Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - Robert Lindsay and Rufus Hound star
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ROBERT Lindsay and Rufus Hound will star as the comedy duo Lawrence Jameson and Freddy Benson in the UK premiere production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which opens at the Savoy Theatre on April 1, 2014 (previews from March 10) following runs in Manchester and Aylesbury.
Joining Lindsay and Hound as Christine Colgate will be Katherine Kingsley. Further casting will be announced shortly.
Directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winning Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde) in his debut production for Jerry Mitchell Productions, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has music and lyrics by Drama Desk Award winner David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and book by Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning Jeffery Lane (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Mad About You).
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is based on the 1988 film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, directed by Frank Oz.
In this new musical comedy production, which has been reconceived and reimagined for the UK stage, audiences will be transported to the French Riviera, where the decadent world of sophisticated conman Lawrence Jameson is set to come crashing down with the arrival of larger-than-life Freddy Benson – a conman of an entirely different order.
Soon realising the town ain’t big enough for the both of them, the two find themselves going head to head in the con of their lives, pulling out all of the stops in a bid for the affections of millionaire soap heiress Christine Colgate. Little do they know what they’ve let themselves in for….
Olivier, Tony and BAFTA award-winning actor Robert Lindsay is best known for his brilliantly comedic performance in My Family, which ran for nine series and for which he was nominated for the 2001 BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance, and on stage his award-winning performance in And My Girl, alongside Emma Thompson, for which he won Olivier and Tony Awards.
His other stage credits include The Lion In Winter (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Onassis (Derby Playhouse/Novello Theatre), Aristo (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), The Entertainer and Trelawny Of The Wells (Old Vic), Power (National Theatre), Richard III (Savoy Theatre), Oliver! (London Palladium), Cyrano De Bergerac (Theatre Royal, Haymarket), Becket (Theatre Royal, Haymarket), for which he won the 1992 Variety Club Best Theatre Actor award and was nominated for the 1992 Olivier Award for Actor of The Year, and Philoctetes (Royal Exchange Theatre), for which he won the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Actor.
Lindsay’s other screen credits include Spy, Falcon, The Trial Of Tony Blair, Jericho, Jake’s Progress, for which he was nominated for the 1995 BAFTA for Best Actor, G.B.H, for which he won BAFTA and RTS Awards for Best Actor, King Lear, Cymbeline, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Seconds Out, Citizen Smith, Grace Of Monaco, Wimbledon, Divorcing Jack and That’ll Be The Day.
Rufus Hound is best known as a comedian, TV and radio personality and performer. His theatre credits include the National Theatre’s One Man, Two Guvnors (Theatre Royal, Haymarket/UK Tour) and Neville’s Island (Chichester Festival Theatre). He won Let’s Dance for Sport Relief 2010, and regularly appeared in Celebrity Juice (seven series), Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Would I Lie To You, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, You Have Been Watching, Mad Mad World and Argumental.
Hound is also well known as a TV presenter, with credits including Top Of The Pops, Glastonbury and The Brits: Backstage. His screen credits include The Wedding Video, A Touch Of Cloth 2, Big Fat Gypsy Gangster and Hounded; while his radio work includes Act Your Age and My Teenage Diary, which won a Sony Award in 2013 for BBC Radio 4, as well as his own comedy show, What’s So Funny. In 2011, he released his debut stand-up DVD, Being Rude.
Katherine Kingsley’s last musical theatre role was in Singinʼ In The Rain at Chichester Festival Theatre and the Palace Theatre, for which she was nominated for both the 2012 Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical and the 2013 What’s On Stage Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.
Her other theatre credits include A Midsummer Nightʼs Dream (Noel Coward Theatre) alongside Sheridan Smith and David Walliams, Relative Values (Bath Theatre Royal), The 24 Hour Musical Celebrity Gala (Old Vic), Heart To Heart (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee (Donmar Warehouse), which was nominated for the 2012 What’s On Stage Award for Best Ensemble, Company for Sondheims 80th Celebration (Donmar Warehouse/Queens Theatre), Aspects Of Love (Menier Chocolate Factory), The 39 Steps (Liverpool Playhouse/UK Tour), Piaf! (Donmar Warehouse/Vaudeville Theatre), for which she was nominated for the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Hobsonʼs Choice (Chichester Festival Theatre) and High Society (Shaftesbury Theatre).
As well as Kinky Boots and Legally Blonde, which he also directed, Jerry Mitchell’s other credits as a choreographer include the Broadway production of Catch Me If You Can and the West End production of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, La Cage aux Folles, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics’ Circle Awards, Hairspray, for which he received Olivier, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ Circle and Astaire Award nominations, and The Full Monty, for which he again received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations for choreography.
A co-production between the Ambassador Theatre Group, Jerry Mitchell Productions and Tulchin/Bartner Productions, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will have set and costume design by Olivier Award-winning Peter McKintosh.
Tickets (on sale from 10am on Monday, November 4, 2013): £24.50 – £67.50 (Premium Tickets available). To book, call the box office on 0844 871 3046 or visit www.scoundrelswestend.com/.
Times: Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm; Thursday and Saturday matinees at 3pm; Press Night (Wednesday, April 2) at 7pm.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels can be seen at Manchester Opera House from February 12 to February 22, 2014 and at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre from February 26 to March 1, 2014.
Let It Be continues at the Savoy Theatre until February 8, 2014.