25 Years Later, a Musical!

Everybody’s favourite Irish soul band, The Commitments, is coming to London with a new West End show adapted for the stage by Roddy Doyle, author of The Commitments, 25 years after his novel that inspired the hit 1991 movie was published.

Says Doyle about the upcoming show:

I’m extremely excited by this, which is great because I’m nearly 55 and I feel a bit giddy about it. I hadn’t planned to write it myself but then I did and I really enjoyed it. After meeting a number of impressive writers I told my wife “I’m thinking I might have a bash at the script myself” and she said “You took your time.”

The Commitments will be staged at the Palace Theatre in central London and directed by the award-winning Jamie Lloyd, who most recently directed a critically acclaimed run of Macbeth. Previews start September 21st with the show will officially open October 8th. Of course, the show will be packed full of classic soul songs along the lines of Mustang Sally.

But it won’t just be the music taking audience members on a retro trip. The actual tickets prices promise to send theatre-goers on a budget friendly stroll down memory lane as well. In an effort to make the show inclusive, more than 100,000 tickets for the initial one year booking period will be available for only £10 (roughly $16) from the theatre box office. And if you can manage to get tickets for the preview dates, you’ll enjoy even more savings. Tickets for preview performances will be half price, harkening back to tradition not seen in the West End for almost 25 years. This means that tickets are available from the Palace Theatre box office from just £5 (about $7-8).

For those that need a little reminder, The Commitments is the story of Jimmy Rabbitte, a young working class music fan from Dublin, who transforms a group of down-on-their-luck amateur musicians into the finest soul band his city’s ever seen. The show will follow the journey of two members of a frustrated synthesizer band who turn to Jimmy, the local music expert, for help.

The cast will be made up of young talent with most of the members under the age of 21 and some of them making their West End debut. Three quarters of those already cast hail from Ireland.

The Palace Theatre is located at 109 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 8AY. The nearest London Underground station is at Leicester Square.

Tickets for The Commitments are on sale now. To book yours and find out more about The Commitments go to www.thecommitmentslondon.com.

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photo: Chris Osburn