Viva Forever

Viva Forever

Viva Forever, the new Spice Girls musical starts previews on 27th November 2012 and opens on 11th December 2012 at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End, promising to become one of the mainstay popular choices in 2013 for group theatre breaks to London. Viva Forever itself, the song, was one of the Spice Girls big anthem hits. Refresh your memory by settling back and watching this footage from the SpiceWorld tour ‘The light that burns twice as bright burns only half as long, and you have burned very brightly” “Hasta Mañana, always be mine” Viva forever, I’ll be waiting Everlasting, like the sun Live forever, For the moment Ever searching for the one Viva Forever is the title song for the new Spice Girls musical, but if you thought this was going to be another semi-concert style jukebox musical then think again because there’s much more to it than that. For a start, the musical has been written by none other than Jennifer Saunders, the comedy genius behind Absolutely Fabulous. And the team who so cleverly wrought the international success of  Mamma Mia the musical and film out of  seemingly unconnected ABBA hits have worked the same magic on Viva Forever too. Viva Forever They’ve taken 16 Spice Girls classic songs and created a musical extravaganza based on the story of a mother and daughter moving through the stages of a TV reality singing contest. All the favourite girl-power hits are a backdrop to this cheeky life-affirming Spice Girls musical, from Wannabe and Say You’ll Be There to Mama, Stop and the title track Viva Forever itself. Lets see what we can piece together about the story from the full cast list, which has just been released: Viva Forever Casting The cast is led by Sally Ann Triplett and Hannah John-Kamen, who play  a mother and daughter called Lauren and Viva. Lauren is the mother of daughter Viva, so “Viva” is a person OK? Viva has a chorus comprised of three best friends, Luce, Diamond and Holly. These are played by Siobhan Athwal (Luce), Lucy Phelps (Diamond) and Dominique Provost-Chalkey (Holly). Lauren, (the Mother remember!) – also has a best friend called Suzi, played by Lucy Montgomery  who was in Absolutely Fabulous and also  The IT Crowd amongst other things, and a character called Mitch is played by  Simon Slater. The show is all about the modern culture of reality TV talent shows, and the show within the show has three judges, a musical director and    other roles. The judges are played by  Bill Ward , Sally Dexter and Tamara Wall from We Will Rock You, while Ben Cura is Angel, the musical director of the TV talent show, while Hatty Preston plays production assistant Minty. Simon Adkins is Leon the Stylist and Anthony Topham is Lance the presenter. There’s an ensemble cast too,  which includes: Tom Kanavan, Zak Nemorin, Curtis Angus, Luke Jackson, Oliver Roll, David Rudin, Darren Carnall, Myles Brown, Charlotte Gorton, Rebecca McKinnis, Lucy Thatcher, Roxanne Palmer, Charlotte Walcott, Sophie Carmen-Jones, Carla Nella, Kirstie Skivington and Helen Ternent. So we can surmise that the TV talent show probably takes up a substantial part of the storyline, whatever the result and effect it has on the life and family of Viva. Viva Forever Theatre Breaks Viva Forever theatre breaks are booking now for dates including the previews from November 27th but we think the show including a weekend out in London will be popular over the Christmas and New Year period in particular, appealing to both sexes from the generation who grew up in the eighties and nineties as well as musical theatre fans in general. I have a hunch that anyone who enjoyed Mamma Mia would want to see Viva Forever as soon as possible. Or anyone who has ever dreamed of entering a singing contest… Viva Forever poster at the Piccadilly Theatre