UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Revamped Lord of the Rings musical to come to the London stage

A revamped Lord of the Rings musical is to open in London's West End this summer. Deemed to be the most expensive musical ever to be staged in the British capital, the show will cost 12.5 million pounds to produce. Lord of the Rings director Matthew Warchus on Thursday (February 8) presented his 50-strong cast of what is being billed as the most expensive musical ever staged in London's West End. The musical opens in London in June, after having been extensively reworked and cut by 40 minutes following damning reviews of its world premiere in Toronto. "There's been months and months of preparation leading up to this point, now we're in rehearsals and soon we're going to be moving into the theatre, it's all becoming a reality and this is a culmination of years of work", Warchus said. Actress Laura Michelle Kelly who won an Olivier theatre award for her stage portrayal of Mary Poppins, returns to the stage to play Galadriel. She said: "I think people are going to be genuinely excited by it because they're about to see skills that have never been seen on a West End stage before ever. I mean there are some things in it that you'd expect to see in Cirque du Soleil, there are some fantastic gymnasts, athletes, and actors in this." On show for journalists at the press call were actors playing deadly orcs that skipped, bounded and somersaulted across London's historic Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The Toronto show, which took four years to bring to the stage, was applauded by critics for its gymnastic orcs and menacing dark riders but they confessed to getting lost in the tangled plots of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Producers hope that the revamped musical will sit well with critics in London. "We've really got some cutting-edge design technology in the show, whether that is the hydraulic stage, or the use of flying an aerial work on particular kinds of stilts, and footwear, powerskips, also we got smoke design at a level that is cutting edge , all of those things, it's brilliant to be able to harness those kind of resources, but in my view audiences don't really care about that unless there is a story, emotion. The trick for the director is to entwine the two things. The audiences are saying "wow" and are having an awe-inspiring experience but it's because of the characters and sensations and the emotional connections that carry them through the story." The show cost 12.5 million pounds (23 million US dollars) to stage in Canada and another 12.5 million pounds to put on in London, producer Kevin Wallace said. "It is the most expensive musical ever staged in London's West End," he added. London theatres enjoyed a record year in 2006, fuelled by hit musicals like "The Sound of Music" and Monty Python's "Spamalot." For Warchus, the show has it all to become a success story, and as for the audience, they just have to come in and be charmed: "You don't have to know anything about Lord of the Rings, you don't have to be a fan, you don't even have to have seen the films or like the films or know anything about that or the novel in order to find something new or fresh here so I stand somewhere between a fan, an expert, and a complete amateur when it comes to Tolkien. It's probably a good place for the director of this particular version to be."

ITN Source | February 15, 2007

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