AMBER Davies will play Hollywood hooker Vivian Ward opposite Oliver Savile’s businessman Edward Lewis when Pretty Woman; The Musical tours the Grand Opera House, York, next February 20 to 24.
2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion Ore Oduba, last seen at the Cumberland Street theatre in fishnets in March 2022 as nerdy, preppy American student Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Show, will return to York two years later in the role of hotel manager Barnard Thompson/Happy Man. Natalie Paris will be Vivian’s wisecracking roommate Kit De Luca.
On tour in Pretty Woman from October 2023, Davies is starring at present in the West End as Lorraine Baines in Back To The Future: The Musical at the Adelphi Theatre. Previous theatre roles include Judy in the original West End cast of 9 To 5 The Musical at the Savoy Theatre and on tour and Campbell in Bring It On at London’s Southbank Centre.
In the West End, Savile’s credits include Fiyero in Wicked, Whizzer in Falsettos, The Phantom Of the Opera and Les Misérables, complemented by the UK tour of Cats and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He performed alongside alongside Sting in the American tour of erstwhile The Police frontman’s North East shipyard musical The Last Ship.
Oduba, a 2021 finalist in Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, starred in the 50th anniversary tour and West End production of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, and further roles since taking to the musical theatre stage in 2019 include Aaron Fox in Curtains on tour and in the West End and Teen Angel in a UK tour of Grease.
Paris is best known as the Olivier Award-nominated original Jane Seymour in the West End production of SIX The Musical and is now on tour in North America in the role, having played her on the UK tour too.
Among her previous London stage credits are Sunday In The Park With George at the Menier Chocolate Factory and Wyndham’s Theatre, Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace and Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre and Queen’s Theatre.
In the UK and Ireland tour cast too will be: Becky Anderson; Rebekah Bryant; Josh Damer-Jennings; Ben Darcy; Andrew Davison; Lila Falce-Bass; Noah Harrison; Sydnie Hocknell; Elly Jay; Rachael Kendall Brown; Michael Kholwadia; Joshua Lear; Stuart Maciver; Victoria Rachael McCabe; Eleanor Morrison-Halliday; LJ Neilson; Annell Odartey, Curtis Patrick and Chomba Taulo.
Billed as Hollywood’s ultimate rom-com, live on stage, Pretty Woman: The Musical is set once upon a time in the late 1980s, when prostitute Vivian meets entrepreneur Edward and her life changes forever.
“Be swept up in their romance in this dazzlingly theatrical take on a love story for the ages – and get to know these iconic characters in a whole new way – in a sensational show guaranteed to lift your spirits and light up your heart,” say the producers.
Pretty Woman: The Musicalfeatures original music and lyrics by Grammy Award winner Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, a book by Garry Marshall and the 1990 film’s screenwriter J.F. Lawton. Direction and choreography is by two-time Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell.
Roy Orbison and Bill Dee’s hit song Oh, Pretty Woman, the inspiration for Garry Marshall’s film, features in the show too.
The show has scenic design by David Rockwell; costumes by Tom Rogers, from the original Broadway designs by Gregg Barnes; lighting design by Kenneth Posner and Philip S. Rosenberg; sound design by John Shivers; hair design by Josh Marquette and music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations by Will Van Dyke. 101
Pretty Woman: The Musical had its world premiere at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre in March 2018 before transferring to Broadway, where it ran at the Nederlander Theatre. The German production opened in Hamburg at the Stage Theater an der Elbe in September 2019 and an American tour opened in October 2021.
Pretty Woman: The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 20 to 24 2024, 7.30pm, plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york