Forbidden Broadway to Play London’s Menier Chocolate Factory

A decade after it was last seen in the West End, the cult satirical revue show Forbidden Broadway, which recently ended its record-breaking 27-year run in New York, returns to London this summer for a limited season at the Menier Chocolate Factory, June 25-September 13, with an opening set for July 2.

Broadway’s biggest hits and flops — amongst them many West End transfers — as well as its brightest stars are irreverently panned, poked, lampooned and lambasted, while set to the tunes of a medley of favorite showstoppers. Conceived and written by Gerard Alessandrini and co-directed by Phillip George, Forbidden Broadway premiered in 1982 in New York, where it became a long-running – and continuously updated – Theatreland institution. In 1997, Alessandrini received the Drama League Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre, and in 2006, the show itself won a special Tony Award.

In the West End, Forbidden Broadway was first seen in 1989 at the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for two-and-a-half months. Ten years later, it was mounted at the fringe Jermyn Street Theatre before transferring to the West End’s Albery Theatre (now the Noel Coward) for a month.

In this updated version, created specially for the Menier, the cast will feature Anna-Jane Casey, Sophie-Louise Dann, Alasdair Harvey, and Steven Kynman. The new production is designed by Morgan Large, with costumes by the late Alvin Colt, lighting by David Howe, and musical direction by Joel Fram.

For more information, visit www.whatsonstage.com.