The Grand Tour - Finborough Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
JERRY Herman’s multi Tony Award nominated Broadway musical, The Grand Tour, is to receive its European première at the Finborough Theatre.
Part of the Finborough’s 20 Premières Season, it runs from Thursday, January 1 to Saturday, February 21, 2015.
Produced by Danielle Tarento and directed by Thom Southerland, The Grand Tour is based on the play Jacobowsky and The Colonel by Franz Werfel as adapted by S. N. Behrman, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble.
France, 1940. Jacobowsky, a Polish Jewish intellectual, has been one step ahead of the Nazis for years. Stjerbinsky, an aristocrat, anti semitic Polish colonel is desperately trying to get to England.
Jacobowsky has purchased a car he doesn’t know how to drive. The Colonel knows how to drive, but has no car. When the two meet at a Paris hotel, they agree to join forces in order to escape the approaching Nazis. Together with the Colonel’s girlfriend, Marianne, they begin their perilous journey on the road to freedom.
Featuring one of Jerry Herman’s most engrossing and heartfelt scores, The Grand Tour finds beauty, light and humour in one of history’s darkest hours.
Jerry Herman is one of Broadway’s most prolific composers, whose best known works include Hello, Dolly!, Mame, La Cage aux Folles and Mack & Mabel. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. In 2009, Herman received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.
Michael Stewart made his Broadway debut with Bye Bye Birdie in 1960. He won two Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical for Hello, Dolly! and was further nominated for Mack & Mabel, Carnival!, I Love My Wife, Barnum, 42nd Street and Harrigan ‘n’ Hart.
Mark Bramble has been nominated for the Tony Award three times: for Best Book of a Musical for Barnum and 42nd Street and Best Direction of a Musical for 42nd Street.
Thom Southerland was longlisted Best Newcomer in the 2011 Evening Standard Awards for Parade at Southwark Playhouse and was named Best Director at the 2011 The Offies – Off West End Theatre Awards for Me And Juliet at the Finborough Theatre.
His other directing credits include Titanic, Victor/Victoria and Mack & Mabel (Southwark Playhouse); Daisy Pulls It Off and Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam! (Upstairs At The Gatehouse); the European première of I Sing!, Divorce Me, Darling!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game and sold-out all-male adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore and The Mikado (Union Theatre); Noël and Gertie (Cockpit Theatre); the European première of The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Landor Theatre); and the European première of State Fair (Finborough Theatre/Trafalgar Studios).
Danielle Tarento was named Best Producer at the 2012 Off West End Awards and recently won Best Off West End Production at the 2014 Whatsonstage Awards and Best Musical Production at the 2014 Off West End Awards for Titanic at Southwark Playhouse. She has also produced Dogfight, Victor/Victoria, Mack & Mabel, Parade, Company and Three Sisters (Southwark Playhouse); Taboo (Brixton Clubhouse); The Pitchfork Disney (Arcola Theatre); Burlesque and Drowning on Dry Land (Jermyn Street Theatre); and Noël and Gertie (Cockpit Theatre).
Tarento is co-founder of the Menier Chocolate Factory and co-produced all in-house shows from 2004 to 2006, including Sunday In The Park With George, which received a West End transfer and five Olivier Awards.
The cast and creative team for The Grand Tour have yet to be announced.
Tickets: Previews (January 1 – 4): £14 all seats; January 6 – 25: £20, £16 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £16 all seats, and Friday and Saturday evenings £20 all seats; January 27 to February 21: £22, £18 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £18 all seats, and Friday and Saturday evenings £22 all seats; £10 tickets for under 30’s for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only; £12 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on Saturday, January 10 when booked online. To book, call the box office on 020 7244 7439 or visit www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/.
Times: Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3pm; (no Saturday matinee on January 10); extra matinee on Friday, February 20 at 3pm.
Also at the Finborough Theatre: Angelina Weld Grimké’s Rachel (until October 25, 2014) and Vibrant 2014 – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights (November 2 to November 20).