A thread to encompass articles on the Musical (old and new).

Please note, we are allowing the discussions about any article to take place in the main Bad Girls Musical thread - Click here for the main musical thread.
This is for archive reasons to allow all articles to be maintained in the same area.

One.

abzug Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:31 pm

Just Another Mad Bad Fan sent me this article from "The Yorkshire Post" on the 20 January.

PLAYHOUSE'S PRISON BREAK WITH BAD GIRLS
Nick Ahad.
The new year has potentially brought one of the strongest seasons Yorkshire theatre has had for a long while.

Controversy abounds with Jerry Springer: The Opera and The Romans in Britain. There is heavy and compelling fare from a hat-trick of Shakespeare, and some exciting new work. One show which has already started to cause the sort of stir that theatres want is the West Yorkshire Playhouse's Bad Girls the Musical.

Based on the popular television series Bad Girls, and brought to stage by the same team who created the TV version, the show has already received a number of bookings - which is perhaps not that unusual. What is unusual is the fact that they are from places as far afield as Devon, France, Sweden, New York and Canada.

The Bad Girls Christmas special was enormously popular. Due to film its eighth series this year, the programme is set in a women's prison, HMP Larkhall, and has legions of fans across Britain and the world.

Kath Gotts has written the music for the television show since the second series, and she has composed the music and written the lyrics for the stage version which comes to the Playhouse, in Leeds, on May 27 for a month.

When she visited the Playhouse last month, Gotts said: "We started thinking about the idea a couple of years ago and held a workshop with a couple of performances for an invited audience. That was a great way to learn about how to go about putting it together, but it also told us that the idea could work."

Gotts set up Big Broad Productions last year with Maggie Norris, who directs the television version of Bad Girls. The company will co-produce Bad Girls The Musical with the Playhouse. Henrietta Duckworth, producer at the Playhouse, said: "It's a really strong show with real characters. It's a show that's going to be a lot of fun.

"The big draw for us to get involved was that so many people write musicals, but very few have a story as strong as this one.

"The characters in the musical are real characters that an audience will care about. This isn't a case of just putting on a musical for the sake of it - we're staging a new British musical because we want to be at the forefront of theatre."

Gotts says that the Playhouse is the perfect place for the world premiere of the show.

"Although people know the characters, we know that it would be tough to go straight into the West End with a brand new musical," added Gotts.

"We were looking for someone outside the West End and we started to ask around and heard really great things about the Playhouse.

"Outside of London it is one of the most important theatres, and everyone was just so enthusiastic when we came up here. Also the series is popular with people in Yorkshire, so we want to bring the show to the audience." The Garden Assistant



Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 667
Location: NYC

abzug Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:02 pm

A few more articles I found online:



Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 667
Location: NYC


The Guardian
Out with the old routine

Musical theatre is getting a makeover, with offbeat shows paying tribute to Lady Thatcher, Colonel Gadafy and Imelda Marcos. Encore, says Kate Burt

Saturday January 21, 2006

`Whenever people hear about Bad Girls - The Musical, they expect one thing or the other: they either think it's going to be very grim or a complete piss-take. In fact, it's neither - it's very funny but it's got serious things in it as well." Kath Gotts, songwriter/ lyricist for the upcoming and slightly scary-sounding all-singing stage production of the prison TV drama, is cogitating on the revolution currently sweeping stages nationwide: the traditional musical is getting a rather radical makeover. And, judging by a new wave of initially implausible-sounding productions, if it's something that you might mention in the same conversation as Ben Elton or Andrew Lloyd Webber, it's simply no longer fashionable.

It was perhaps the surprise success of the surreal Jerry Springer opera that kick-started things. And now, it seems, everyone's having a go. This year, as well as Bad Girls, audiences can look forward to musical adaptations of material including the life of Colonel Gadafy (via the medium of opera); cult 1970s children's TV show Rentaghost; the almost-bratpack movie Footloose (which at least already had dancing in it); and the long-anticipated new adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings - a mind-bending £8m production ambitiously coagulating all three books and featuring a 65-strong cast of singing hobbits, dwarves, wizards and elves. There was even talk of Abi Titmuss - The Musical, though a Titmuss representative was swift to quash rumours of the show, allegedly penned by a fan of the glamour girl. "Fan?! More like a crazed stalker," she explained briskly. "This guy wrote in with some songs and what he thought was going to be a musical about Abi, but it was seriously weird and not normal. We'd rather not talk about it at all if you don't mind."
A key common denominator among this new breed of offbeat shows is that they're about the lyrics as much as the music. "You don't go to Lloyd Webber to listen to the lyrics, do you?" scoffs Bad Girls' Kath Gotts. And she speaks with some authority; her own musical - which came about after a series of conversations "pished in some bar" with her partner, and co-writer of the BG book, Maureen Chadwick - includes lyrical genius such as I'm A Slut In A Rut. Sung by characters Julie Saunders and Julie Johnston, the song bemoans the life of a lady of the night: "After blowing his hornpipe/And banging his drum/And thanking God you're not his wife/It takes more than a wet-wipe/To clean off the scum/Of your whole stinking, miserable life." Says Gotts: "It's not like thinking, Casualty, The Musical - how would that work? To have the characters in Bad Girls suddenly start singing is a very small step." Excitingly, Gotts is also working on bringing Tanya Turner to the stage in a musical version of Footballers' Wives.

"No disrespect to these sorts of productions," says comedian and ex-Celebrity Jungle winner Joe Pasquale, who has written the sing-along version of Rentaghost, "but Joseph - ach! - And His - oof! - Technicoloured - ugh! - Dreamcoat... Summer - pff! - bleeding Holiday. Pah. They've developed a reputation for being poncey, a bit highbrow. All those songs are all [adopts theatrical operatic tone] LAAAALALALALA LAAAA!! aren't they?" Somewhat surprisingly, Pasquale's primary inspiration for Rentaghost was watching The Phantom Of The Opera on DVD. "One of the menu extras was a bit about how they put it all together, you know, in the early days with Michael Crawford. I was watching it with my best friend Shaun [Cornell, producer of the Rentaghost musical] and I said to him, 'Doesn't look that difficult - we could do better ourselves'."

Another conversation about their favourite childhood TV shows - while killing time on tour in a Birmingham hotel - finally culminated in songs such as Me And My Broomstick, a sort of pantomime I Will Survive sung by Hazel McWitch as she contemplates (after)life with nothing but a wooden pole and some straw for company, and Happy Eternally ("We'd all be dying of boredom/If we weren't already dead").

"For me," says Pasquale, "the reason for doing a musical is because it's so simple to follow. It's, like, this is a sad section, this is a happy section, this is a fun section. There you go." But there are some downsides to recreating a TV show on stage, he concedes. And fans of the original TV show may be sad to learn that, in editing a series which spanned 11 years and spawned around 80 characters, Miss Popoff was among those that got the chop. "You might remember that every time she sneezed she'd disappear," Pasquale explains. "Well, we just didn't have the budget for all those trap-doors."

Martin Witts is the producer of Dangerous Liaisons At The Sextator, aka last year's one-off David Blunkett musical, which famously included the Boris Johnson rap ("I could be the prime minister/I just want to be a star"). "We're in the process of a rewrite so we can do a proper West End run," explains Witts. "It's just hard to ever finish though - every time you think you're there, Blunkett's off shagging someone else. We're thinking of turning into a trilogy."

The musical - which Witts describes as a "romantic Shakespearean tragedy" - came about at the height of Kimberlygate after writer Ginny Dougray called the producer up and sang the first line of "the Blunkett song" down the phone. "When I heard, 'He's special/Not special needs/He's special' backed by a Brassed Off-style marching band, that was it," he explains.

Witts, whose CV also includes Glyndebourne, panto and Prisoner Cell Block H with songs, is also looking forward to his next project: Smack - The Musical. "It's about how, if you're on heroin, you're always dancing," he says. "Though I'm not sure quite how well that one's going to go down."

Blunkett isn't the only political figure to inspire songs. Thatcher The Musical promises that an "all-singing, all-dancing cast of 10 romp through the life and times of the Iron Lady". But there's more to it than just cabaret-style comedy: "There's a wonderful love song after Dennis has died and so has Reagan, when she's lost all her power - a beautiful and haunting melody," says co-director Naomi Cooke. "For those of us who aren't necessarily Thatcher enthusiasts, it was very surprising to find ourselves, in rehearsal, brimming over with tears. Some of it is really quite poignant." Though not, perhaps, the moment when Maggie delivers an RP-perfect anti-European rant in the style of the Sex Pistols. "It's just before she gets kicked out, at the height of her megalomania," Cooke continues, before launching into a rendition down the phone: "'When you're dealing with those charming men in Brussels/Throwing tantrums, stamping feet and flexing muscles/And they're cocking up the European superstate/You'll realise it's no time to negotiate.'"

"The aim was to be provocative as well as entertaining," concludes Cooke. "Theatre is going through a complete change at the moment; there's an enormous amount of cutting-edge work out there and we need to start taking musical theatre more seriously as an art form in itself - it's no longer just kicklines and froth."

Even that other theatrical stalwart of recent years, the band musical - aka "we can't release another greatest hits album, I know, let's get Ben Elton to write a musical using all our songs!" - is getting an overhaul. So, fingers crossed, it could soon be, er, curtains for the likes of We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia, Our House, Cliff - The Musical and the Rod Stewart love-in Tonight's The Night. How can they possibly compare to Gadafy The Opera, written by Asian Dub Foundation? The freshly composed, genre-bending show, inspired by the Libyan dictator who, when not flogging arms to the IRA, kept himself busy by enforcing compulsory chicken-rearing on his own nation, definitely sounds different. As does the upcoming "theatrical music event inspired by the phenomenon of Imelda Marcos", written by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. Unlikely as it might sound, the dictator's wife was very keen on clubbing and, accordingly, the set is to include a dancefloor, huge video screens and a working bar. The plot? "A non-stop party, featuring politicians, arms dealers, financiers, artists, musicians and the international jet set." Ben Elton, your musical days are numbered. The Garden Assistant

abzug Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:04 pm

4th April 2006 - What's on Stage News

Bad Girls Stage Musical Launch at London's Clink

The inmates – or rather the cast and creative team – of Bad Girls The Musical, which receives its world premiere at Leeds' West Yorkshire Playhouse in June (See News, 4 Jan 2006), gathered at The Clink in London Bridge (one of Britain’s oldest prisons and the first to detain women) to launch the show today (4 April 2006).

The long-planned stage musical version of the ITV drama will have a limited six-week season from 6 June 2006 (previews from 27 May) to 1 July 2006 in Leeds. Written by the creators of the television series, Bad Girls The Musical has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus with music and lyrics by Kath Gotts.

The musical will feature characters from the first series of the drama played by a new set of actors, including Nicole Faraday (Thank You for the Music National Tour), Hal Fowler (HMS Pinafore at the Open Air, Martin Guerre in the West End) Rachel Izen (Thoroughly Modern Millie, A Chorus Line in the West End, Guys and Dolls at the National), Ellen O'Grady (Hair on tour), Amanda Posener (Rent in the West End), Laura Rogers (The Barber of Seville at Bristol Old Vic) and Hannah Waddingham (who will subsequently star in Spamalot in September - See News, 21 Feb 2006).

An idealistic new Wing Governor tries to make changes for the better on G Wing, but a dangerous mix of deception, romance, revenge and corrupt officers stand in her way. Maggie Norris directs.

Commenting on the new musical, artistic director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse Ian Brown said: “Musicals are very important at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. We have had some success in recent years with Singin’ in the Rain and Spend Spend Spend which we are very proud of, and we are looking forward to the opportunity of working on a musical of this scale. Bad Girls The Musical landed on my desk some time last year, and within 24 hours, I was back on the phone saying yes we would like to think about doing this musical.”

Composer Kath Gotts told Whatsonstage.com: “Bad Girls is just a world you want to be in, even though it’s set in a prison. Watching it you just want to feel part of it, and that’s why we thought it would make a good musical. It has a pop rock feel to it, and each of the characters has a signature style of music. The main inspiration for the music was the characters because they are all so strong.”

Laura Rogers, who will play the new governor Helen Stewart, told Whatsonstage.com: “I knew I was up for this role when we did the workshop. But having read the script, there isn’t a character in this show I wouldn’t want to play. They are all so strong.” Hannah Waddingham, who will play inmate Nikki Wade, agreed: “It is very rare to have a musical with so many strong female leads. You usually just get one strong female in a show, and this is really balanced. It’s a real ensemble piece.” Amanda Posener, who will play prisoner Denny Blood, added: “It’s very driven by the acting, and each of the songs moves the story along. It’s more like a play with music than a traditional musical.”

Gotts explained the reason they wanted to premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse was that they like the space and consider the venue to be one of the premier producing houses in the north of England, and also because viewing figures for Bad Girls are stronger in the north than the south. She said: “It is a great theatre and we are very happy to be there. We would love the show to have a life after its premiere in Leeds, but we will see what happens. For the moment, we are just focussing on this production.”

- by Caroline Ansdell The Garden Assistant

abzug Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 7:27 pm

From the West Yorkshire Playhouse website:

A CRIMINAL DESIGN

Colin Richmond, designer of our recent production of Twelfth Night and also projects as diverse as Doctor Who , operas and also RSC productions, is back at the Playhouse designing the set and costumes for Bad Girls - The Musical.

This is not Colin’s first musical and he says it’s not too different designing for a musical rather than a play. However he is forced to to think about practical things like where the band are going to go, the numbers of people in the cast and space for potentially big dance routines.

Fans of the TV series will easily be able to recognise their favourite characters on stage, although Colin’s designs reflect rather than replicate the TV characters. The first series of Bad Girls on which the musical is based) was actually broadcast quite a few years ago now so the costumes will be brought a bit more up to date and some theatrical glamour added!

The set is going to be huge, filling all available space in the Quarry. It also moves, so pieces will fly, move in and out and come up from the floor. The set could be thought of as a machine, getting bigger and smaller and changing shape in different scenes.

As well as visiting the TV set, Colin watched prison documentaries for research, to get a sense of the atmosphere and visual references for his design. Both the TV set and his design for the musical are the same dimensions as a real prison, for instance the height of the cell doors and the cells themselves are the same as they are in real prisons. However Colin promises that it will not be a dreary old prison on the Playhouse stage – this is a musical after all! The musical numbers will see Jim Fenner looking forward to his promotion to Wing Governor with a chorus of prison officers in full riot gear and also the Bad Girls enjoying an A-list party with smuggled in booze.

PS Thanks JAMBF for pointing out this article! The Garden Assistant

abzug Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 5:24 pm

An article we haven't posted here yet, which has a lot more details about the show.

Jailbirds stage a musical breakout

BAD GIRLS fans are in for a treat. Not only does the eighth series of the women-in-prison drama start on ITV later this year, but a new musical, written by the same creative team of Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, can be seen from Saturday at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

It's a project that has been four years in the making, as Bad Girls: The Musical has had to be fitted around filming the TV version, five series of Footballers' Wives (which finished its run on ITV earlier this year), also written by Chadwick and McManus, and the team's new school-based drama, Waterloo Road, which aired recently on BBC1.

In transporting HMP Larkhall to the big stage, Chadwick and McManus have revisited the first series' characters and storylines - new wing governor Helen Stewart battles with old-guard prison officers Jim Fenner and Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby, serial cons the Two Julies, Yvonne Atkins and Shell Dockley lock horns, while Stewart and wronged prisoner Nikki Wade provide the love interest - but have developed them differently.

Chadwick and McManus have joined forces with director Maggie Norris and lyricist and composer Kath Gotts. Chadwick has written for the stage before, but McManus admits to previously finding theatre boring. "I'm always waiting for something to go wrong," she says. "Isn't everyone?"

The writing process was an eye-opener for both writers; Chadwick jokingly accuses Gotts of stealing her best jokes for the songs - "Every time I went back to the script, another line would have gone" - while McManus admits ruefully: "I found it really, really difficult and I admit I was dragged along in the others' wake. The staging, the blocking, everything was alien to me. What I found most difficult was that you can't use 'cut to' in the theatre to move characters from one side of the stage to the other. Oh, would that I could."

But Norris says that McManus's notes were often the most productive. "She focused our story really well and was always concerned that the narrative had drive. She was also very useful in getting the balance right, because one doesn't want to trivialise the subject, but at the same time, there is tremendous fun to be had."

The musical was never intended to be the TV programme on stage, as Norris explains. "I think it was vital that it was original material. We haven't taken the TV set and recreated it on stage, either, but what we have is a sense of being incarcerated. The set is pared down, quite stylised and not naturalistic at all."

Bad Girls is that rare thing; an ensemble musical, with no leading role. As McManus says: "The essence of Bad Girls is the bad girls; you want to hear from all those different perspectives."

Gotts continues: "There are 10 leading roles and the lead is impossible to define, and that's been really interesting in developing this project, in that each character has to have their song. Although Helen Stewart is the linchpin in her opposition to Jim Fenner and her relationship with Nikki Wade, it's not her story in the way it would be in most musicals."

That means that they have been able to use a wide variety of musical genres to delineate the characters - everything from ballads and belters to show tunes and showstoppers, with a few song-and-dance numbers thrown in for good measure.

Chadwick and McManus are renowned in their TV work for undercutting serious drama with vaulting wit, often in the same scene, and have translated that seamlessly to the stage; it seems they've taken musical theatre's maxim of "make 'em laugh, make 'em cry" more literally than most. There's an unnerving scene early in the show where a new inmate, half-stripped and frightened, is humiliated by Bodybag, but it's scripted with several laugh-out-loud lines, too.

In two and a half hours and 17 songs, the musical also mentions suicide, riots, drug-taking and nursing mothers in prison. Mary Poppins it ain't, but Bad Girls: The Musical has more laughs than seems decent with such subject matter. Some of the more surreal Footballers' Wives storylines - inter-sex babies and flammable breast implants, for example - led to Chadwick and McManus's unofficial status as TV's queens of schlock. But they firmly resist my attempts to portray the new work as Prisoner: Cell Block H meets Busby Berkeley.

The writers say Bad Girls: The Musical is firmly rooted in reality and point out that a useful source of material was prison officers' trade journals. "They're full of letters saying: 'If the powers that be…', 'Down here at the coalface…', and so on," says Gotts. "But however whingeing some of them are, they are, after all, from the people who actually do the locking up and looking after of inmates. We happily used that."

Two actresses from the TV series - Laura Rogers and Nicole Faraday - appear in the musical, but in different roles. Two award-winning musical stars, Hannah Waddingham (Lautrec) and Louise Plowright (Mamma Mia!) are also in the cast. Lest any audience member should get confused by this cross-casting, the opening song, I Shouldn't Be Here - a masterwork of economical exposition - introduces each character and why he or she is at Larkhall. "That first number is vital," says Norris. "You get their crime, you get their character and you get straight in there. For anyone coming to Bad Girls for the first time, this gives the background, and for existing fans, it sets up where we are in the musical."

Blonde hardnut Shell Dockley's verses include the lines: "No one messes with my man and gets away with their face intact, It's an obvious fact that I was bound to react, That DD-cup slapper was gonna get whacked."

The four women (with Shed, makers of the TV series) are co-producers of the musical. "We knew this would be difficult to get right and didn't want the pressure of a commercial backer to do it to their agenda or timescale," says Norris.

"We wanted a nurturing environment where we could take our time and give it some care and attention." Other producers advised them against including the sapphic storyline, suggesting that it immediately limits the audience, but it has stayed.

For Bad Girls: The Musical to have a life beyond Leeds, though, it must appeal to more than just fans of the TV series. "I sincerely hope that people who don't normally go to the theatre will feel moved to see this," says McManus.

Four years' honing has produced a show that, even in rehearsal, has a feel of a smash hit about it. So how could they possibly top this? It's a rhetorical question, but Chadwick and McManus reveal they're already working on Footballers' Wives: The Musical. Bliss.


'Bad Girls: The Musical' begins previews at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds (0113 213 7700, www.wyp.org.uk) on Sat.

The Telegraph The Garden Assistant

abzug Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 8:43 pm

Found a few more articles about the musical:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1774151,00.html
The musical that's so Bad, it's brilliant

Is the world ready for tapdancing prison screws, asks Carole Cadwalladr

Sunday May 14, 2006
The Observer

Jerry Springer-style hit? ... Bad Girls at the West Yorkshire Playhouse

Really, what more could you hope for from a musical? A touching lesbian romance between a woman wrongly imprisoned for murder and a young, idealistic prison governor? Check. A villainous drug-dealing psycho with a history of torture and intimidation? Check. A heroine who is a shy, sensitive, junkie single mother? Check. And two tap-dancing, middle-aged, bent prison officers doing Frank Sinatra impressions? Check, check.
The biggest shock of Bad Girls: The Musical is not why somebody thought the ITV drama suitable for a musical but why nobody thought of it before. The inmates of HMP Larkhall have spent the last seven years achieving ratings glory in an orgy of drug-taking, violence, lesbian love, roof-top protests, the plotting of improbably creative escapes, big hair and retribution of such a vicious and Byzantine nature that it makes Elizabethan revenge tragedy look like a walk in the park. Adding in some rousing song-and-dance numbers is really the next logical step.

Produced by Shed, the company behind the TV series, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, Bad Girls does not open for another fortnight, but if this week's rehearsals are anything to go by, the theatre could have a Jerry Springer-style hit on its hands. Because while the consensus is that the TV series, described by one reviewer as 'an episode of Prisoner Cell Block H co-directed by Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch and an eight-year-old child', has lost its way, the musical is a return to the show's roots: an unlikely blend of high camp, comic farce and gritty social realism.
Written by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, the creators of the series, it follows a clutch of characters who appeared in the first two series: Rachel Hicks, an 18-year-old inmate who arrives with leaking breasts, having been forcibly separated from her newborn baby, Nikki Wade, wrongly imprisoned for killing a police officer who tried to rape her friend, arsonist Denny Blood (played by Amanda Posener), and Helen Stewart, the enlightened but naïve governor who is fighting a losing battle against the old-guard: officers Jim Fenner and Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby.

Finding a balance between comedic and tragic has, according to director, Maggie Norris, been the greatest challenge: 'It's a delicate line. On the one hand there's these feisty characters that are intrinsically comic. On the other, I didn't want to trivialise the subject. The female prison population is exploding, and being inside can be incredibly shocking and disturbing.'

The songs range from impassioned freedom anthems to campy vaudeville numbers such as the dance of the embittered prison officers, 'Jailcraft'. The guards have their hands full with the likes of Shell Dockley, Larkhall's drug-dealing bully-girl, at large. She's played by Nicole Faraday, one of two cast members who've crossed over from the TV series, and is therefore used to the Bad Girls aesthetic. 'We used to get our scripts and just go "What?"' she says.

It's believed to be the first musical to feature a lesbian romance between two lead characters*** - Norris says a theatrical producer told her the kiss at the end would be 'the difference between playing 800-seat theatres and 300-seat ones ... but I decided to ignore him'. What also sets the show apart is that it's almost entirely female: the writers, composer and lyricist, director, musical director, choreographer and 13 out of 17 of the cast.

Faraday says: 'Most of the parts I get are "the girlfriend" or "the bimbo". It's incredibly unusual to have so many strong, feisty female parts. What I love is that it is funny but packs a really hard punch.'

Or, as Norris puts it: 'It's such fantastic source material. You couldn't make a musical about Casualty, could you?'

· 'Bad Girls' is at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, 27 May-1 July

http://www.rainbownetwork.com/Culture/deta...Channel=Culture
Bad Girls: The Musical
23 May 2006

If you loved the idea of experiencing Acorn Antiques as a musical then what could be better than seeing your favourite Bad Girls characters in a song and dance extravaganza? Yes folks, book your seats now because this musical rendition of the compelling series, based on original characters and written by the creators of the TV series, promises to be a mega hit.

The story is a corker. A new idealistic Wing Governor, Helen Stewart (Laura Rogers), has to battle against the entrenched old guard, headed by the devious and corrupt Jim Fenner (Hal Fowler) who’s up to his usual seedy tricks exploiting the female prisoners. Fenner’s right hand woman, Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby played by Rachel Izen, makes up this gruesome twosome.

But on the other side of the bars ‘top dog’ Shell Dockley (Nicole Faraday), who was described by a judge as ‘evil personified’ together with her motley crew of fellow cons, have their own disputes to settle.

Amongst all this tension, romance blossoms in the form of Wing Governor Stewart and beguiling inmate Nikki Wade played by Hannah Waddingham. A death on the wing forces the two women to take sides and seek their own justice. What unfolds in the HMP Larkhall prison is a story of deception, romance and revenge, not forgetting the occasional riot!

Writers Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus who have created and written the TV series have now brought their characters to life onstage. Chadwick makes the point that the musical is not simply a ‘camp’ affair or C-Block H with musical notes.

“It covers serious issues but at the same time is entertaining and designed to give audiences a total theatrical experience which is different from the TV show,” Chadwick told us.

Actor Hal Fowler, who plays the villainous Jim Fenner, admitted that they are not trying to do carbon copy versions of the screen characters.

“We know many people in the audience will be familiar with the TV characters, but what we’re more interested in doing on stage is recreating an essence of those original characters”

Anyone expecting Fenner to jump into bed with a fellow male screw - or anything male for that matter - will be disappointed as his character “hasn’t got to that stage in the TV show we’re he’s experimented with his sexuality”.

But Hal does strip off so that’s some consolation for those who have a thing for didactic prison officers in uniforms!

Director and Executive producer Maggie Norris has an impeccable stage pedigree and has just recently completed directing a feature film, Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution, starring Mark Strong. Maggie likens the theatrical version of Bad Girls to the 80’s movie Scrubbers but with the addition of musical numbers that enhance the emotional experience.

“There are seventeen numbers which is quite a roll call for a musical,” says Norris.

“They range from pastiche, Busby Berkley numbers to moving ballads. What’s an important element about this show is the ‘camaraderie’ between the women, which is very unlike the kind of atmosphere you find in male prisons.

“But this isn’t a fluff piece at all. It’s quite a gritty production.”

Of course the story wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory Bible Basher spouting off her self righteous sermons and actress Dawn Hope, who plays Crystal, is certain that her character – despite the ranting - will win over audiences.

“You might not agree with what she is saying or her religious beliefs but you have to admire her strength and how she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She stands up for her beliefs and like many of the girls in Larkhall has had a rough ride in life”

Music and lyrics for Bad Girls: The Musical are by Kath Goth, whose recent work includes a new adaptation of Therese Raquin, The Bodies, at the Live Theatre, Newcastle. Together with director Maggie Norris they set up Big Broad Productions Ltd in 2005, which is presenting Bad Girls with co-producers The West Yorkshire Playhouse.

With numbers such as ‘All Banged Up’, ‘Jailcraft’ and ‘Freedom Road’, you can expect many witty, outrageous and no doubt poignant lyrics that reflect this blend of hard hitting drama and comedy.

Bad Girls – The Musical opens at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on the 6 June. And if you’re itching to see a musical version of the divinely camp Footballers Wives, well watch this space! The Garden Assistant

abzug Posted on Jul 1 2007, 02:36 AM

Some online reviews, kindly provided by JAMBF:

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.p...rls-the-musical

Bad Girls - The Musical

An exclamation mark is needed in the title of this show, nothing more. A long West End run, sometime soon, has to be a certainty.

Set in a wing of a women’s prison, Bad Girls - the Musical is tough, brutal and funny. It has brilliant songs staged with panache and vigour and there are ravishing performances from everyone.

Previous experience of the popular tv show on which it is based is not necessary. This musical has its own audacious style. Not exactly camp, not exactly bad taste but gloriously audacious.

Kath Gotts’ songs range from a blues lament to a Garland/Astaire inspired duet, to a full-blown Busby Berkeley routine complete with posh outfits and handsome staircase. All are cheered. All Banged Up, a raunchy ditty lamenting the girls’ lack of sex, is utterly unbelievable - funny and frank, its choreography is quite outrageous.

The entry of glam gangster’s wife Yvonne, played by Ellen O’Grady, is an event in itself. She takes over. She decides to have a party and the inmates, all suddenly wearing shiny red, are having a wonderful time.

Hal Fowler as a scheming prisoner officer is as wicked as he should be. Nicole Faraday dominates as the wing’s tough nut, at least until Yvonne appears. Playing Nikki, a lesbian prisoner, is the widely respected Hannah Waddingham. She gives a striking performance.

Critics will be predicting a cult status for this show, because of the popularity of the TV programme. But if the TV show did not exist, Bad Girls - the Musical would still develop a cult following.

abzug Posted on Jul 1 2007, 02:36 AM

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/stage2/reviews/th-mod042.html

Synopsis
Programme

A musical prison drama based on the popular TV series, 'Bad Girls'.

ACT I

The story opens with the arrival at HMP Larkhall of frightened new inmate, Rachel. As she is led to her cell the other inmates come out and introduce themselves I shouldn't be here. Prison officer Jim Fenner ingratiates himself to the young girl by promising to watch over her. Shell Dockley, prisoners 'Top Dog' on the wing who has been granting sexual favours to Fenner, does not like the attention that he is giving the new girl and with her gang invades Rachel's cell to intimidate her An Angel Like You. Rachel complains to Fenner, and also confides in him of her fears over regaining custody of her child once her sentence is over. Fenner again promises to watch over her and claims to have contacts who can help her on the outside once her sentence is over. Fenner and fellow officer Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby are unhappy with the lenient approach of new wing governor Helen Stewart and are keen to see her demise so they can run the wing their way Jailcraft. Helen orders prisoner Nikki to be transferred to an upgraded cell prior to her coming appeal, but to sabotage her case Fenner agitates the other prisoners against her causing her to be involved in a fight. Helen visits her in the punishment block, overturning Fenner's decisiona and releasing her One Moment. The two Julies, former prostitutes jailed for robbing their clients, try to overhear Fenner talking to Rachel but are sent about their duties, scrubbing floors A Life of Grime. Another new inmate arrives, tough talking Yvonne, the wife of a gangster, she is not at all intimidated by Dockley and quickly stakes a claim to replace her as top dog A-List. Night falls, the prisoners are locked up and Fenner is alone on duty, with the power to enter any cell for any reason The Key. He enters Rachel's cell and she soon learns the price he expects her to pay for the protection he has afforded. The fragile girl is overcome by the rape and the following morning is found hanging in her cell. The other prisoners are angered at the needless death, for which they know Fenner to be responsible. They rebel against the prison warders That's the way it is and start a riot.

ACT II

The riot is subdued and the prisoners back in their cells. Prisoner Crystal seeks solace in her religion Freedom Road. Fenner id happy that his plan to discredit Helen is proceeding as planned The Future is Bright. The two Julies go on strike in protest against Fenner, who gives Dockley and her side-kick Denny their jobs serving food. They see this as a chance to demand respect from their fellow inmates P-P-P-Please. Prisoner Julie S calls her son who has been taken into foster care and learned for the first time that she is in prison Sorry. Helen summons Nikki to her office to give her a pep-talk about her appeal. Simmering just below the surface is a deep attraction between these two which current circumstances will not allow, but if Nikki earns her release ... Every Night. Back on the wing some of the women are struggling to come to terms with their lack of male company All Banged Up. Fenner's plot against Helen has almost come to fruition. It seems she is being forced out of her job and Fenner is the leading candidate to replace her. Caring warden Justin is as convinced as the inmates that Fenner played a part in Rachel's death and teams up with inmates to thwart his plans. To gather evidence against him however, they need to persuade Shell to come over to their side The Baddest and the Best. Shell, having been convinced that Fenner has only been using her, joins forces with the other inmates in bid to trap Fenner. When Fenner comes to her cell to collect his favours she lures him in and uses his handcuffs to handcuff him to the bed First Lady. Fenner is unaware that the cell has been rigged with a hidden camera which is patched in to the prison security network. Fenner is caught on camera, his career destroyed. Just then their is a power cut, with the camera down Shell extracts her own personal revenge by setting fire to the bed to which Fenner has allowed himself to be handcuffed The Baddest and the Best [Reprise]. Helen is reinstored as wing governor and life looks brighter for the inmates This is my life.
Impressions

This was a remarkably upbeat production given the subject matter involved, and contains a number of memorable toe-tapping tunes. The action ranges from the poignant, to the sublime, to the outright farcical in an all-round assault on the emotions. There is no real leading role in the play, the action at various times features various characters. Rachel, for example is quite prominent in the first act but of course is totally absent from the second.

The music ranges from soft ballads to barnstorming showstoppers, whilst the drama element is gripping but never takes itself too seriously. One of the highpoints of the show was a 40's style song and dance routine complete with canes for villains Fenner and Bodybag! The incongruity of the characters only added to the impact and it worked superbly well, getting the most enthusiastic applause of the night. Much of the humour in the piece in fact centred around these two making them far more sympathetic characters than they probably deserved to be. Fenner especially was a thoroughly unscrupulous character but so oozed charm and innocence that you could not help liking him. The other main comedy pairing were the streetwise hookers, the two Julies. Although it had only been running for one week prior to this performance it already looks incredibly polished and one thing that stood out was the obvious enjoyment that was written on the face of every single cast member whenever they completed a song. It really drew you in and made you want to up there on stage performing with them.

The set is a two tiered affair with rows of cell doors on both levels through which the cast appear and disappear. The upper tier is a 'U' shaped balcony terminating in a spiral steel staircase to the lower level at both ends. On the lower level the back wall is divided and slides apart to allow different sub-sets for the kitchen serving hatch and individual cell interiors to slide through from behind. For the cells, side walls slide on from the wings and a section of floor flips over to pop up a toilet bowl. At times, the entire back wall (both tiers) lifts away to reveal the outside exercise yard. All in all the technical engineering of the set and the smoothness of the transitions was very impressive. Costumes were of course prison uniforms for the guards and casual street wear for the inmates. The one exception being Fenner's dream sequence of his elevation to governor which is conducted with full Hollywood style razzmatazz with virtually the entire cast in glitzy highly stylised uniforms.
Performances

Hal Fowler gave an incredible performance as Jim Fenner. His singing voice is melodious and his performance as the oily charmer was so winning that you almost wanted to be on his side. So much so that the obligatory boos from the audience for the villain sounded almost apologetic. His song and dance routine with Rachel Izen as fellow warder Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby was excellently executed and extremely enjoyable. The latter was a cynical but drolly humourous character who follows in Fenners footsteps. Nicole Faraday was one of two cast members to have appeared in the TV series and was for me the other standout performer on the night as the brassy prison bully Shell Dockley. She belted out two of the shows most memorable numbers in P-P-P-Please and First Lady (duet with Fenner). Laura Rogers was the other graduate of the TV series and as the rather prim but caring Wing Governor Helen Stewart was set somewhat apart from the main body of the cast. Her rendition of Every Night with Hannah Waddingham as Nikki Wade was very touching. The latter also gave a sterling performance as the angry young woman jailed for a stabbing she committed in self-defence. Elaine Glover played the frightened newbie Rachel and though she had no featured songs gave the best dramatic performance on the night. Louise Plowright and Julie Jupp were empyreal as the inseperable two Julies and gave us the two best comedy numbers of the night with A Life of Grime and All Banged Up. Joining them in the latter was Ellen O'Grady as Yvonne Atkins, all three turning into vamps and draping themelves over sympathetic warder justin Mattison, played by Neil McDermott. Rounding off the cast were Michael N Harbour as the officious Number One, Dawn Hope as bible-bashing inmate Crystal Gordon, Amanda Posener as angry young inmate Denny Blood, Tricia Deighton as inmate Norren Biggs, Emma Bispham as inmate Kat Jenkins, Richard Costello as warder Roger Brunton and Siubhan Harrison as inmate Spike (who was somethiin of a background character until the very end when she revealed a beautiful singing voice I have liked to have heard more of).
Verdict

Guilty your honour - of providing an unmissable evening of first class entertainment. If this production doesn't deserve a run in the West End you can lock me up and throw away the key.

campgrrls
Posted: Jun 8 2006, 09:25 AM
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http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,1792484,00.html

Bad Girls

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Lyn Gardner
Thursday June 8, 2006
The Guardian


Bad Girls is a riot, in more ways than one. The hit TV series, set on G-Wing
of a women's prison, slides from the small screen to the stage with the ease
of a greased key in a lock. For fans of the series there are even some of
the same characters, from Nikki Wade, the lesbian banged up for life for
killing the cop who was trying to rape her girlfriend, to Denny who burned
down her children's home, and the abusive prison officer Jim Fenner who
gives "special attention" to vulnerable inmates.

On paper this spin-off may look like a cynical ploy to milk a cash cow that
has already delivered very nicely for Shed Productions, the company behind
Footballer's Wives and Waterloo Road; on stage it is just loads of fun. This
is not Chicago, not by a long shot, but there is real artfulness in Kath
Gott's music and lyrics and Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus' book. Who
could possibly dislike a show that includes a song sung by the sex-starved
women that begins: "We're all banged up without the bang", or which has
prison officers Fenner and Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby doing a Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers while the inmates supply a Busby Berkeley-style chorus? It
is the sheer brazen cheek of it that I love. This show is one enormous wink.
Gott's score is a magpie, which, like born-again shoplifter Crystal who
believes that "the good Lord helps those who help themselves", steals from
every musical style - indeed even from other musicals. Chadwick and McManus
have spent long enough writing soaps to know that sometimes the cliche can
yield a great deal of truth, and that formulaic doesn't matter if your
formula is a winning one.
The staging can be mundane, there's a dip after the interval and there are
times when it is perilously camp: the real emotion - and it's there - needs
room to breathe. But this is a big, popular, brassy show that presses all
the right buttons and knows that it is doing so, and it comes with a
built-in feel-good display of unlikely female solidarity in the face of
adversity and Jim Fenner. What next? Bring on Footballer's Wives the
Musical.

abzug
Posted: Jun 8 2006, 04:01 PM

http://www.whatsonstage.com/dl/page.php?pa...=E8821149694387

Bad Girls - The Musical (Leeds)
Venue: West Yorkshire Playhouse
Where: Leeds
WOS Rating:
User Reviews: Read Others | Add Your Own


Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, creators of Bad Girls, both as a television series and in this stage musical incarnation, aim to place their show in “the old tradition of musical comedy…with a rich combination of ballads, showtime numbers and character songs.” In this they undoubtedly succeed, the comic duets and production numbers generally more memorable than the confessional songs and let’s-face-the-world anthems.

The only drawback with a pacy, highly entertaining production is the writers’ intention to deal with “contemporary problems”. So long as Bad Girls inhabits its own fantasy world, it’s a delight, but the treatment of prison bullying, rape and riot, for instance, is just too glib. Predatory prison officer Jim Fenner (Hal Fowler) becomes a cheerful chancer, half of a delightfully dead-pan song and dance duo with Officer Hollamby (the excellent Rachel Izen), so the rape and suicide of Rachel Hicks disturbs for the wrong reasons, despite Elaine Glover’s sympathetic performance.

Shell Dockley, described as “evil personified”, emerges as little more than a face-pulling school bully, though Nicole Faraday takes full advantage of her musical opportunities, notably a glorious Tammy Wynette and George Jones-type number (with added sex and arson) with the about-to-be-unmasked Jim Fenner.

The story is neatly filleted from many television hours: despite my companion’s complaint that the lesbian kiss between Nikki Wade and Wing Governor Helen Stewart should have come after 2 ½ series, not 2 ½ hours, the pacing of their relationship is assured and unhurried, with both characters given intelligently under-the-top performances by Hannah Waddingham and Laura Rogers. The other main story line is the satisfyingly improbable saga of how an alliance of prison officers and inmates brings about the fall of Fenner.

The sporadic hints of hard-hitting contemporary drama sit uneasily with the cloyingly sweet finale, with all the nice convicts bouncing up and down and hugging each other like the kids from Fame. A more satisfying celebration of decency comes in the subtle scripting and performance (by Neil McDermott) of the role of Justin Mattison, youthful integrity personified.
For most of the evening, there’s far too much going on to worry about realism and morality, with a committed, energetic and vocally accomplished ensemble of 17 giving full value to the fast-moving and often very funny book, and Kath Gotts’s sly lyrics and sharply characterised music. Maggie Norris directs with flair and invention and designer Colin Richmond wisely opts for space and flexibility rather than menace.

- Ron Simpson

abzug
Posted: Jun 8 2006, 04:06 PM

http://www.ba-education.demon.co.uk/for/en...p/badgirls.html

Bad Girls

West Yorkshire Playhouse
Leeds
ENGLAND

Good Girls
Take a cast of actors who can sing superbly, mix with melodic tunes, add a story line that provokes and disturbs, then call it a musical and you have Bad Girls. This combination is all set to become a hit with the audiences that it will play before. The music and lyrics by Kath Gotts will tug at the heart strings and leave you wanting more. The story line, from the book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, should make you think of some of the problems that these women have to deal with. Sentenced for their misdemeanours, forced to live in very close proximity to their fellow prisoners and having to associate with the prison staff, who at times have ulterior motives for their actions. The story line will either intrigue or disturb you, but the music will enthral you, so enjoy it.

Music is the driving force behind this play. Notable is the singing of the warder Jim Fenner, played by Hal Fowler, whose voice gives added meaning to the lyrics, as he sings and dances with his fellow warder Rachel Izen, playing Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby. Everyone on the stage gave delight with their singing and dancing, but particularly noticeable were the voices of Nicole Faraday (Shell Dockley), Amanda Posener (Denny Blood), Laura Rogers (Helen Stewart), Dawn Hope (Crystal Gordon), Louise Plowright (Julie Johnston), Julie Jupp (Julie Saunders), Ellen O'Grady (Yvonne Atkins) and Hannah Waddingham (Nikki Wade).

Memorable musical numbers were Jailcraft, The Key and That's the way it is. The fantasy song and dance number in black and white will have you tapping your feet, but there are yet more songs, such as Sorry, All Banged Up and many others. The band's interpretation of the score, under the direction of Dane Preece, who silently sung every word, all added to the enjoyment.

Now to the staging. Director Maggie Norris needed to apply the logic of working in the round with this apron stage, for, if you were unlucky enough to be sitting in the "B" blocks of the theatre auditorium, you will have found that the players had been instructed to project to the "A" block. This meant that you saw the end of line in chorus numbers and got very good views of the activities behind the scenery. A pity, for curved lines would have got round the problem for the players and better finished scenery would have convinced us of the security of the prison environment, but it can still be put right.

The all important thing was how did the audience react to the spectacle placed before them; well they loved it, and when the cast took their bows they were standing on their feet giving them the appreciation that they so rightly deserved. This all adds up to a hit. Enjoy. © BA

“Bad Girls” is in Leeds on the 27th May until the 1st July, 2006 then continues on tour. Council car parking charge £1 from 5.30pm until 10pm. This is now a No Smoking theatre.

http://www.dinedirect.net/venues/reviews.a...ls2&play_id=636

Bad Girls

In the 1980’s and 1990’s I was a big fan of the Australian TV Show “Prisoner Cell Block H” and more lately of “Bad Girls” on ITV. When I saw the summer programme for West Yorkshire Playhouse and noted that “Bad Girls – The Musical” would be running throughout the month of June, I thought that this was one show I must see. I certainly was not to be disappointed.

In a major new collaboration with Big Broad and Shed Productions, West Yorkshire Playhouse is presenting the world première of “Bad Girls - The Musical”. After seven years banged up on the small screen, the infamous inmates and screws of HMP Larkhall are breaking out on to the stage in a dangerous mix of deception, romance, riots and revenge. “Bad Girls - The Musical” runs from 27 May – 1 July. Written by the creators of the award-winning TV series, “Bad Girls - The Musical” features many of the original inhabitants of G-Wing.

The story charts the battles of new, idealistic Wing Governor Helen Stewart against the entrenched old guard of corrupt Officer Jim Fenner and his right hand woman Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby. On the other side of the bars top dog Shell Dockley, her sidekick Denny Blood, ‘bible-basher’ Crystal Gordon, the Two Julies and ‘gangster’s moll’ Yvonne Atkins have their own feuds to settle. Romance develops between enigmatic lifer Nikki Wade and the Wing Governor, but a death on the wing forces the women to take sides and seek their own justice. When Helen Stewart’s job is on the line and Jim Fenner looks set to take over, it takes friends in low places to turn events around.

The cast includes Laura Rogers, who may be more familiar to fans of TV Bad Girls, as drug-addict inmate Sheena Williams, who crosses to the other side of the bars to play Wing Governor Helen Stewart on stage. Making up her staff of ‘screws’ are Hal Fowler as Jim Fenner, Rachel Izen as Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby and Neil McDermott as Junior Officer Justin Mattison. The Bad Girls themselves are played by Nicole Faraday as Shell Dockley, who returns to Larkhall after meeting a sticky end as the TV series’ Snowball, and Amanda Posener as Denny Blood. Hannah Waddingham, who is set to star in the forthcoming West End production of “Spamalot”, plays romantic lead Nikki Wade, Ellen O’Grady plays Yvonne Atkins and returns to the Playhouse having played the White Witch in “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in 2004. Dawn Hope plays Crystal Gordon, Tricia Deighton plays Noreen Biggs and Elaine Glover plays Rachel Hicks. Elaine returns to the theatre in Leeds having played the title role in “The Lemon Princess” at the Playhouse last year. The ’Two Julies’ are played by Julie Jupp as Julie Saunders who was last at the Playhouse as the Duchess in “Alice in Wonderland” last Christmas and Louise Plowright as Julie Johnston. Michael Harbour plays The Number One. The rest of the cast comprises Emma Bispham, Richard Costello, and Siubhan Harrison.

All cast members played their parts exceptionally well, but I was particularly impressed with the acting and singing of Laura Rodgers and Hannah Waddingham. I thought Hannah’s rendition of the song “One Moment” and her duet with Laura entitled “Every Night” were both excellent. Hannah has a great alto voice reminding me very much of Annie Lennox from The Eurythmics. The original musical score reflects the characteristic blend of hard-hitting drama and heart-warming comedy with a fresh mix of funny and moving songs from ballads to showtime, including “All Banged Up”, “Jailcraft” and “Freedom Road”. Highly amusing were the numbers “Jailcraft” and “The Future is Bright” which was just like something out of an MGM musical!

An inventive and evocative set design by Colin Richmond uses the entire depth of the Quarry stage to capture the essence of Larkhall and the hopes and fantasies of those behind its walls. I thought the technical aspects of the show were absolutely brilliant! The audience does not see much of what Andy Dye and his construction crew have put together. There are tracks going under the stage, all sorts of grooves, little gaps in the floor with tracking systems underneath, and operators offstage. All of this means that tables, beds, walls, and even toilets are able to move on and off stage without any human intervention whatsoever. I must also mention the excellent sound and video use in the show, designed by Mic Pool who is the playhouse’s Director of Creative Technology.

This is a great musical with some very catchy numbers, a good storyline and some excellent acting. Plaudits must go to Maggie Norris as the director of the show and Kath Gotts who wrote both the script and music for the production. Imaginative and fun, this production gives Bad Girls an exciting new theatrical identity. Although it is difficult to say how a musical will run in the future, particularly in London and the West End, I feel that here we have another possible “Blood Brothers” that will thrill audiences for years to come.

John Burland
Dine Direct Theatre Reviewer

http://www.thisisyork.co.uk/whatson/theatr...ntil_july_1.php

Preview: Bad Girls, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds until July 1
By Charles Hutchinson

Hannah Waddingham as Nikki Wade

After seven years banged up on the small screen, the inmates and screws of HMP Larkhall are breaking out of G-Wing and into a new life on stage in Bad Girls The Musical at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Billed as a dangerous mix of deception, romance, riots and revenge, the stage show has been written by the creators of the television series, with book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus and music and lyrics by Kath Gotts.

The musical story charts the battles of new, idealistic Wing Governor Helen Stewart against the entrenched old guard of corrupt Officer Jim Fenner and his right-hand woman Sylvia Bodybag' Hollamby. Romance develops between enigmatic lifer Nikki Wade and the Wing Governor, but a death on the wing forces the women to take sides and seek their own justice.

An invitation was extended by the Playhouse press office to interview the "intimidatingly beautiful" Hannah Waddingham. Never mind that she would be playing the lifer', Nikki Wade, how could York Twenty4Seven refuse?

continued...
Why is Nikki serving life, we ask gently. "She's one of only two lifers in there. She's inside for bottling to death a policeman who was raping her girlfriend. She bottled him in the neck," says Hannah. "I'm 5ft 11. Stick a bottle in the neck and that's going to shut up a man at 50 paces!

"Some would see her as a heroine, and that's where there's a meeting of minds with the wing governor, Helen Stewart. She realises Nikki is not only wrongly imprisoned but she should be released on appeal and have her name cleared."

For all the success of prison musical Chicago, the Bad Girls plot does not sound the most instantly musical of shows. "For my character to break into dance, I have to try to put the lighter side of Nikki to the fore," Hannah says.

"Kath Gotts needs the most praise for transferring the TV show to the stage. She's had such a long association with the show (she wrote the theme tune and incidental music for four series) and she's found a musical way of dealing with setting up the story. All of us have signature tunes to introduce ourselves.

"Mine is all in minor keys. I'm a mezzo soprano, we sing pop rock in this show, though I do have an operatic side too."

So far, you may be under the impression that Bad Girls could be somewhat grim, but think again. As with the TV series, drama with a punch will rub shoulders with heart-warming comedy with a punchline. "It's a marriage of the serious and the humorous, but it's also high camp, so it takes the mick out of itself, with the audience being told pretty early on that they can have a laugh and it's not all doom and gloom," says Hannah.

She distances the show from the Prisoner Cell Block H stage spin-off. "Prisoner Cell Block H was always camp by its very essence, whereas this is more hard-hitting and gritty, with some campery thrown in, and not the other way round. If it had been too camp I wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole. I wanted something that was gritty and realistic and then had something light brought into it."

Hannah has been involved in the gestation of Bad Girls since participating in workshops with Kath, Maurice and Ann in December, 2004, in London. "I saw the reaction to it in the workshops, where people maybe came in feeling cynical but were whipped up into a frenzy by the end. I don't think there's any doubt that it will transfer to the West End, and actually it's a shame I can't do it there, but I couldn't possibly turn down Eric Idle's Spamalot, which I'll be doing at the Palace from October," she says. "If I could have held on to this show I would, such is my feeling for it, and besides, I feel it's my role."

Nevertheless, she will switch to Eric Idle's Spamalot this autumn. "I'm going from militant lesbian in Bad Girls to a flouncing diva who comes up out of the stage in Spamalot.

"I got to see the show in America; the company kindly paid for my flight and the hotel and for tickets for my friends, and the songs are absolutely hysterical," says Hannah, who has received some better news still.

"Tim Curry is going to be my leading man; they're specially bringing him over and I'm so chuffed about that.

"I'm utterly overwhelmed to get the part, especially as there's only one principal female role."

First, however, Hannah must share the stage with a bunch of very Bad Girls.

Bad Girls, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on the run until July 1. Box office: 0113 213 7700.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/art...36-2216839.html

Bad Girls - The Musical
Jeremy Kingston at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

With the eighth TV series of Bad Girls now looming, anyone longing to know what happened in the first two will find some answers here. With added music. Can timorous Rachel, first-time offender and weeping for her fostered babe, resist the sexually voracious Officer Jim Fenner (Hal Fowler)? Will the prison bully Shell cackle with wicked joy as she throws Rachel’s photo of her babe down the toilet? Can true love bloom between the elegant and reformist Wing Governor Helen and the elegant lifer Nikki, sentenced for killing the policeman who tried to rape her girlfriend?



These are not even half the storyettes that Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus have retold from their immensely successful series. (They wrote Footballers’ Wives too.) The snippety structure is the style of all TV drama set within a closed community.

First a snatch of Helen’s worries — “Not every Juliet wants a Romeo” — next the latest dastardly scheme in Jim’s campaign to replace her, before we see Shell (or Nikki, was it?) starting the prison riot.

The unsubtle and implausibly escalating events are easy to mock but the truth is that their musical treatment here, in Maggie Norris’s high-definition production, is for the most part enjoyably jolly and even touching. Much of what happens is hopelessly incredible, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish fantasy from what, wanting a better phrase, we must call real life. When Fowler’s Jim and Rachel Izen as his trusting partner, Sylvia “Bodybag” Hollamby, seize golf clubs to use as canes for their excellent pastiche of We’re a Couple of Swells, we can guess we are into dreamland; likewise when a staircase slides into position and the prisoners, dolled up in finery, come high-stepping down the glittering steps. But when, alone in her cell, a prisoner complains musically of her lot and the dry ice rolls around her feet it becomes hard to know where we are.

Kath Gotts’s music for her own neat and sexy lyrics hovers on the edge of being memorable — not something one often feels like saying of the modern musical. Lynne Page’s riproaring choreography is concerned to express the vivacity rather than the despair, because this is a show where, as the saying goes, cheerfulness keeps breaking through. Specially notable in a cast with no duff performances are Fowler as the evil rapist, Ellen O’Grady’s disdainful Yvonne and Laura Rogers and Hannah Waddingham as the two “Juliets” who at last (did you doubt it?) can declare their love.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml.../ixartleft.html

On the road: Bad Girls: The Musical, Shadowmouth, Pygmalion
(Filed: 12/06/2006)
Dominic Cavendish

As efforts in this field go, Bad Girls: The Musical, which waves a wand of song and dance over the TV series about life in a women's prison, ain't half bad. In fact, if you lower your expectations enough, you could well leave the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds convinced that this ingenious crossover is touched by mild genius.

The series' writers, Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, have, together with composer and lyricist Kath Gotts, evidently lavished a considerable amount of care and attention on their new baby. Slick and assured, it offers an entertaining mix of tongue-in-cheek comedy and resonant pathos.

The soapish, sensational storyline - involving a hapless newcomer to G-wing, its sexually confused female governor and the predatory screw Jim Fenner - is engaging enough to keep the audience hooked. Plausible pastiches of sundry musical forms abound. What the show doesn't finally do is persuade you that it has got a genuine inner life.

Overall, though, this romp about tough gals, hopeless cases and women on the verge of a lesbian breakout is so inventive, it brushes aside misgivings about its integrity.

Expertly directed by Maggie Norris, sleekly designed by Colin Richmond and beautifully sung, especially by Hannah Waddingham as a dyke with a deadly past, Bad Girls must surely travel after its Leeds run.

http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Theatre-Revie...garrick-theatre


Bad Girls: The Musical - dates confirmed
David Burt as Count Fosco in The Woman in White

Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle

IT HAS now been confirmed that Bad Girls: The Musical will open at the Garrick Theatre on September 12, 2007 (previews from August 16).

As well as featuring original Leeds cast members, the London production will include David Burt, Sally Dexter and, from the original television show, Nicole Faraday (Snowball Merriman in two series) and Helen Fraser (Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby in all eight series).

Burt (Jim Fenner) has appeared numerous times in the West End – in The Woman in White (as Count Fosco), Jesus Christ Superstar, Chess, La Traviata, Les Miserables, Napoleon, The Far Pavilions and Show Boat.

Dexter (Yvonne Atkins) has been nominated twice for an Olivier Award – for her portrayal of Anna in the National Theatre’s 1998 production of Patrick Marber’s Closer, and her role as Nancy in the London Palladium’s 1995 production of Oliver!.

Her other recent West End credits include Theatre of Blood again at the National Theatre (2005), The Old Masters at the Comedy Theatre (2004), and Billy Elliot The Musical (as Mrs Wilkinson).

From the Leeds production are Laura Rogers as Helen Stewart; Julie Jupp (Bat Boy, Honk) as Julie Saunders; Amanda Posener (Caroline, or Change) as Denny Blood; Caroline Head as Nikki Wade; Rebecca Wheatley (Fame, Casualty) as Julie Johnson; and Chris Grierson (Blondel, Hollyoaks) as Justin Micklewaite.

Also from the Leeds production is director Maggie Norris.

Buy tickets

Previously Posted: Although exact dates have yet to be confirmed, a stage adaptation of the popular television series Bad Girls, Bad Girls: The Musical, will open at the Garrick Theatre in September 2007.

The TV drama, set in fictional Larkhall prison, ran for eight years – between 1999 and 2006 – and the musical version revolves around key characters from the first series, in a story of deception, romance, revenge, and the occasional riot!

Helen Stewart, the new idealistic Wing Governor, has to battle against the devious and corrupt Jim Fenner who, aided and abetted by Sylvia Hollamby, is up to his usual seedy tricks – exploiting the female prisoners.

But on the other side of the bars ‘top dog’ Shell Dockley, described by a judge as ‘evil personified’, and her motley crew of fellow cons have their own disputes to settle.

Amid all this tension, romance blossoms between Stewart and beguiling inmate Nikki Wade. However, a death on the wing forces the two women to take sides and seek their own justice.

The musical, which has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, and music and lyrics by Kath Gotts, includes the songs The A-List, One Moment, The Baddest and the Best, All Banged up and Freedom Road.

Bad Girls: The Musical received its world premiere in July 2006 at Leed’s West Yorkshire Playhouse where it ran for six weeks.

The Garrick Theatre is currently dark following the scheduled closure of Treats on May 26, 2007.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,21...rticle_continue

Shed takes Bad Girls to the West End


Katie Allen
Monday June 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Shed Productions, the maker of TV hits Bad Girls and Footballers' Wives, is taking the prison drama to the West End, tapping into a huge fan base and a booming market for musicals.

Aim-listed Shed is also working on a stage version of trash TV phenomenon Footballers' Wives as it explores ways to diversify its business away from programme production and a reliance on broadcasters that continue to suffer under a tough advertising market.

Bad Girls the musical launches at the Garrick theatre this autumn and Shed, a co-producing with Big Broad, is hoping to draw in fans from around the world, not least thanks to original TV cast member Helen Fraser reprising her role as 'Bodybag' Sylvia Hollamby.

"We expect fans from South Africa and Australia and America to travel over to see it," said Shed chief executive Eileen Gallagher. "We had 108 unofficial websites at one point, it's a passion show with a lot of show addicts. It's always been a drama that existed outside of television."

Bad Girls ran for eight series and as well as being a hit with British audiences on ITV it was exported to some 50 countries. American fans make up half of the traffic on the show's official website.

The move into the West End follows a record year in 2006 for London's theatres when the lion's share of attendances went to musicals. Still Shed decided not to invest any of its own money in the musical version of a love story between two women.

"We took the decision it's a completely different type of business, we can't expect shareholders to back a television business and have an open-ended commitment to a risky business which is musical theatre," says Ms Gallagher.

Shed owns the brand and book for Bad Girls giving it access to the royalty pool and as a co-producer will get 20% of any profits.

"There's only upside for our investors but we haven't put anything in our estimates going forward because it's one of these unknowns and everyone knows how risky musicals are," says Ms Gallagher.

Her decision to experiment in the West End comes as TV production companies seek to make more of the improved access to secondary rights they gained in the 2003 Communications Act and is against a backdrop of tighter budgets for broadcasters. Shed says it has so far not been affected by slowing advertising revenues for broadcasters but that's no reason not to move beyond TV production.

"If you have got worldwide TV brands then you should exploit them," she says.

Shed has had to work hard to replace the contribution from both Footballers' Wives and Bad Girls after they were de-commissioned last year. If the stage version of Bad Girls manages to pull in international viewers it will bode well for plans to prolong the shelf-life of Footballers' Wives which has been on in a wider 150 countries. The stage version is currently being written.

Shed also has a global web portal for childcare based around the show Supernanny, which it wants to use to get direct access to fast-growing online advertising revenues. It sees strong brands as the key to standing out and getting the most out of TV shows. "We are looking at buying companies that have got brands because we know the value of them. Brands is what you want. There's so many channels and so much noise, you've got lift yourself out of the noise," says Ms Gallagher.

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/new...contentId/94568
Bad Girls get West End jailhouse

Bad Girls at West Yorkshire Playhouse
Bad Girls at West Yorkshire Playhouse
Handcuffs and swag bags were given out to invited attendees at the press launch of Bad Girls The Musical earlier today. The new show comes to the West End’s Garrick theatre on 12 September (previews from 16 August, with a gala night on 13 September) after originating at West Yorkshire Playhouse last year.

Written by the creators of the popular television series, which ran for eight seasons on ITV1, Bad Girls The Musical is based on the core characters from the first three series of the programme and stars two of its cast members – Nicole Faraday, who played Snowball Merriman on screen but takes the role of inmate Shell Dockley on stage, and Helen Fraser who recreates the character of Sylvia Hollamby – joined by West End regulars Sally Dexter and David Burt.

Set in the fictional prison HMP Larkhall, Bad Girls The Musical tells the story of idealistic Wing Governor Helen Stewart and her battles with the entrenched old guard Officer Jim Fenner (Burt) and his sidekick Hollamby. Among the inmates featured in the show are Dockley and her runner Denny Blood, the Governor’s love-interest Nikki Wade, old-timer Noreen Biggs, the two Julies and gangland boss’s missus Yvonne Atkins (Dexter).

The musical is written by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, the pairing behind Footballer’s Wives as well as Bad Girls, with an original musical score and lyrics by Kath Gotts, who wrote the theme tune to the television series. It is directed by Maggie Norris.

In addition to her role on Bad Girls, Faraday played Dr Heather Lincoln in hospital soap Casualty. Fraser’s other television work includes Rising Damp, One Foot In The Grave, and The Dick Emery Show. Burt’s numerous London stage credits include The Woman In White, Jesus Christ Superstar, Chess and Les Misérables; while Dexter has appeared in the West End in Oliver, Closer, The Theatre Of Blood and Billy Elliot, in which she played Mrs Wilkinson.

The rest of the cast comprises Maria Charles, Chris Grierson, Caroline Head, Julie Jupp, Amanda Posener, Laura Rogers, Rebecca Wheatley, Emily Aston, Phil Barley, Zita Frith, Lisa Marie Graham, Michael Harbour, Gillian Hardie and Natalie Tapper.


http://westendwhingers.wordpress.com/2007/...usive-pictures/
Bad Girls The Musical! Exclusive Pictures
June 26th, 2007

Phil, being that much better connected (to the mains if Andrew had his way) than Andrew, was invited to the launch of Bad Girls The Musical! at the Garrick Theatre this morning.

Bad Girls 2The Whingers are not familiar with the TV show on which this alleged musical is based. Andrew considers himself too cerebral and artistic to “do” telly; Phil does do telly (a lot) but has never watched Bad Girls because he found the concept reminded him of the many occasions he’s found himself at His Majesty’s pleasure during his youth.

Bad Girls 1Phil snapped merrily away with his box brownie regardless but regrettably - having harangued Boots into processing them in less than four hours - has no idea who any of the people pictured are so it was a bit of a waste of time really.

However he does know the wonderful Helen Fraser who played Lampwick’s daughter in the long forgotten Dick Emery TV show for which someone called Harold Pinter is listed as providing additional material.

Apparently it’s something to do with a lot of women who have fallen into bad ways and ended at some sort of holiday camp called Larkhall.

Judging by the shenanigans today there’s copious dollops of lesbianism, not something one sees on the Charing Cross Road every day. Phil didn’t quite know quite where to look.

The Whingers thought they’d share the results of the photo-call anyway since Phil had gone to all that trouble. Do let us know if you can enlighten us. Don’t let yourself be put off by the fact that we really don’t care.



http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=2...=E8821182868513
Photos: Bad Girls Annex HMP Larkhall for Launch
Date: 26th June 2007

Ahead of performances starting in August, the inmates of HMP Larkhall were today granted day release in order to visit the West End’s Garrick Theatre for the launch of Bad Girls The Musical (See Today’s Other News). The stage adaptation of the long-running ITV drama opens at the 650-seat playhouse, to be sanctioned an “annex” of the show’s prison, on 12 September 2007 (previews from 16 August).

A uniformed Helen Fraser - who played guard Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby in all eight series of Bad Girls on screen and who will reprise her performance on stage in the West End – oversaw today’s proceedings, barking orders at both the cast and the 200 industry guests and journalists in attendance.

A promotional film comprised interviews with director Maggie Norris, composer/lyricist Kath Gotts and producer Tristan Baker as well as extracts from the TV series and the stage show’s original 2006 run at Leeds’ West Yorkshire Playhouse. Its screening was followed by a live rendition of the musical’s number “The Baddest and the Best” performed by cast members Nicole Faraday (as Shell Dockley), Amanda Posener (Denny Blood), Caroline Head (Nikki Wade), Julie Jupp (Julie Saunders), Rebecca Wheatley (Julie Johnson) and Sally Dexter (Yvonne Atkins). Guests were also give swag bags of show merchandise.

The television drama, set in the fictional prison Larkhall, ran on ITV for eight series from 1999 to 2006. The musical, written by the creators of the TV series, is based around some of the core characters from season one. In it, idealistic new Wing Governor Helen Stewart tries to make improvements on G Wing, but old guard officers, including Jim Fenner and his sidekick Sylvia Hollamby, stand in her way. A death on the ward leads to an angry protest which also forces Stewart and her love interest inmate Nikki Wade onto their opposite sides of the bars.

Additional inmate characters include Shell Dockley and her runner Denny Blood, the Two Julies, and the top dog and missus to the king of gangland, Yvonne Atkins. Also in the cast are David Burt, Maria Charles, Laura Rogers and Chris Grierson.

This one has more cast info:
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=2...=E8821182797231
Burt & Dexter Join TV’s Bad Girls at Garrick, 12 Sep
Date: 26th June 2007

As previously reported (See News, 14 Jun 2007), Bad Girls The Musical, the stage adaptation of the long-running ITV drama, will break into the West End’s Garrick Theatre this autumn, with an opening date now confirmed for 12 September 2007 (previews from 16 August). Further casting – including David Burt, Sally Dexter, and, from the original TV show, Nicole Faraday (pictured) and Helen Fraser - and creative details have also now been announced.

The television drama, set in the fictional HMP Larkhall, ran on ITV for eight series from 1999 to 2006. The musical, written by the creators of the television series and first seen in July 2006 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds (See News, 4 Jan 2006), is based around some of the core characters from season one.

In it, idealistic new Wing Governor Helen Stewart tries to make improvements on G Wing, but old guard officers, including Jim Fenner and his sidekick Sylvia Hollamby, stand in her way. A death on the ward leads to an angry protest which also forces Stewart and her love interest inmate Nikki Wade onto their opposite sides of the bars. Other featured inmate characters include Shell Dockley and her runner Denny Blood, the Two Julies, and the top dog and missus to the king of gangland, Yvonne Atkins.

David Burt plays Jim Fenner. His myriad West credits include The Woman in White, Jesus Christ Superstar, Chess, La Traviata, Les Miserables, Napoleon, The Far Pavilions and Show Boat. Sally Dexter, who plays inmate Yvonne Atkins, has most recently been seen as Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot, for which she was Whatsonstage.com Award-nominated.
Nicole Faraday played Snowball Merriman in two series of Bad Girls on TV, and won the TMA Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for the original production of the musical. Helen Fraser was Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby in all eight series of Bad Girls on screen and reprises her performance on stage in the West End.

The London company will also feature original Leeds cast members Laura Rogers as Helen Stewart, Julie Jupp (Bat Boy, Honk) as Julie Saunders and Amanda Posener (Caroline, or Change) as Denny Blood, as well as Caroline Head as Nikki Wade, Rebecca Wheatley (Fame, TV’s Casualty) as Julie Johnson and Chris Grierson (Blondel, TV’s Hollyoaks) as Justin Micklewaite.

Also in the cast are: Maria Charles, Emily Aston, Phil Barley, Zita Frith, Lisa Maria Graham, Michael Harbour, Gillian Hardie and Natalie Zapper. Bad Girls The Musical has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus with music and lyrics by Kath Gotts. Its songs include “All Banged Up”, “Jailcraft”, “The A-List”, “One Moment”, “The Baddest and the Best” and “Freedom Road”.

The production is directed by Maggie Norris, who also helmed it in Leeds, and designed by Colin Richmond, with lighting by Tim Mitchell, orchestrations by Martin Koch and choreography by Anne Yee. It’s produced by Kath Gotts and Maggie Norris for Big Broad Productions and Eileen Gallagher for Shed Productions alongside executive producer Tristan Baker (Never Forget, Footloose).

- by Terri Paddock

An older article which I guess we missed from mid-June:
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=2...=E8821181753075

Bad Girls The Musical Breaks into West End in Sep
Date: 14th June 2007

As previously tipped (See The Goss, 5 Jun 2007), Bad Girls The Musical, the stage adaptation of the long-running ITV drama, will break into the West End this autumn, starting performances at the Garrick Theatre in September (exact dates still tbc). Further details, including key casting, will be announced at a media launch held at the theatre on 26 June, when tickets will also go on sale.

The musical, written by the creators of the television series, had its world premiere in July 2006 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds (See News, 4 Jan 2006). The cast for that six-week run, directed by Maggie Norris, included: Hannah Waddingham (now Spamalot’s Lady of the Lake), Hal Fowler, Rachel Izen, Ellen O'Grady, Amanda Posener, Laura Rogers and Nicole Faraday, who won Best Supporting Actress in a Musical at that year’s TMA Awards for her performance as inmate Shell Dockley.

The television drama, set in the fictional HMP Larkhall, ran on ITV for eight series from 1999 to 2006. The musical’s story is based around some of the core characters from season one. In it, idealistic new Wing Governor Helen Stewart tries to make improvements on G Wing, but old guard officers, including Jim Fenner and his sidekick Sylvia Hollamby, stand in her way. A death on the ward leads to an angry protest which also forces Stewart and her love interest inmate Nikki Wade onto their opposite sides of the bars.

Bad Girls The Musical has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus with music and lyrics by Kath Gotts. Its songs include “The A-List”, “One Moment”, “The Baddest and the Best”, “All Banged Up” and “Freedom Road”.

At a launch event (pictured) held prior to its Leeds premiere (See News, 4 Apr 2006), Gotts told Whatsonstage.com: “Bad Girls is just a world you want to be in, even though it’s set in a prison. Watching it you just want to feel part of it, and that’s why we thought it would make a good musical. It has a pop rock feel to it, and each of the characters has a signature style of music. The main inspiration for the music was the characters because they are all so strong.”

The Garrick Theatre is currently dark following the 26 May conclusion of the scheduled run of Christopher Hampton’s Treats, starring Billie Piper, Kris Marshall and Laurence Fox.

- by Terri Paddock

http://www.itv.com/news/entertainment_ac91...de5a5f4d3a.html
Bad Girls musical hits West End
8.41, Sat Jun 30 2007


Bad Girls The Musical will be making its debut in the West End later this year.

The adaptation was penned by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus - the duo behind the original ITV drama.

Laura Rogers, who plays Helen Stuart in the production, said: "I think it's nice to have a musical now, where there are alot of strong women characters involved.

"Normally being an actress, we find that the best roles are taken by the men, so it's really nice to play some strong women."

Bad Girls ran for eight series and was a massive hit in 50 countries around the world.

The musical will be at London's Garrick Theatre from September 12.


http://banners.broadwayworld.com/postmaster336.php
Bad Girls Get Banged Up at The Garrick!

Following a triumphant run at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last summer the inmates of HMP Larkhall are now being sent down to London's Garrick Theatre for the West End premiere of Bad Girls - The Musical.

At the media launch held on Tuesday, we were treated to special footage about the production and its journey into the West End as well as a live performance of the one of shows biggest numbers "The Baddest and The Best" Wardening the launch and keeping the girls in order was Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby, played by Helen Fraser. Perhaps most associated with the show, she is sure to ensure fans of the cult TV drama to come along to The Garrick.

Helen is the only original TV cast member to come on board with the production. Helen did extensive work on the musical to begin with but did not perform in the production at its premiere last year at The West Yorkshire Playhouse. Many cast members from The West Yorkshire Playhouse run will be reprising their roles for the West End, but sadly not Hannah Waddingham who is still performing expertly in Monty Pythons' Spamalot at The Palace. The role she played, Nikki Wade, will be taken over by Caroline Head. Fear not though, although one well known West End star is not staying with the production, fresh from playing Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot, Sally Dextor will lead the bad girls playing glamour gal Yvonne Atkins. The whole cast is as follows David Burt (Jim Fenner ), Sally Dexter (Yvonne Atkins) , Caroline Head (Nikki Wade) , Nicole Faraday (Shell Dockley) , Laura Rogers (Helen Stewart ), Helen Fraser (Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby) , Julie Jupp (Julie Saunders) , Rebecca Wheatley (Julie Johnson ), TBA (Crystal Gordon) , Amanda Posener (Denny Blood ), Chris Grierson (Justin Mickelwhite) , Michael Harbour (The Number One ), Maria Charles (Noreen Biggs) , Lisa Marie Graham (Prisoner 1 ), Zita Frith (Prisoner 2) , Natalie Tapper (Prisoner 3 ), Gillian Hardie (Prisoner 4) , TBA (Prisoner 5 ), Karen Davies (Prisoner 6 ), Sally Whitehead (Prisoner 7) , Phil Barley (Prisoner 8 ), Rick Savery (Prisoner 9) .

In the brief media clip shown at the launch, Director Maggie Norris comments on how the show will have heart and comedy. Kath Gotts also said how the show seemed ideal to be a musical when you have so many individual characters "banged up" in a small space each having deal with so many different emotions. Executive Producer Tristian Baker ended the clip by saying that Bad Girls will be a fantastic night out! Bad Girls is designed by Colin Richmond , lighting by Tim Mitchell and choreography by Lynne Page . Production notes for the production read as "Never shying away from the darker side of prison life, Bad Girls celebrates the warmth, compassion and defiant sense of humour that can triumph even behind bars. Packed with fresh, funny and original songs, Bad Girls -The Musical will have you doing the time of your life." Previews start August 16th.

And an article from last year which I think we might have missed?

http://rainbownetwork.com/Culture/detail.a...Channel=Culture

If you loved the idea of experiencing Acorn Antiques as a musical then what could be better than seeing your favourite Bad Girls characters in a song and dance extravaganza? Yes folks, book your seats now because this musical rendition of the compelling series, based on original characters and written by the creators of the TV series, promises to be a mega hit.

The story is a corker. A new idealistic Wing Governor, Helen Stewart (Laura Rogers), has to battle against the entrenched old guard, headed by the devious and corrupt Jim Fenner (Hal Fowler) who’s up to his usual seedy tricks exploiting the female prisoners. Fenner’s right hand woman, Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby played by Rachel Izen, makes up this gruesome twosome.

But on the other side of the bars ‘top dog’ Shell Dockley (Nicole Faraday), who was described by a judge as ‘evil personified’ together with her motley crew of fellow cons, have their own disputes to settle.

Amongst all this tension, romance blossoms in the form of Wing Governor Stewart and beguiling inmate Nikki Wade played by Hannah Waddingham. A death on the wing forces the two women to take sides and seek their own justice. What unfolds in the HMP Larkhall prison is a story of deception, romance and revenge, not forgetting the occasional riot!

Writers Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus who have created and written the TV series have now brought their characters to life onstage. Chadwick makes the point that the musical is not simply a ‘camp’ affair or C-Block H with musical notes.

“It covers serious issues but at the same time is entertaining and designed to give audiences a total theatrical experience which is different from the TV show,” Chadwick told us.

Actor Hal Fowler, who plays the villainous Jim Fenner, admitted that they are not trying to do carbon copy versions of the screen characters.

“We know many people in the audience will be familiar with the TV characters, but what we’re more interested in doing on stage is recreating an essence of those original characters”

Anyone expecting Fenner to jump into bed with a fellow male screw - or anything male for that matter - will be disappointed as his character “hasn’t got to that stage in the TV show we’re he’s experimented with his sexuality”.

But Hal does strip off so that’s some consolation for those who have a thing for didactic prison officers in uniforms!

Director and Executive producer Maggie Norris has an impeccable stage pedigree and has just recently completed directing a feature film, Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution, starring Mark Strong. Maggie likens the theatrical version of Bad Girls to the 80’s movie Scrubbers but with the addition of musical numbers that enhance the emotional experience.

“There are seventeen numbers which is quite a roll call for a musical,” says Norris.

“They range from pastiche, Busby Berkley numbers to moving ballads. What’s an important element about this show is the ‘camaraderie’ between the women, which is very unlike the kind of atmosphere you find in male prisons.

“But this isn’t a fluff piece at all. It’s quite a gritty production.”

Of course the story wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory Bible Basher spouting off her self righteous sermons and actress Dawn Hope, who plays Crystal, is certain that her character – despite the ranting - will win over audiences.

“You might not agree with what she is saying or her religious beliefs but you have to admire her strength and how she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She stands up for her beliefs and like many of the girls in Larkhall has had a rough ride in life”

Music and lyrics for Bad Girls: The Musical are by Kath Goth, whose recent work includes a new adaptation of Therese Raquin, The Bodies, at the Live Theatre, Newcastle. Together with director Maggie Norris they set up Big Broad Productions Ltd in 2005, which is presenting Bad Girls with co-producers The West Yorkshire Playhouse.

With numbers such as ‘All Banged Up’, ‘Jailcraft’ and ‘Freedom Road’, you can expect many witty, outrageous and no doubt poignant lyrics that reflect this blend of hard hitting drama and comedy.

Bad Girls – The Musical opens at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on the 6 June. And if you’re itching to see a musical version of the divinely camp Footballers Wives, well watch this space!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml...raffdrv07053100

Can The Last Confession save the West End?

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 04/07/2007

'The Last Confession' is superb, but, alarmingly, it is one of only seven straight plays in theatreland -compared with more than 25 musicals. Charles Spencer fears for the future

Enjoy The Last Confession while you can. It could be one of the last of its kind. I warmly applauded Roger Crane's gripping Vatican thriller about the death of Pope John Paul I when it opened in Chichester in May and welcome this speedy transfer to the West End's Haymarket theatre.
The Last Confession, starring David Suchet, is superb - but one of only seven straight plays in the West End.
Blessed Rarity: The Last Confession, starring David Suchet as a power-proking Vatican cardinal

It's popular drama at its best, asking tough questions about faith and organised religion, while also exploring conspiracy theories about the possible murder of a truly holy man.

With David Suchet as the power-broking, God-doubting Cardinal Benelli, it has a superbly compelling, beautifully detailed star performance at its centre, while the supporting cast of men in frocks brings the venomous rivalries within the Vatican to superbly entertaining life.

Imagine The Da Vinci Code with brains and a dash of style and you will get some idea of what's on offer here.

But will it prosper? In almost 30 years of covering the West End, I can't remember the straight play being in a more parlous state.

Audiences seem to be losing their appetite for drama, comedy and thrillers, and heading to musicals instead. And producers seem all too happy to encourage them to do so.

Consider the case of Nimax Theatres, comprising the Lyric, Apollo, Garrick, Duchess and Vaudeville. All of these are traditional playhouses. But, with the exception of the Apollo, currently hosting a duff, doomed production of Kean starring Antony Sher, all the rest are offering musicals or variety.

At least the Lyric has the excellent Cabaret, but haven't we had more than enough of the novelty show Stomp at the Vaudeville?

More alarmingly still, the Garrick is about to stage Bad Girls - the Musical, based on the camp TV women's prison drama, while the intimate Duchess, which seats less than 500, is, incredibly, to revive the jukebox musical Buddy.

When I took Nimax boss Nica Burns rather roughly to task for selling the pass on straight drama, she promptly burst into tears. It's never a good thing to make a woman cry, but her response didn't strike me as a robust defence of her artistic policy.

In her heart, I suspect Burns would prefer to be doing new plays, but she needs to turn a buck, and musicals are currently where the money is.

When musicals take over playhouses, they are often there for years rather than months, making it ever harder to get quality drama into the West End.

The Aldwych, once the home of the RSC, now houses Dirty Dancing. The Noël Coward, a smashing theatre for plays, has Avenue Q. The Ambassadors is about to receive the transfer of Little Shop of Horrors.

There should be intelligent, entertaining drama in these theatres.

A West End that has no place for Wilde, Coward, Rattigan, Stoppard, Frayn or Ayckbourn, as is currently the case, strikes me as impoverished.

And, apart from Richard Crane, where is the new writing? There are a few straws in the wind. The Duke of York's is about to open a revival of David Storey's In Celebration, while John Simm comes to the Trafalgar Studios in the touching new comedy Elling.

The fact remains, however, that there will soon be 29 musicals in the West End and only seven plays, the lowest number ever.

London's commercial theatre is going the way of Broadway, and we may soon be down to a couple of snob hits a season like New York.

I love a great musical, but they shouldn't form the entire theatrical diet. Yes, we have the National, the Royal Court, the Donmar and the Almeida, but the traditional West End needs straight plays to offer variety and a mixed economy.

Unless producers start showing more guts, enterprise and imagination, I fear the West End could become little more than one vast neon-lit jukebox.
# 'The Last Confession' tickets: 0870 400 0626

http://www.shropshirestar.co.uk/2007/07/we...ing-star-kelle/

West End for rising star Kelle

A talented Shropshire actress has landed a role in the new West End musical based on the cult television hit Bad Girls.

Kelle Marie Walters will play a female prisoner in the production which opens at London’s Garrick Theatre on September 12.

Her mother Debbie, from Telford, said today the former Blessed Robert Johnson student was delighted to have landed her first West End contract after a year packed with auditions.

Kelle, 24, graduated from ArtsEd College in London in August with hopes of fulfiling a lifetime’s ambition to become a musical theatre star.

“She is so excited about this part,” added Debbie. “I went down to see her at the weekend after she heard the news because rehearsals start now and I know I won’t get to see her much while she is getting ready for the show.”

Kelle was a member of the Theatre of Gifted Youth in Telford and also took part in several productions and programmes at Oakengates Theatre.

“She has wanted to be on the stage since she was a little girl,” said Debbie. “I am so proud of what she has achieved.

“She really deserves this because she has been to audition after audition over the last year and it is a pretty tough industry to work in. It is so competitive but now she has a 12-month contract and will also be stepping in for some of the leading roles when people are on holiday.”

Bad Girls The Musical was penned by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus - the duo behind the original ITV drama.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=518781

If you're in for a good time - bad girls do it best!
After eight years banged up on the small screen, the Bad Girls are being transferred to the Garrick.


Following a triumphant run at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last summer the inmates of HMP Larkhall are now being sent down to London for the West End premiere of Bad Girls - The Musical.



For your chance to win one of two pairs of tickets to see Bad Girls The Musical, answer the following question:



Bad Girls The Musical is taking place at HMP Larkhall. What does HMP stands for?


Answer: b. Her Majesty's Prison

How to Enter:
- Send an email with the correct answer to competition@londonnet.co.uk


with the subject "Bad Girls The Musical Competition"


- You must include your name, email address, telephone number and postal address, to be considered for the prize.


More Necessary Info:
- The available dates are for performances up until 30 Sept, ex. Fri & Sat nights, and ex. 13 Sept
- Subject to availability
- NB MUST include name, email, telephone number and postal address (which will only be used for this compie only - guaranteed). If you don't include your details we can't send you info about the prize!
- First correct answer out of the Editor's hat wins the prize
- Details will be sent to the winner
- LondonNet is not responsible for prize distribution
- The Editor's decision is final

Edited: To avoid double posting. :D

Cool article about the show written by Kath Gotts:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle2238654.ece

August 13, 2007
Back in your cells, you lot
Bad Girls: The Musical will give the cult TV show a new life in the West End. Its producer explains how the women’s prison drama was set to music
Kate Gotts

When Bad Girls was axed by ITV last year it bowed off the screen in triumph – an eight-year run of 107 episodes, eight awards, continuing sales all around the world, and still, by today’s standards, getting a very respectable audience of 4.7 million. But as the hour comes round for it to be reborn on the West End stage, I have to remind myself of those scary times when it was first broadcast back in May 1999, to be met with a pelting from most critics and downwardly spiralling ratings that today would lead to a swift mercy killing by the schedulers.

Obviously we knew that we were taking a bit of a risk with Bad Girls. A drama set inside a women’s prison, with its combination of emotion and anarchic humour, and a lesbian love story at its core, it was never going to fit the usual prime-time genres. Luckily, we had a first series of ten episodes, long enough to find our core audience and to turn the show into a cult hit.

When people try to wrestle with the concept of Bad Girls as a musical the same questions always dominate. Do you need to know the TV series? Does it have the same cast as on the telly? Is it serious or is it funny? Well, the short answers to those questions are: no, no and both. Striking the right balance of light and shade in the show is crucial, but the variety of emotional tone is exactly what makes Bad Girls special. And that’s why we felt it was perfect territory for a musical, where comedy, drama and pathos are all heightened even further.

Like the TV series, the musical is set in the fictional HMP Larkhall, with an ensemble of the original core characters from both sides of the bars and the same edgy mix of emotional tone. The marketing will tell you that it’s loads of fun – and it is – but it’s also an indictment of our penal system.

The prison world of Bad Girls gave us a contemporary milieu with a stock of big characters in a classic “us and them” conflict. The rich language of prison slang is fertile territory for new lyrics to refresh the traditional rules of perfect rhyme. We were certain that we could create a musical from this material that could stand alone in its own right and be accessible to those unacquainted with the TV show.

Five years ago, when we first conceived the stage show, new musicals in the West End were pretty thin on the ground. The resurgence of musical comedy in the past few years bolstered our plans, although it’s still rare to find a musical that is original, British and contemporary, never mind feminist.

Our first challenge was deciding which characters and stories to feature. We knew that the essential dynamics included the original two officer/inmate pairings: Wing Governor Helen Stewart’s romantic duel with the rebellious lifer Nikki Wade contrasted with the more sleazy relationship of our two baddies, Principal Officer Jim Fenner and the psycho bitch Shell Dockley. The oppositions of those characters pretty much dictated the outline of the story: we needed the Helen and Nikki love story and at the same time the downfall of Jim Fenner.

In the TV show, Jim had been stabbed in the belly with a broken bottle by Shell, had a psychotic breakdown and was eventually killed with a shard of ice in the neck. In the musical we had the freedom to find a juicy new way to give him his dues that would bring the power battle between him and Helen to the kind of satisfying resolution that we’d had to deny our TV fans, for the usual reasons of actor availability and broadcaster diktat.

But it was never going to be an option to cast the musical “as seen on TV”, so we had to find out if and how we could distil the essence of the characters so that they could be successfully transferred to the stage by other actors who could sing. Obviously in theatre we’re well used to different actors giving different interpretations of a particular role, but in television the two can appear to become inextricably linked.

We further complicated the matter by casting some of our TV actors in different roles from those they played on screen. For instance, Helen Stewart is now played by Laura Rogers, who was previously seen on the inmate side of the bars, and Nicole Faraday, formerly in the part of the porn actress Snowball Merriman, is now playing Shell Dockley.

When we staged a workshop performance at the New Players Theatre in London, with only two of the TV cast playing their original characters – Helen Fraser as Body-bag and Maria Charles as Noreen Biggs – the response of an audience of Bad Girl sfans was overwhelmingly positive. There was just one complaint: that Nikki Wade should have short dark hair . . .

Viewers’ expectations need to be balanced against the more pressing desire to create something fresh and original. Impersonations of other actors’ performances would have been dull, but we did have to consider carefully the extent to which our stage cast should match the look of the TV cast. With characters such as the Two Julies, it was key to the original conception that they were a pair of prostitutes who deliberately styled themselves to try and look alike, even though one was small and the other tall – and we’ve kept to that in the musical.

With Nikki Wade, however, the key thing is that our hero figure and romantic lead has to have a quality about her that we can really believe would turn Helen Stewart’s head and throw her into emotional disarray. She basically has to have an irresistible look and demeanour that any one of us – male, female, straight, gay – will find attractive. And we proved that being a cropped brunette really isn’t an essential part of that recipe.

The character of Yvonne Atkins appeared towards the end of the first TV series and made an immediate impact. Her opening exchange with Sylvia Hollamby is the same in the musical. Sylvia: “You might be famous on the outside, Atkins, but you won’t be in here.” Yvonne: “Wanna bet?”

Yvonne is powerful, charismatic and clever. In the musical, played by the fabulous Sally Dexter, she arrives with a coat stashed like a mini bar and shares out the booze with all her new chums. Of course we do know that in real life it’s unlikely that she’d get through security like that – even with the threat of a visit from her gangster husband Charlie – but this is one of those moments where we do allow ourselves to enjoy the fact that it’s a musical, and the booze puts the women in the mood for Yvonne’s big party number, The A-List.

With its TV incarnation now at an end, Bad Girls: The Musical can establish its own identity and become a standalone show in its own right. And fans of the show will be able to enjoy seeing Helen Fraser fulfil her lifelong ambition to be in a West End musical.

On top of that they’ll also get Jim Fenner and his fantasy chorus-line of dancing prison officers, a death, a riot, a love story, some serious issues and some very serious fun, with an ending that wipes away all memories of Yvonne’s corpse left rotting in the old hanging cell at the end of series five. Just a typical day at HMP Larkhall, then . . .

Fenner’s a goner – and other top Bad Girls moments

Yvonne’s death Evil Jim Fenner traps Yvonne Atkins in the hanging cell beneath Larkhall – she thinks it’s an escape route. She dies horribly of suffocation or starvation or dehydration.

Nikki and Helen reunite The fans’ favourite lesbian coupling of seasons one to three, the wing governor (Helen) and prisoner (Nikki), finally get together after Nikki’s release. The nation cheers.

Bodybag’s trip Sylvia dances the night away (unwittingly) on E. Also, inmate Shell Dockley sets fire to Bodybag’s (alive) husband while he is incarcerated in a coffin.

Fenner’s death Larkhall’s much-hated officer is stabbed to death with a sharpened blade of ice – yes, really – by Julie J.

“It’s a miracle” Kate O’Mara leaps from her wheelchair, cured suddenly of her “paralysis”.

Bad Girls previews at the Garrick Theatre from August 16 and opens on September 12. Box office: 0870 0400083/0870 8901104

I'm happy they're working with the gay community on this show--they've definitely been pushing the gay angle in all their publicity.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5208.html

Banged up Bad Girls to hold gay fundraiser

Tickets for the Stonewall benefit night cost £50 and include a top-price theatre seat, post-show drinks and the chance to meet the show's cast.

16th August 2007 18:38
PinkNews.co.uk writer

It's been a while since the heavy metal doors slammed on the inmates of HMP Larkhall for the last time, but now those bad girls are back and, boy, are they making a song and dance about it.

Bad Girls The Musical, currently previewing at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, is teaming up with Stonewall for a special fundraising benefit night on 6th September.

The event will raise money for the gay equality charity's campaigning work around homophobic bullying and lesbian health.

The musical features all the show's favourite characters, including Nikki Wade, Helen Stewart, 'The Two Julies,' Yvonne Atkins, Shell Dockley and dastardly screws Jim Fenner, and Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby (played by Helen Fraser, who starred in the TV series).

It promises to be a great night out for everyone.

Tickets for the Stonewall benefit night cost £50 and include a top-price theatre seat, post-show drinks and the chance to meet the show's cast.

Tickets are limited for this special fundraising event and they are already being snapped up.

"This is a great opportunity to be one of the first to see the newest and most anticipated West End musical, meet the cast and help raise vital funds for some of Stonewall's most important campaigns all at once!" Stonewall's events manager, Michaela Greene, told PinkNews.co.uk

"It'll be a great night for fans of the show, or those who want to play their part in helping our crucial work."

Tickets for the event can be bought on the Stonewall website or by phoning 0207 593 1873.

They are pushing the gay angle ... that's great to see, and it's nice too that they're actually engaging in a little activism. Wish they'd do more of it. Was that kind of thing common during the show's run? I know in general Shed supports prison reform and, what is it, the WPA? But were they actually out and about with events like this?

http://arts.independent.co.uk/theatre/feat...T00:00:01-00:00

Preview: Bad Girls - The Musical, Garrick Theatre, London
Come on girls, it's time to face the music
By Charlotte Cripps
Published: 28 August 2007
How easy is it to turn a gritty television series about a fictional women's prison into a musical? The creative team behind Footballers' Wives and Waterloo Road – Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus – have managed it, transforming their British TV drama series Bad Girls for the stage.

The TV show set in HMP Larkhall was broadcast on ITV from 1999 to 2006. The musical takes its characters mainly from the first series, but includes the developing lesbian love story between graduate fast-tracker wing governor Helen Stewart and life inmate Nikki Wade that lasted for three series.

The musical is directed by Maggie Norris, who has been involved in shaping it from the start. The show premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in June 2006, and it now transfers to the West End.

The composer and lyricist is Kath Gotts, who co-wrote the theme and incidental music for four series of Bad Girls.

Her 16 songs for the show include the tango "All Banged Up", about sexual frustration; "One Moment", a big ballad about how life changed after getting arrested; "Jailcraft", a vaudevillian number about how to run a prison; and the gospel song "Freedom Road", after a tragic death on the wing.

With so many musicals falling by the wayside, what makes this one a success? "Like the TV show, it's a roller-coaster ride of entertainment. It's not a piss-take. It is serious and it is funny. You go on a real voyage of your emotions," Gotts says.

This is a new departure for musicals based on existing plays and novels, Gotts says. "The British musical Jerry Springer: The Opera was the beginning of establishing that relationship between television and musicals as subject matter. But this is the first major British TV show to be turned into a musical. It's a perfectly reasonable and logical extension to look for ideas in the world of television." So, what's next? "Footballers' Wives – The Musical is in the pipeline," Gotts says.

From 12 September; (0870 890 1104; www.badgirlsthemusical.com)

http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=2.....+Helen+Fraser

20 Questions With ... Helen Fraser
Date: 3rd September 2007

Star of ITV’s Bad Girls Helen Fraser - who hits the West End this month in a new musical version of the hit series – explains why no one else could ever be Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby & what kind of posh part she’d like to tackle next.

Helen Fraser has had a long and respected performing career on stage and screen. She is perhaps best known for originating the role of Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby in Bad Girls in 1999 on ITV, a role which she kept for the whole eight series. She made her first big break in to films with a starring role in the 1969 movie Billy Liar, in which she played Barbara. She’s also created her own one-woman show, Vesta, which played around the UK a