Love Story

Love Story

Love Story

Back in the 1970s Erich Segal, the writer who had penned the screenplay for The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, sat down and wrote a novel that would become his best known work – Love Story. It told the tragic story of a doomed romance and when the movie adaptation hit cinema screens across the world it would kick-start a new genre of film that would become known as ‘chick flicks’. Over the years it has been remembered as a classic and as a result its staging at the Chichester Festival Theatre would inevitably lead to success, with a West End transfer soon to follow.

After all, the Chichester Festival Theatre is amongst the venues out there that regularly stages shows ahead of a West End run and has proven this in the past with plays like Enron or the recent The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. So it is amongst venues across the United Kingdom that can give a good idea of shows that will eventually move to Theatreland.

With Love Story – the Musical, which is set to appear at the Duchess Theatre from December 2010, audiences will be witnessing a show that has broken hearts for decades. It introduces us to two characters that have come from very different backgrounds; Oliver who is wealthy and Jenny who is poor. They come together whilst at college and fall in love, but when Oliver’s father discovers he is marrying someone from a poor background, he instantly severs him from his financial support and inheritance. But that is not the only thing to blight their love – when they are married, something is discovered that could bring their romance to a tragic end.

Segal sadly died in January 2010 but in the years since he penned Love Story he also wrote numerous other pieces of work, including the screenplay to the movie version and the novel’s sequel Oliver’s Story, in addition to books like The Class.

But Love Story is amongst his most enduring classics and when it is staged at the Duchess later in the year it will mark the West End producing debut of someone who has appeared on stages across the country – Michael Ball. So it is likely to be a high profile West End production.

Love Story – the Musical begins its run at the Duchess Theatre on Monday 6th December 2010 (with previews from Saturday 27th November 2010) and continues to Saturday 26th February 2011.