This year Regent's Park is going
Crazy for You; which is nice isn't it. The people behind the brilliant
Open Air Theatre season have chosen this musical, based on the music of
Ira and
George Gershwin, as their 2011 musical they do one a year and it's an excellent choice for this surprisingly versatile venue.
2010's
Into The Woods might have seemed like almost too perfect a choice for this theatre which is a leafy outdoor amphitheatre in Regent's Park but 2009's offering
Hello Dolly! was not so perfectly type cast as far as the location goes, and yet they used the outdoor setting very effectively. So we can be confident that the team will pull it off stylishly again.
London's seen
Crazy for You before. The original production premiered in the West End in 1993, and promptly won every musical theatre award going. That seems like a recent premiere for a Gershwin musical doesn't it? That's because the book of this musical isn't by the Gershwins: it's a reworking of their
Girl Crazy, but with a few more of their most famous songs worked into it, and a revised storyline. So as well as
'I Got Rhythm', 'Embracable You' and 'But Not For Me', you'll also get to hear
'Nice Work If You Can Get It', 'They Can't Take That Away from Me' and
'Shall We Dance' which are probably all the Gershwin songs you know.
The story is all American-cotton-candy-sweet it's an 'RKO film from the 1930s' type of a musical. The lead is Bobby Child, who's the heir to a wealthy banking family who'd rather be singing and dancing than working in the bank. After an unsuccessful audition he's sent by his mother and fiancιe to close a rundown theatre in a remote western town. When he gets there he changes the plan slightly, vowing to put on a show to make enough money to pay off the mortgage and get the theatre back for the proprietor, who has a daughter Bobby very much fancies. As this is a 1930s style production there are several sets of star crossed, but practically challenged lovers, plenty of comedy moments and of course hi-jinx galore. It's gonna be alotta' fun, baby.
