FIFTH & FINAL UK TOUR FOR LGBT LOVE STORY MISS NIGHTINGALE – THE MUSICAL
Miss Nightingale - the musical by local playwright and composer Matthew Bugg is coming home to South Yorkshire this week, having been named the most successful new UK touring musicals of the last decade. Since it was first staged in 2011, the hilarious and heart-warming gay love story has been enjoyed by tens of thousands of people across the UK and returns with a brand new production for a fifth and final UK tour, Autumn 2015 and Spring 2016.
Miss Nightingale – the musical is an hilarious and heart warming tale of love, loss and hope brings the gay glamour and back-stage affairs of 1940’s London thrillingly to life. The South Yorkshire dates are Cast, Doncaster on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October and Sheffield Library Theatre from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 October 2015.
Feisty northern nurse Maggie Brown struggles to find her big break as a singer. Her talented songwriter, George, is a Jewish refugee from Berlin. She longs for the bright lights. He hides a secret love in the shadows.
Suddenly they are picked up by wealthy and closeted aristocrat Sir Frank Worthington-Blythe. He’s seeking a new act for his London nightclub and transforms Maggie into ‘Miss Nightingale’. Her racy love life and outrageous costumes combined with George’s saucy cabaret numbers help create a scandalous new West End star.
As they reach the pinnacle of success everything changes when George and Sir Frank’s secret romance is discovered. Bootleg booze, blackmail and bombshells prove to be a very dangerous cocktail. And the truth becomes even more explosive than The Blitz.
Miss Nightingale – the musical will be performed by a new cast of six who not only act, dance and sing but also play more than twenty different instruments live on stage.
The show’s creator Matthew Bugg said, “I’m so excited to be embarking on a fifth and final tour of ‘Miss Nightingale – the musical’. We’ve completely reworked the show since we first presented a small-scale, studio version back in 2011. In fact we’ve kept developing the show during our previous tours to make it even better and better. We’ve cut some songs and added others and tweaked a few of the scenes to make it punchier, funnier and more touching. It seems to be working because I’m told we’re the most successful truly original, new British musical to tour the UK for the last decade!”
He added, “And for this tour we’ve got an amazing new cast with some of the best and most talented actor-musicians in the country – they act, dance, sing and play all the instruments live on stage. It’s so impressive. And we’ve also got a fantastic new director, Karen Simpson who people locally will know from her time at Sheffield Theatres. So I’m really, really excited to see how this brings out different elements of the show because every performer and director brings out something new. But this will be our farewell UK tour because we’re keen to start work on our next show, so as a South Yorkshire-based theatre company our homecoming shows in Sheffield and Doncaster will be particularly poignant and last year’s were a sell-out success.”
Full details can be found at www.missnightingale.co.uk Tickets for Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October 2015 at Cast, Doncaster available from castindoncaster.com / 01302 303 959, for Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 October 2015 at Sheffield Library Theatre from sheffieldtheatres.co.uk / 0114 249 6000, and for Tuesday 26 to Saturday 30 January 2016 at Hull Truck Theatre.
