City News

Caroline Sheen will star as ‘Mary Poppins’ and Daniel Crossley as ‘Bert’ in Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s award-winning musical MARY POPPINS at BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME from 10 JULY to 27 SEPTEMBER 2008.

Caroline Sheen has appeared as the lead role in many West End musicals. These include Truly Scrumptious in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, Sandy in ‘Grease’, Eponine in ‘Les Misérables’ and Florinda in ‘Into the Woods’ at the Donmar Warehouse. She was also in the original casts of ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ and ‘Mamma Mia!’.

Daniel Crossley has appeared in the West End productions of ‘Chicago’, ‘Fosse’, ‘Anything Goes’ and ‘BoyBand’. His other credits include several seasons at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park appearing in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘As You Like It’ and ‘Oh, What A Lovely War’.

Caroline and Daniel will be joined by Martin Ball as ‘Mr Banks’, Louise Bowden as ‘Mrs Banks’ Deryn Edwards as ‘Miss Andrew’, Shirley Jameson as ‘Mrs Brill’, Valda Aviks as ‘Birdwoman’ and Mark Anderson as ‘Robertson Ay’.

Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s internationally renowned and multi award-winning creative team assembled for MARY POPPINS is led by stage and film director Richard Eyre. Co-direction & choreography is by Matthew Bourne, with co-choreography by Stephen Mear. Bob Crowley has designed the sets and costumes. Lighting design is by Howard Harrison, Sound by Paul Groothius, and Orchestrations by William David Brohn. Musical Supervision will be by Stephen Brooker and the conductor will be James Dodgson. Producer for Disney Theatrical Productions is Thomas Schumacher. Associate Director for the tour is James Powell and Associate Choreographer is Geoff Garratt.

MARY POPPINS includes many of the original songs from the film with music and lyrics by Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman.  The new stage production has been created, in collaboration with Cameron Mackintosh, by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes who has written the book, and the Olivier award-winning British team of George Stiles and Anthony Drewe who have written the new songs and additional music and lyrics.

The London production of MARY POPPINS ran for three and a half years and over 1000 performances at the Prince Edward Theatre winning many prestigious awards. These included, an Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreography (Matthew Bourne and Stephen Mear), the Variety Club Award for Best Musical and the Evening Standard Award for Best Set Design (Bob Crowley) and Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Award for Best Design (Bob Crowley).

The Broadway production opened in Autumn 2006 to tremendous acclaim and quickly became one of the biggest hits of the 06/07 season. It recently won the Tony® Award for Best Set Design (Bob Crowley) and continues to be one of the top five weekly grossing shows on Broadway.

MARY POPPINS runs at Birmingham Hippodrome from Thursday 10 July – Saturday 27 September.    Tickets are priced £16.50-£45.    Perf times; Mon Sat eves 7.30pm; Wed mats 2pm; Sat mats 2.30pm.    Telephone 0844 338 5000 or online

www.birminghamhippodrome.com
Booking fee applies 6% phone/counter, 3% online.    National call rate applies.