Cast for UK Tour of TOP HAT announced, Alan Burkitt and Charlotte Gooch to lead

Alan Burkitt and Charlotte Gooch will lead the cast of Top Hat when it embarks on its second UK and Ireland tour later this year.

The show first toured the UK in 2011 prior to its West End premiere the following year. It went on to win three Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical.

Burkitt and Gooch both return to the show having previously performed the lead roles of Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont in the West End.

Adaped from the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film, Top Hat is directed by Matthew Whiteand choreographed by Bill Deamer.

From Here To Eternity: Theatre Review

Based on the 1951 novel and 1953 film of the same name, From Here To Eternity is the new musical from Tim Rice and it makes its world premiere at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End. The original film won 8 Academy Awards and starred Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Montgomery Cliff and Deborah Kerr. The story is really beautiful, emotional and powerful. 

However simple Tamara Harvey’s direction of the show is she has presented a very clear and precise version of the story. Many themes lie within the story, one of them being Homosexuality. This is quite a large part of the story and the theme is very interesting (especially when involving the army in 1941) but I didn’t feel like it was used enough. It was almost skimmed over very quickly and felt a little random when in fact it actually has a very large impact in the show. I would have liked for them to have taken this theme further and go deeper with it because it definitely had the potential to be a really interesting part of the production.