BLONDEL is back! Tim Rice's lesser-seen musical comedy with a rock-opera twist opens at the Union Theatre this summer and Connor Arnold will be leading the cast as it heads to London for the first time...
Connor Arnold has been cast in the title role as Blondel. Connor is a 2016 graduate from Mountview Academy Of Theatre Arts. He recently played The Pardoner on a European tour of Canterbury Tales. His previous credits include Silent Witness (BBC1) and Catch Me at the Arts Theatre.
The rest of the cast features:
- Courtney Bowman (Winner Stephen Sondheim Performer of The Year 2016, she’s just played Fatimah in the acclaimed new musical, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Sheffield Crucible)
- Michael Burgen (Patsy, Spamalot, West End, Samuel, The All-Male Pirates of Penzance, UK Tour)
- Lauren Byrne (recently in the UK tour of Sunny Afternoon as first cover Rasa)
- David Fearn (A Christmas Carol, Lyceum Theatre)
- Ryan Hall (making his professional debut after graduating from Mountview)
- Oliver Marshall (has just played Rumbold in Forty Years On at Chichester Festival Theatre; Dog Boy in the musical Side Show, Southwark Playhouse)
- Jessie May (Regina in Rock of Ages, UJK toourt, Sophie, Mamma Mia!, West End)
- Katie Meller (Billie Trix in Closer to Heaven, Union Theatre, The Phantom of the Opera, West End)
- Calum Melville (featured soloist, Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton at the Royal Albert Hall)
- Neil Moors (Caiaphas, Jesus Christ Superstar, UK Tour, Pirate King, The All-Male Pirates of Penzance, UK Tour)
- Craig Nash (currently in 110 in the Shade, Ye Olde Rose and Crown, Mark Cohen in Rent)
- Michaela Stern (Soho Cinders, Union Theatre, You Won’t Succeed on Broadway, If You Don’t Have Any Jews, international tour)
- James Thackeray (Compliance, Theatre503, A Haunting, King’s Head Theatre)
- Jay Worthy (Call Me Madam, Little Shop of Horrors, Parade).
Tim Rice said: “I’m delighted Blondel is returning to the stage. It was one of the most enjoyable projects of my career, and I’ve always felt Stephen Oliver’s wonderful music deserved a larger audience than it reached back in 1983 when the show first ran. I hope this new production at the terrific Union Theatre will please old fans and find some new ones.”
What's the story?
When King Richard announces that he’s off on a Middle East Crusade to give Saladin a piece of his mind (and sword), the struggling court musician Blondel is forced to stay behind to write songs in praise of the King’s evil - and ambitious - brother, Prince John. Worse still, Blondel is separated from his sweetheart Fiona, who has been press-ganged into the King’s official crusade dry cleaning dept. However when Richard is captured by the murky - and rather cunning - Duke of Austria (just before the interval), Blondel decides to embark upon a pan-European adventure to save his King, Fiona, and England. An irritable assassin, a proto-Robin-Hood and a quartet of monks all aid and/or hinder Blondel’s efforts to write himself both a place in history and love song to dedicate to Fiona.
