Funny Girl - Sheridan Smith stars at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
SHERIDAN Smith will lead the cast in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s revival of the musical Funny Girl, which runs from November 20, 2015 to March 5, 2016.
Smith (previously at the Chocolate Factory in Little Shop of Horrors) will play Fanny Brice, who rose from the Lower East Side of New York to become one of Broadway’s biggest stars under producer Florenz Ziegfield. While she was cheered onstage as a great comedienne, offstage she faced a doomed relationship with the man she loved, Nick Arnstein.
It includes musical numbers such as I’m the Greatst Star, Second Hand Rose, People and Don’t Rain on My Parade.
Funny Girl was famously filmed in 1968 with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif in the starring roles.
As well as Little Shop of Horrors, Olivier and BAFTA award winner Sheridan Smith’s stage credits include Legally Blonde, Flare Path and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She has also appeared on television in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (as Janet), Gavin & Stacey (Rudi), Mrs Biggs (Charmian Biggs), Cilla (Cilla Black) and The C Word (Lisa Lynch).
Funny Girl has music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne and book by Isobel Lennart, Styne and Merrill.
The new production will be directed by Michael Mayer (Hedwig and Spring Awakening on Broadway). Further casting is still to be announced.
Also at the Menier Chocolate Factory: Anthony Horowitz’s new comedy Dinner with Saddam, starring Steven Berkoff (September 10 to November 14, 2015).