In a cheeky nod to coronation year, new comedy caper The Crown Jewels - based on a real life attempt to steal them - arrives at The Lowry, Salford, in September featuring a starry cast that includes Al Murray (The Pub Landlord) ; Mel Giedroyc (The Great British Bake Off, Light Lunch); Carrie Hope Fletcher (Bad Cinderella, Les Misrables, Heathers); Aidan McArdle (Leopoldstadt, Ridley); Neil Morrissey (Men Behaving Badly, Line of Duty); Joe Thomas (The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat, White Gold) and Tanvi Virmani (Life of Pi).
Following the West End premiere in the summer, the show arrives at The Lowry from September 19-23.
Producer Simon Friend said: “The Crown Jewels came out of a mad idea we cooked up during lockdown, fantasising about shows we could make if theatres were ever to reopen."
The show is based one of the most unbelievable royal events in British history. Three hundred and fifty years ago, charismatic and unpredictable Colonel Blood is planning the greatest heist of all time, stealing the crown jewels in plain sight. But Charles II can’t afford a royal scandal – and no king likes people handling their crown jewels…
Written by BAFTA-nominated Simon Nye, creator of ITV’s The Durrells and BBC 1’s Men Behaving Badly, the show is directed by multi-Olivier award winner Sean Foley (Upstart Crow, The Ladykillers).
Nye says: “I hope audiences will be as titillated and thrilled as I am at the prospect of a riotous comedy-drama about a crown jewels heist that really happened. True crime comes to the theatre, 350 years after the event!
"The cast is an amazing array of comedy talent, and the subject matter absurdly topical. Satire, sword-fighting, love, violence, an examination of the monarchy and Anglo-Irish relations - could you ask for anything more?"
Foley said: “It's an entirely modern take on the Restoration Comedy. It transports us to a completely different time - a time when England had a new king, whose name was... Charles."
More info and tickets here