Youth musical theatre company 'The Company' will make its London premiere this August when it brings the hit musical Mack & Mabel to the Greenwich Theatre.
‘The Company’ is an inclusive youth theatre for musicals performing in major cities in the UK and has come to London for the first time to build upon its previous success at productions at regional theatres. Auditions for Mack and Mabel took place in London and Manchester and the show will be performed by talented young people, up to the age of 23, from all across the UK. The full cast has now been announced and can be found on The Company’s website.
Mack and Mabel was written by Michael Stewart with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, who also wrote the music and lyrics for 'Hello, Dolly!' and 'Mame', said he just wants to ‘make the world feel good and leave audiences happily humming’. But there is a much darker streak in Mack & Mabel that runs against the bright razzmatazz. This tension creates the torch ballad ‘Time Heals Everything' and the haunting anti-love song 'I Won't Send Roses'.
Mack & Mabel is set in New York in 1911 and Hollywood in the early twenties when movies were silent and the cinema was magic. The plot centres on the tumultuous relationship between Hollywood Director, Mack Sennett, and Mabel Normand, a waitress from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who goes on to become one of his biggest screen stars. The glory days of the Keystone Studios are relived, from 1911, through his creation of 'Sennett's Bathing Beauties' and the 'Keystone Cops'.
The original 1974 Broadway production received 8 Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical. Denis Quilley and Imelda Staunton starred in the first UK production at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1981
Twenty-two year old Alex Knox, who plays Mack in the show said: ‘I was thrilled to be cast as Mack in The Company’s Mack and Mabel. This will be my third production as part of ‘The Company’ and I couldn’t be more excited to get started. I feel that the experience of working with the team of West End professionals has been invaluable to the development of my career. I'm thrilled to be taking the title role in The Company’s first ever production in London, it is really exciting for me and brings all sorts of opportunities."
Many past and present performers have gone on to achieve considerable success in West End theatre and in such TV programmes as Beautiful People, Waterloo Road and Skins and its creative team has received 4* ratings in The Times.
Tickets for Mack and Mabel are now on sale and can be purchased online at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk
