Gatsby: The Musical to play at Southwark Playhouse from December

Gatsby: The Musical is to play at London’s Southwark Playhouse over the festive period.

The unique musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s renowned tale will play between Wednesday, 8 December 2021 and Saturday, 8 January 2022.

Ruby in the Dust Theatre will bring the iconic story of the glitz and glamour of the Jazz Age following previous successes as a sell-out concert at Crazy Coqs in Piccadilly and an online streamed concert performance at Cadogan Hall.

The piece is written & directed by Linnie Reedman with a score by Joe Evans. Casting is to be announced.

Set in a New York Speakeasy in late December, 1929, we watch the new decade quickly approach as the story unfolds through the eyes of Daisy Buchanan. It has been seven years since she last saw Gatsby, yet the past lingers. Their illicit romance was a cocktail of adoration and complications that needs to be confronted so she can move on, so she bravely returns to the dangerous world she once left behind.

Meeting a carnival of characters, including notorious gangster Woolfe, Daisy approaches her past by reliving the dream she shared with Gatsby. But who is she really? And where is Gatsby?

This original retelling of Fitzgerald’s classic novel pivots the focus to Daisy, with references to the real woman that inspired her character; his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. Written and directed by Linnie Reedman, with original compositions by Joe Evans, the story switches between the beginning of the 1920s to the turn of the decade, while Fitzgerald’s fantastical characters play out the drama of the novel. With elegant pace, a smoky jazz score and garnished with wry humour, Gatsby: The Musical revels in the decadence of the period.

Tickets are on sale online now from www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.

Writer and Director Linnie Reedman said: “Gatsby has become, over the years, synonymous with glamour, glitz and parties. What a lot of people forget, however, is that the ‘Roaring Twenties’ came immediately after a World War. And a global pandemic.

“It was a period of upheaval and great change. I think the story of a crushed American dreamed, juxtaposed against individual hope and optimism is essentially pertinent today…”