Sunday in the Park with George

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Musical Closed 2 September 2006

Wyndham's Theatre Charing Cross Road, London

London's critically acclaimed first major revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George - a complete sell out success at The Menier Chocolate Factory in South London earlier this year - transfers to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre.

"A masterpiece. One of the most daring, thrilling and moving musicals you are ever likely to encounter. Irresistible" The Daily Telegraph

The Georges Seurat painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, is the inspiration for this compelling musical fantasy which celebrates the art of creation and the creation of art. The first half of Sunday in the Park with George, set in 1884, sees the painting and its rich comic tapestry come to life in a world where, for artist Georges, art comes before love, before everything. In the second half, set in 1980s New York, we see the great grandson of Georges and his search for inspiration amongst the unforgiving world of contemporary art.

The cast is led by Olivier award winner Daniel Evans who will reprise his title role in this transfer. He is joined by 2006 Olivier award-nominee Jenna Russell as 'Dot'. The cast also includes Simon Green, Alasdair Harvey, Mark McKerracher, Liza Sadovy and Gay Soper along with Christopher Colley, Sarah French Ellis, Kaisa Hammarlund, Steven Kynman, Anna Lowe, Ian McLarnon and Joanne Redman. (Casting subject to change).

"An experience of aching loveliness. Sam Buntrock's exquisite production is close to perfection" The Times

This production of Sunday in the Park with George uses ground-breaking techniques that literally bring the production to life by a team led by Timothy Bird and includes Malcolm Hadley who has recently finished working on Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. In early January the Menier Chocolate Factory announced that its highly acclaimed production of Sunday in the Park with George would extend its sell out run for three weeks - all performances sold out in 48 hours!

"Sondheim and Lapine's musical transfers to the West End with triumphant ease" The Gaurdian

"What? Another musical in the West End? Yes, but what a musical. This Stephen Sondheim / James Lapine piece has the elegance, sophisticated humour, visual virtuosity, warmth, generosity and athletic musical drive of a masterwork. This is great musical theatre." The Sunday Times

"Sam Buntrock's ravishing, inspired production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George has come to Wyndhams from the Menier Chocolate Factory and, fittingly for a musical about the Pointillist painter Georges Seurat, it is spot-on. It works as a witty, moving, magical essay on the agonies and ecstasies of being an artist... This is a magnificent evening; a masterful musical of ideas... Not to be missed." The Mail on Sunday

"A technically dazzling, emotionally charged revival of this 1984 show, which counterpoints Seurat's composition Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte with the travails of a contemporary conceptual artist... Daniel Evans as George holds the show together by demonstrating how Seurat's obsessive perfection transmutes into his modern counterpart's anxiety-ridden politicking... But the joy of this rare and civilised show is that it proves that a musical, in deconstructing a work of art, can become one itself." The Guardian

"The Menier Chocolate Factory confirms its reputation with this absolutely ravishing rediscovery of a Stephen Sondheim musical, inspired by the pointillist painter George Seurat. Sam Buntrock's ingenious production of Sunday in the Park with George exploits computer graphics to such ravishing effect that the musical's weaknesses, a plot in two undramatic, thinly related halves and one-dimensional characters, do not irritate... A seriously beautiful musical." The London Evening Standard