Whistle Down The Wind

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Musical Closed 12 August 2006>

Palace Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London

"Revamped and revitalised it emerges as a musical to touch the heart" The Sun

The return, for a strictly short season, of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's musical Whistle Down the Wind in a new production directed by Bill Kenwright.

Based on the much loved film, Whistle Down the Wind is an extraordinary and uplifting tale about the transforming power of love and was originally seen in London's West End at The Aldwych Theatre in 1998 when it played for 2½ years.

In America's deep South a 15 year old girl discovers a mysterious man hiding out in a barn. When she asks his identity the first words he utters are 'Jesus Christ'; it's as if all her prayers have been answered. The girl and the town's other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside; meanwhile the townspeople are determined to catch a fugitive. Whistle Down The Wind's powerful all new staging combines epic storytelling with intimate emotion as the innocence of children collides with the cynicism of the adult world.

Includes the No.1 hit 'No Matter What' plus 'Whistle Down The Wind', 'The Vaults of Heaven', Try Not To Be Afraid' 'Cold' and many more.

Please note: age suitability - eight plus.

"Andrew Lloyd Webber's most underrated musical - the score may be his best" The Times

"Under Bill Kenwright's impressively simple, uncluttered direction, this revival succeeds in being a quietly exciting and moving story of mistaken identity and the power of purity over wickedness. Lloyd Webber relocated the original story (made famous by the 1961 film starring Alan Bates and Hayley Mills) from its chilly setting in northern England to the God-fearing community of farming folk in Fifties Louisiana. It gave him, the grand master of pastiche, a golden opportunity to experiment with sounds from gospel, hymns, jazz, blues and the dawn of rock'n'roll... Kenwright's production gets the best out of less-than-vintage Lloyd Webber." The Mail on Sunday

"If you were once, like most people, an eager, dreamy child, or a restless adolescent who loved secrets and liked to fantasise, don't miss this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical... Bill Kenwright's production of Whistle Down The Wind blends the absurd, the childlike, the lyrical and the menacing... Paul Farnsworth's sets are brilliantly evocative, and there are moments when the blend of lyricism and violence reminds you of West Side Story... Sad, joyful and finally uplifting: an irresistible show." The Sunday Times

"Tough and stirring, persuasive and affecting... the score is one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's finest. Great rock'n'roll, classic rock-a-billy, magnificently tormented love ballads, thrilling beautifully sung duets." The Daily Telegraph

"There are those whose heart's cockles are warmed by the sound of many children singing at the same time and there are those who want to leave the room - or in my case the Palace Theatre where Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical abomination Whistle Down the Wind has been revived. This is a nauseating and creepy adaptation of Mary Hayley Bell's cockle-warming, sinister 1958 novel. Dogged professionalism aside, only the shiny, happy face of my companion, my own child, kept me in my seat... The performances are all good and conscientious, and the songs, even the ones sung by many children at the same time, are forgivable. Turning this classic story of a childhood fantasy into one of teenage angst, however, is not." The Sunday Telegraph