nina Bawden is transferring from Sadler’s Wells into the West End.

Much loved actress Prunella Scales stars in the play, which will begin on 18 June at the Apollo Theatre. The show also stars Sarah Edwardson, who reprises the role of Carrie, and Amanda Symonds and James Beddard.

Carrie’s War will replace Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, currently starring James McAvoy.

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SAVE £14 ON TICKETS TO THREE DAYS OF RAIN

War Horse

From World War II to the First World War – and the opening this month in the West End of the National Theatre’s critically smash-hit War Horse – galloping across the river from the National to the New London Theatre from next week – 28th March.

The award-winning adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel, set during World War I,is directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, and is told using the  puppetry of the South African Handspring Puppet Company – including life-size horses and a tank!

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Sondheim’s Saturday Night

Stephen Sondheim’s first Broadway musical Saturday Night will at long last enjoy a West End premiere, despite being penned by Sondheim in the 1950s.

After selling out run the Jermyn Street Theatre, it will come to the Arts Theatre for a short run from 25 March. Set it New York just before the Wall Street crash of 1929, the show stars Helena Blackman, who was runner up in the BBC1 talent show “How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?”

London Theatre – 2009 Preview

If theatre mirrors life then you would expect 2009 to be a bad year for the performing arts in London: economic downturns and credit crunches sound like gloomy news for our discretionary entertainment spending. But West End theatre box office figures have kept on going up in recent years, and the huge number of new productions sailing into town during 2009 could mean that Theatreland manages to buck the trend.

THE GREAT REVIVAL

The RSC, National Theatre, Donmar and Old Vic dominated straight drama in the West End in 2008, and they haven’t finished yet. Big hitters coming to town include Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike in the Donmar in the West End’s Madame de Sade at the Wyndhams; Jude Law offering us his, hopefully fighting fit, Hamlet; Gillian Anderson in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Rachel Weisz in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse; Helen Mirren making her return to the London stage in Phaedra at the National Theatre; and a number of crowd-pleasing revivals at the Old Vic, no more so than Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel’s hugely successful play starring Andrea Corr, and Sam Mendes directing Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, both featuring Ethan Hawke, Simon Russell Beale and Sinead Cusack.

STAR POWER

Other stars shimmying into town include Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket, Ken Stott and Hayley Atwell in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York’s, heavy-hitter Pete Postlethwaite as King Lear at the Young Vic, and Antony Sher giving us his Prospero in the RSC’s The Tempest. The Gavin and Stacey phenomenon continues to roll on, as we see Joe Orton’s delicious romp Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Trafalgar Studios starring Gavin himself, Matthew Horne, alongside Imelda Staunton; whilst Gavin’s onscreen Mum Alison Steadman plays a barking Leeds housewife in Alan Bennett’s Enjoy at the Gielgud Theatre.

NEW PLAYS

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that all of these plays are revivals rather than new work, keeping audiences firmly in their comfort zones. That said, new plays may be thin on the ground but not absent all together, with the National offering up Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice, following two lovers across four centuries, and Samuel Adamson’s Mrs Affleck set in the 1950s. Jez Butterworth has two new plays in pre-production, with comedy Parlour Song at the Almeida and Jerusalem at the Royal Court. Also at the Royal Court, Mark Ravenhill will bring his new play Over There. Plus Hollywood man of the moment James McAvoy is to star in Richard Greenberg’s acclaimed play Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, and at The Old Vic Richard Dreyfuss headlines the world premiere of American playwright Joe Sutton’s new play Complicit, directed by Kevin Spacey.

“BASED ON A FILM”

In musical theatre, 2009 promises to be a year of great big fabulous and familiar shows, surely enough to see us through the dark times? And it’s no coincidence that many of them are based on hugely successful films.

Oliver! will be well and truly steaming ahead through 2009 at the Drury Lane Theatre Royal with Rowan Atkinson and Jodie Prenger; La Cage Aux Folles will continue camping it up at the Playhouse but with Graham Norton taking over from Douglas Hodge; and at the Adelphi Theatre Lee Mead will bow out of Joseph to be replaced by Gareth Gates.

Jason Donovan will be donning the wigs and lip gloss to take us on an Australian power-mince in Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the Palace Theatre. And Sister Act at the London Palladium will be doing its best to recreate the fun of the film, helped along by Whoopi Goldberg as co-producer. And not quite a musical but as good as, Calendar Girls the stage play will up the naked flesh quotient in the West End, starring Patricia Hodge and Lynda Bellingham at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Also in musicals-land the power of reality TV continues to wield its power, with Gareth Gates going into Joseph at the Adelphi Theatre, the X-factor’s Niki Evans continuing in Blood Brothers at the Phoenix, Jodie Prenger in Oliver at the Drury Lane, and Ray Quinn and Danny Bayne in Grease – joined for a limited time by the legendary Jimmy Osmond.

KIDS RULE

Kids should also see a good year in 2009 with an enormous live theatrical production of Walking with Dinosaurs coming to a stadium near you, and War Horse transfers from its successful run at the National Theatre to the New London Theatre.

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