Comedy, music and tragedy collide in Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall
- Interviews available on request
- Syndicated interviews available with Sholto Morgan, Tim Carroll and Ben Power
- Photographs available of the cast in costume performing outside The Lowry on a vintage army vehicle
Tue 6– Sat 10 April
Press Night Tue 6 April, 8pm
Spike Milligan’s celebrated war memoirs are brought to anarchic life in this critically acclaimed hit comedy, recent winner of the Whatsonstage Best Regional Production.
This epic Everyman’s odyssey through World War Two, with a cast of extraordinary characters, charts Gunner Milligan’s progress from joining the Royal Artillery through the North African and Italian campaigns. High comedy and tragedy collide, as we follow him and his ad hoc jazz quartet – complete with their famed comedy routines – adrift on the tide of great historic events.
Using Milligan’s own words, the story is told through a joyous fusion of comedy, jazz, song and dance – showing how humour, music and comradeship enabled a hapless and disparate bunch of young men to prevail against the might of the Nazi War Machine.
A man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless; he said, “As from eleven o’clock we are at war with Germany”. (I loved the “we”). “War?” said Mother. “It must be something we said,” said Father.
Featuring an extraordinary cast of actor/musicians, Tim Carroll fulfils a lifelong ambition to bring Milligan’s madcap and poignant experiences to life. The cast includes: Matt Devereaux, William Findley, Dominic Gerrard, Sholto Morgan and David Morley Hale.
Adapted for the stage by Ben Power and Tim Carroll, designed by Laura Hopkins with lighting by James Farncombe and sound design by John Leonard, choreography by Sian Williams and Musical arrangement by Oliver Jackson.
Posted on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 under Press Theatre Press