Get booked in for Benidorm LIVE
HIT ITV comedy Benidorm is heading to the stage with a new live show – featuring many of the stars of the series – coming to Manchester.
The Spanish-set comedy, which has been running on TV for ten years, is set to bring sunshine and smiles across the UK and Ireland with the first ever stage version, written by show creator Derren Litten.
Benidorm – Live will get its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, from Friday, September 7, 2018, and will open at the Palace Theatre on Friday, November 26, 2018.
Litten has written an all-new set of Alicante escapades for the muchloved cast members, including Jake Canuso (Mateo), Janine Duvitski (Jacqueline), Adam Gillen (Liam), Sherrie Hewson (Joyce Temple-Savage), Shelley Longworth (Sam) and Tony Maudsley (Kenneth) as they swap sangria for the stage next year after a quick spruce at the Blow ‘n’ Go!
Derren said: “I’ve loved ten years of writing my TV show Benidorm but despite a successful writing career I’m first and foremost a performer so have always been secretly frustrated I couldn’t hear the audience’s laughter.
“This national tour of Benidorm – Live will not only make a long-lasting dream come true but will also mean I no longer have to stand in strangers’ gardens listening at their windows at 9pm on cold winter evenings!”
ITV’s smash-hit comedy celebrates a decade of allinclusive hilarity, having followed the ensemble cast of holiday makers and staff for nine series since it first broadcast in 2007. Season 10 is due to broadcast early next year.
A critically-acclaimed show, Benidorm has received two National Television Awards, a TV Quick Award and nominations at the British Comedy Awards and BAFTAs.
After leaving school in Hull in the late 1980s, Derren spent a year working as a professional magician while auditioning for drama schools.
He won a place on the three-year acting course at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama where he met fellow student Catherine Tate. After ten years of working as an actor, Derren was asked by Catherine to write for her newly-commissioned TV sketch show, The Catherine Tate Show, in which he also appeared in many of the sketches.
After co-writing and appearing in two series and a Christmas Special, Derren was given a script commission by legendary comedy producer, Geoffrey Perkins – and that show turned out to be ITV’s BAFTA nominated hit comedy Benidorm.
The next series of Benidorm has filmed.
And Derren says fans of the show will get to see what happens next after the series finale in the new stage show.
He said: “This show will actually be a continuation of that series, which has quite a big ending, so if you want to see what happens next you’ll want to come and see the theatre show.
“There’s something very deliberate that happens in the series, and the fallout of what happens there, you’ll see it in the live show.”
Derren is also hoping to bring an interactive element to the stage show – it could even mean audience members taking part in the legendary karaoke at Neptunes.
He added: “I want to do things in the live show that we can’t do in the TV show, there’s no point doing a live show unless we can do something different.
“I would love to have some interactive element, whether that’s to get someone up to do the karaoke yet I don’t know.”
Tickets go on sale tomorrow to ATG Theatre Card holders, and on general sale from Monday at atgtickets.com/manchester or 0844 871 3019. already been