Legally Blonde

Based on the hit movie, Legally Blonde the Musical is the Broadway sensation created by Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray), and starring Sheridan Smith ( Gavin and Stacey, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps), Richard Fleeshman (Coronation Street) and Jill Halfpenny (Chicago, Eastenders).

College sweetheart and homecoming queen Elle Woods doesn’t take no for an answer. So when her boyfriend, Warner, dumps her for someone serious, Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and heads for Harvard Law School!

Legally Blonde the Musical will take you from the social whirl of California Campus life to Harvard’s Halls of Justice with the West End’s brightest new heroine (and of course, her Chihuahua, Bruiser).

The verdict? This much fun shouldn’t be legal!

Book tickets to see Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London

Sheridan Smith to leave Legally Blonde

West End star Sheridan Smith has announced the date of her departure from hit West End show Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Confirming the date via her Twitter page, Smith will leave the show on 23 October 2010. Producers of the show are auditioning a number of actresses for the lead part of Elle Woods in the stage adaptation of the hit movie Legally Blonde.

Sheridan Smith is best known for her TV roles including Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Grown Ups, Love Soup, Benidorm, The Royle Family and Gavin and Stacey.

She has recently been filming a one-act Chekhov play for Sky Arts alongside Gavin and Stacey cast mate Matthew Horne. The play, The Proposal, is part of a short series celebrating the 150th anniversary of the playrwight, to be broadcast this November.

Sheridan also performed recently in a workshop version of a new musical based on Helen Fielding’s book Bridget Jones’s Diary, with music by Lily Allen. Stephen Daldry, director of the film and stage version of  Billy Elliot, will helm the project if it goes ahead. The show would also reunite Daldry with producers of the Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot films and stage shows Working Title Films, plus choreographer Peter Darling.

Book tickets to Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London

SHERIDAN SMITH in Legally Blonde

Sheridan Smith stars in Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre

Acclaimed actress Sheridan Smith is a true all-rounder, whether it’s turning her hand to TV or stage, to comedy or drama, to straight plays or musicals. She is currently wowing audiences at the Savoy Theatre in London as Elle Woods in the stage adaptation of the hit movie Legally Blonde.

She is best known for her TV roles including Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Grown Ups, Love Soup, Benidorm, The Royle Family and Gavin and Stacey.

Her stage work includes Into the Woods at the Donmar Warehouse, The People are Friendly for the Royal Cour, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Open Air Theatre and Audrey in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Little Shop of Horrors.

Book tickets to Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London

CASTING: Sister Act and Legally Blonde

It’s the great boy-band takeover of the West End as ex-Blue singer Simon Webbe and actor and pop singer Richard Fleeshman head to Theatreland.

SISTER ACT

Duncan James may be currently wowing them in Legally Blonde, but fellow Blue band mate Simon Webbe will be following in his footsteps later this year, by joining the cast of Sister Act at the London Palladium.

Webbe, who has appeared on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and is also a singer-songwriter, manager and recording artist, has had a few acting parts over the last few years but nothing as big as a major role in a West End show. Previous acting credits include romantic-comedy The Truth About Love and British gangster movie Rollin’ With The Nines.

Also starring in Sister Act is Patina Miller and Over The Rainbow judge Sheila Hancock .

LEGALLY BLONDE

Talking of Duncan James, he’s off! James, who has starred in Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre since its opening in January, will leave the show at the end of June.

His replacement in the role of Warner will be ex-Coronation Street star Richard Fleeshman. Most recently in BBC drama All The Small Things, Fleeshman also has a singing career and has released a an album, won ITV show Soapstar Superstar and supported Elton John on his 2008 stadium tour.

Sheridan Smith will continue in the lead role of Elle Woods in the feel-good hit that is based on the successful film.

Legally Blonde – Savoy Theatre – Reviews round-up

Round-up of reviews of LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London

The reviews of Legally Blonde, which opened on Wednesday at the Savoy Theatre in London, were largely positive.  Cleverly the producers allowed critics to review preview performances as well as the official First Night – which meant they were exposed to some of the hard-core fans that have alreday started to gather around this show. This was a smart move as the infectious enthusiasm of the audience won over many of the critics – all of whom seemed to come to the show with misgivings.

Whilst nearly all the reviews had reservations about the plot, they couldn’t resist being taken by the tongue-in-cheek humour of the show, and particuarly the strong central performce of Sheridan Smith as Elle Woods (see a summary of the plot here). All apart from Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail…

STAR RATINGS

The Guardian

The Telegraph

The Times

The Independent

Daily Mail

Evening Standard

OPENING THOUGHTS

DM: Legally Blonde is so pink it is as though the IRA planted a bomb in the late Dame Barbara Cartland’s laundry basket. It is pink not just in the colour of many of the clothes and stage effects. It is pink to the core of its little, tiny soul.

ES: It’s not often that a West End musical references Simon Cowell, case law and the science of getting a perm. But this is Legally Blonde, in which gags about spring break rub up against throw-aways about Gloria Steinem and Thomas Hobbes, and with its mix of daftness and knowingness this sugary yet far from stupid romp will surely be a palpable hit.

VA: Size, as they say, matters. That idea is not lost on Sonia Friedman and her raft of U.K. producers on “Legally Blonde,” who have put the show in a smallish house more accustomed to plays than lavish tuners. Their financial gamble pays off big time thanks to a heap of reasons, chief among them being casting. This guilty pleasure of a show remains precision-engineered candy-floss, but as Elle, pint-sized knockout Sheridan Smith gives it heart and helium levels of happiness.

TI: Omygod, as a jazzily dressed set of sorority sisters keep squealing at the start of the delightful, annoying, supremely wishful musical that’s just come frolicking into Blighty from Broadway. Omygod, a girl can make it in a male-dominated world without sacrificing a dab of pink lipstick.

IN: I had thought snootily that the stage show of Legally Blonde might put the “ugh” in “euuuugh!” But omigod was I like totally blown away.

GU: It is, of course, preposterous: an LA fashion student conquers Harvard law school and becomes a courtroom star. But, for all its absurdity, I found this Broadway musical infinitely more enjoyable than the 2001 Hollywood movie on which it is based.

TE: OMIGOD! I tried, I really tried to hate this show, but resistance is futile. It’s going to be a huge hit and if you’re a chap, your wife or girlfriend is almost certain to drag you along. You might as well give in gracefully now.

ON SHERIDAN SMITH

ES: Sheridan Smith is emphatically the star of the show… It’s a performance of great warmth and enthusiasm.

IN: With her brilliantly warm, winning, witty and all-round adorable performance as Elle, Sheridan Smith achieves stage stardom like some jaw-dropping hole-in-one in golf… This girl can twirl on a dime and take you from elating silliness to genuine sadness in less time than it takes to say “Delta Nu”.

VA: Elle dreams of a bright and shiny life, a hope-filled demeanor Smith delivers in spades. It’s infectious and immensely winning because she deploys razor-sharp comic timing without ever sacrificing properly developed emotion. She’s deliciously knowing but never arch. Even when surrounded by silliness, she has an uncanny knack of making you lose sight of the performer, to empathize directly with the character’s hopes and dreams.

TE: The chief glory of the show is Sheridan Smith as Elle, blessed with vitality, warmth, great comic timing and sudden moments of touching vulnerability. She is infinitely more likeable than Reese Witherspoon in the film.

GU: Sheridan Smith as Elle is also far more vivacious than Reese Witherspoon. Smith is perky, trim, and sings and dances excellently. But her true star quality lies in her sense of mischief, which I first noticed when she was a teenager appearing with the National Youth Music Theatre. Blessed with the long upper lip of a natural comic, Smith sails buoyantly through the show with a radiant smile as if warning us not to take it too seriously.

DM: Miss Smith’s singing voice is not strong but she brings a likeable cheekiness to the part. A crueller critic might wonder if she is glamorous enough for the role.

IN A NUTSHELL

ES: Legally Blonde is a winner. It’s energetic and amusing, with a sprightly sense of pace, and all but the most flinty-hearted theatregoers will leave it flushed with delight.

IN: It may not be quite as good as Hairspray (it lacks that show’s lovely, double-bluffing libertarian dimension), but it’s ridiculously enjoyable from start to finish and camp peroxide-perfection in terms of its showbiz roots.

VA: this transfer looks set to thrive as long as Smith wants to stick around and steal hearts.

TI: Let’s overlook some forgettable tunes and welcome dance that embraces everything from skipping with ropes to spoof Riverdance. Let’s relish the support both of a fake-Greek chorus dressed as cheerleaders and of two cute, unnaturally obedient dogs. Let’s agree that Legally Blonde is, well, fun.

TE: This is rom-com with a welcome touch of irony.

GU: I can only report that the ­predominantly female audience with whom I saw the show seemed to be ­having a whale of a time and did not give a damn about the fact that the musical is little more than a nonsensical fairytale.

DM: The plot is pap, the musical unmemorable, the dancing often hefty except for one routine with skipping ropes.

KEY TO REVIEWS:

GU = Guardian: Michael Billington. Read review

TE = Telegraph: Charles Spencer. Read review

TI = The Times: Benedict Nightingale. Read review

VA = Variety: David Benedict. Read review

IN = The Independent: Paul Taylor. Read review

ES = Evening Standard: Henry Hitchings. Read review

DM = Dail Mail: Quentin Letts. Read review

Book tickets to see LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London

ALEX GAUMOND in Legally Blonde

Alex Gaumond, 31, is no show-business novice. In a few short years the Canadian musicals actor has covered a lot of theatre ground with worldwide tours and numerous roles to his credit.

But this month proves a turning point in his career as he takes on one of the principal roles in the new big budget musical Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London. The reviews have been kind – with Variety in particular full of praise for his performance as Emmett, the quiet guy who finally gets the girl: “Resisting the temptation to push the “cute nerd” button, he never overplays his hand. Instead he allows the attraction to stem and grow from the sweetness of his singing voice and the ease of his playing.”

He already has a close connection to the UK, having lived here for the last 12 years after moving from Montreal, Canada. He trained at the Guildford School of Acting and his first professional acting job was in 2000 in the ensemble of Miss Saigon in the Philippines. He has subsequently appeared in numerous shows, including the 2002 West End production of The Full Monty, Sunday In The Park With George and Guys And Dolls, culminating in taking the lead in the UK tour of We Will Rock You.

His high-profile role in Legally Blonde promises to reward his years of hard ensemble work in musical theatre with a bright new future as a West End star.

Book tickets to see Alex Gaumond in Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre – Save £31.50

Save £31.50 on tickets to see LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Offer valid  Thursday matinees until the 25th March (excludes 18th February)

Westendtheatre.com presents an extra special offer on tickets to see Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Sheridan Smith ( Gavin and Stacey, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps), Duncan James from Blue and Jill Halfpenny (Chicago, Eastenders) star in this fabulous, fun-filled musical based on the movie.

College sweetheart and homecoming queen Elle Woods (Sheridan Smith) doesn’t take no for an answer. So when her boyfriend, Warner (Duncan James), dumps her for someone serious, Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and heads for Harvard Law School!

Based on the hit movie of the same name, Legally Blonde the Musical is the Broadway sensation created by a top-of-their-class creative team, led by Tony Award-winning director and Olivier nominated choreographer Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray).

Legally Blonde the Musical will take you from the social whirl of California Campus life to Harvard’s Halls of Justice with the West End’s brightest new heroine (and of course, her Chihuahua, Bruiser).

Save £31.50 on tickets to see LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Offer valid  Thursday matinees until the 25th March (excludes 18th February)

Legally Blonde to open in London

Book tickets to Legally Blonde The Musical at the Savoy Theatre

The West End production of Legally Blonde has gone on sale, with the multi-million pound production opening on 5 December 2009 at the Savoy Theatre.

Already a major hit on Broadway, the show is based on the 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon about a Californian college girl who follows her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School in an attempt to win him back.

TV star and Olivier Award winner Sheridan Smith (Little Shop of Horrors, Gavin and Stacey, Two Pints of Lager) will star as Elle Woods, alongside ex-Blue pop star Duncan James (Chicago) and Alex Gaumond (Guys and Dolls).

The show will be directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell and written by Heather Hach with music and lyrics by Nell Benjamin and Laurence O’Keefe, and songs include the infamous Bend and Snap song!

Sheridan Smith is also set to play the lead role of Samantha in a new BBC remake of 1960s classic sitcom Bewitched.

Book tickets to Legally Blonde The Musical at the Savoy Theatre