Bend It musical lines up its starting eleven
WOMeN’S football will be a big crowd pleaser this year— on and off the pitch.
The Women’s Football World Cup starts in June in Canada; while in the West end, preparations for the musical version of Bend It like Beckham are about to kick off at the Phoenix Theatre.
young actress Natalie Dew receives a first team place as the show’s leading lady Jess, who, against the wishes of her family, joins the local football team, the Harriers.
‘ She loves how David Beckham plays, and she wants to bend the ball into the net the way he does,’ Gurinder Chadha, who directed and cowrote the 2002 film and performs the same duties for the stage show, told me recently.
‘ It’s her passion. It also reflects how she wants to fit in.’ She added that the show’s creative process reflects what the musical’s about: cultures co-existing. Chadha worked on the musical with Howard Goodall, who wrote the score; Charles Hart, who penned the lyrics; and Paul Mayeda Berges, who co-wrote the show’s book.
Jess’s family want her to have both feet firmly planted in traditional Indian values — not going in for tackles, or bending a ball into the back of a net. Natalie took the role (played by Parminder Nagra in the film) in a workshop I saw last year and I thought she was terrific. She has appeared extensively on stage, including playing in the royal Court play Teh Internet Is Serious Business and appearing as Ophelia in a production of Hamlet for the Northern Broadsides theatre company.
Jamie Campbell Bower has been picked by Chadha and producer Sonia Friedman to play Joe, the Harriers’ handsome manager.
Campbell Bower sings with group The Darling Buds, but his main claims to fame are his big screen performances.
He was in Tim Burton’s film of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, played the vampire Caius in three Twilight saga films, was the young Gellert Grindewald in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, and was also in the Mortal Instruments films.
Also cast are Preeya Kalidas, lauren Samuels, Jamal Andreas, ronni Ancona, Tony Jayawardena and Natasha Jayetileke. Some of the ensemble have already started finessing their soccer skills, though officially, football rehearsals do not start till next month, ahead of main rehearsals in late March. ‘ It’s the year of women’s football,’ Friedman proclaimed, confidently. She added that a pool of professional women players would perform in the show.
‘There’s a line-up of women players who will drop in and out,’ she told me. She also noted that the show is ‘ a very powerful story about how great Britain is, because of immigration.’ Previews start on May 15, and the show has its official first night on June 24.