Baz Mamma Mia! Here they go AGAIN
FANS of Abba have been ‘blue since the day we parted’ from the mother of all popular musicals, Mamma Mia! But — here we go again — take heart, because the show is returning, for a limited run, in the 100-acre grounds of one of the country’s grandest stately homes.
Judy Craymer, the brains behind the long-running hit, told me a full production of Mamma Mia! will play 23 performances on a specially erected stage, complete with giant sound system and spectacular lighting design, at Harewood House in Leeds, in August.
The producer said it would be the first opportunity for people to see the musical since its West End and touring versions closed in the UK a year ago.
Craymer was feeling decidedly jubilant (it made me want to warble ‘there’s a fire within her soul’) when we talked yesterday.
‘It’s literally under the stars!’ she said of the show’s first full outdoor run, which will begin on August 12 with an invitationonly performance for NHS and key workers.
CRAYMER revealed the public can see it from August 13 until August 30; and she promised a ‘mega-mix extraordinaire’ finale, devised by choreographer Anthony Van Laast, guaranteed to get people dancing.
The show will be able to cater for 1,800 people per performance. ‘We are socially distanced, by the nature of the event,’ Craymer said.
Audiences can arrive early, tuck into a varied menu of picnic boxes, sit on seats (or a Mamma Mia!themed rug) and ‘enjoy a drink and then watch the show’, though no food will be allowed once it starts. The production will star Sara Poyzer as heroine Donna Sheridan. Poyzer’s husband Richard Standing has been cast alongside her, to play Sam, one of Donna’s former suitors. ‘They have done that before,’ Craymer told me. ‘I used to laugh and think: what goes through their minds when she bellows Winner Takes It All?!’ The cast will be formed from members of the UK and international touring troupe, who were playing at Hull’s New Theatre last March when it was forced to shut down because of Covid restrictions. Helen Anker and Nicky Swift will play the Dynamos with Poyzer; Daniel Crowder and Jamie Kenna play Donna’s other former beaus. By the time Mamma Mia! opens at the 18th-century Palladian pile, Craymer said most people would have had the Covid vaccine — including the cast, musicians, technicians and the front of house and backstage crews.
She’s considering filming the Harewood House show, though she ruled out streaming it.
The stately home experiment is one she’d like to repeat next year. ‘There are some wonderful places to be able to do it...like Blenheim, for instance.’
Craymer revealed that the musical would re-open at the Novello Theatre in London, with Mazz Murray as Donna and Emma Mullen as Sophie, possibly as early as September — without social distancing.
‘We can’t play to 50 per cent capacity,’ she told me. ‘We’re on our knees; big and small producers.’
Oh, yes, and the Mamma Mia! 3 movie, which I revealed last June, is bubbling away in development. n TickeTs £39.50-£75.50, on sale from March 19, mammamia.com/harewood-house.