Chess concert at Theatre Royal Drury Lane to star Samantha Barks and Hadley Fraser

Chess will be performed in concert at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane this August.

The new concert production will play for three shows on 1 and 2 August 2022 (including matinee).

The cast will feature Samantha Barks (Frozen, Les Misérables) as Florence, Hadley Fraser (2:22 A Ghost Story, City of Angels) as Anatoly, Joel Harper-Jackson as Freddie (Cock, Kinky Boots), Frances Mayli McCann (Bonnie and Clyde, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour) as Svetlana and Ako Mitchell (Caroline Or Change, The Colour Purple) as The Arbiter and Craige Els (Matilda the Musical, The Imitation Game) as Molokov.

Sir Trevor McDonald OBE will provide the pre-recorded voice of the Newscaster.

Appearing in the ensemble will be Joseph Craig, Darius J James, Aoife Kenny, Jessica Lee, Nick Len, Natasha May-Thomas, Alice Readie, Joshua Robinson, Stuart Rouse, Phoebe Samuel-Gray, Grant Thresh and Libby Watts.

They will be joined by the London Musical Theatre Orchestra to perform the score, written by Sir Tim Rice with ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson

The concert will be directed and choreographed by Nick Winston with associate direction and choreography by Alexandra Sarmiento, musical direction by Freddie Tapner, design by Ruth Sutcliffe, lighting by Ben Cracknell, lighting programming by Chris Winn, sound design by Tom Marshall and video projection design by Duncan McLean.

At the height of the Cold War, two chess masters meet in Bangkok to battle for the world championship, but their greatest contest is for the love of one woman.

Telling a story of love and political intrigue, and set against the background of the Cold War in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Chess features an incredible score including classics such as “I Know Him So Well” and “One Night in Bangkok”.

Chess first started life as a concept album in 1984 before numerous productions and tours including runs in both the West End and Broadway in the late 1980s.

A new West End revival took place in 2018 alongside a production at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the time tipped as a pre-Broadway try out.

The new concert production will be part of a series running this summer alongside Kinky Boots and Treason.