Chicago Archives - Page 2 of 2

11Feb

By Luke StephensonNo Comments

North West

Chicago – Liverpool Empire

Last night in Liverpool the cast of Chicago set out to give the audience a little Razzle Dazzle as the production kicks off on its tour. This show has a glorious score and a brilliant cast to match. The synopsis of the story is Roxie Hart played by Faye Brookes is arrested for murdering Fred Casely. However, she always dreams of being a show girl. After being arrested she’s put in the Cook County jail we’re she meets shows girl Velma Kelly (Djalenga Scott). Needing to get out of the clink before she is headed for the death penalty, she asks the keeper of keys Matron Mamma Morton (Sheila Ferguson) for help and after a few expensive calls, in comes Billy Flynn (Russell Watson), who for 5000 dollars will represent Roxy. Part of the plan will be to win over journalists one in particular is ...

25Jan

By Priya GuptaNo Comments

West Midlands

Chicago – Alexandra Theatre

Start the car and head on down to the Alexandra Theatre, where Chicago really is all that jazz. The Tony award-winning, record-breaking hit musical has Fosse walked its way to Birmingham and it doesn’t disappoint. Set in Chicago in the Jazz age, the musical is based on the 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins. With the music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, and the book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the ‘celebrity criminal’. Set in the backdrop of 1920’s decadence Roxie Hart murders her lover after he threatens to walk out on her. To avoid conviction, she dupes the public and the media by hiring Chicago’s slickest criminal lawyer, Billy Flynn, who will defend you for a high price, guilty ...

9Nov

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Chicago – Hull New Theatre

Whose idea was it to place a 10-piece band centre stage throughout the production of Chicago, which came to the Hull New Theatre on Monday night? The programme credits a John Lee Beatty as being responsible for “scenic design”. So, Mr Beatty - I doffs my cap, it was a genius move on your part. The musician backdrop was a major part of this amazing spectacle and wouldn’t have been the same if such talents had been hidden away in an orchestra pit. All the action takes place in 1920s Chicago, America, as we follow the shenanigans of two prison cellmates - Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. Roxie (Faye Brookes) and Velma (Djalenga Scott) are streetwise “broads” and murderers who use their feminine wiles to try to convince a jury to find them innocent. Of course, they need the services ...

26Oct

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Chicago – Wolverhampton Grand

“Chicago” can hardly be described as bursting with colour with a limited design palette of black, white, grey and occasional splatters of bloody red light during the murders it aims to emulate, perhaps, the movies of the period. More accurately it emulates the still photographs of the newspapers of the period and chooses to present it all in a stilted and, oddly, uninvolving fashion. As the production adopts a distancing alienating technique (I’m guessing more a directorial decision than an authorial one) it deliberately stops us from engaging and empathising with the characters or plot - so all that is left to beguile us is technique and design. The band dominate the stage sitting like a jazz orchestra trapped in a roll-top desk leaving just a sliver of fore stage for the remainder of ...

Darren Day joins Chicago UK Tour cast as Billy Flynn

4Jun

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Darren Day joins Chicago UK Tour cast as Billy Flynn

David Ian in association with Barry and Fran Weissler are delighted to announce that West End and TV star Darren Day will play ‘Billy Flynn’ in the forthcoming UK and Ireland tour of the international musical sensation CHICAGO opening at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow on Saturday 11th September 2021. Darren joins the previously announced Faye Brookes as ‘Roxie Hart’, Sinitta as ‘Mama Morton’, Divina De Campo as ‘Mary Sunshine’, Djalenga Scott as ‘Velma Kelly’ and Joel Montague as ‘Amos Hart’. Tour schedule and casting details below. www.chicagothemusical.com The cast will also include Ishmail Aaron, Michelle Andrews, Gabby Antrobus, Delycia Belgrave, Joel Benjamin, Tanisha-Mae Brown, Daniel Clift...