Rowan Atkinson Announces Rowan Live, a West End Show With Mr Bean and Blackadder
Rowan Atkinson will play Blackadder, Mr Bean and other characters in Rowan Live, a 30-performance West End run opening in February, his first sketch show there in 40 years.
Rowan Atkinson is heading back to the London stage with Rowan Live, a sketch show that mixes his best-known characters with brand-new material.
What we know about Rowan Live
According to The Guardian, the production will run for just 30 performances and opens in February. It will feature new routines alongside famous sketches from TV, including those from Not the Nine O'Clock News.
Atkinson said it is 40 years since he last did a comedy sketch show in the West End. He said it seemed fun to perform again "the sketches that began it all" for himself and writer Richard Curtis, and in which his best-known characters originated. These will sit alongside "surprise new material written especially for this show".
The source does not say which theatre will host the run, and it gives no ticket prices or on-sale dates.
Who is involved
Atkinson and Curtis will work again with Ben Elton, who wrote Blackadder, and Howard Goodall, its composer. Atkinson created stage comedy with Curtis and Goodall when they were at Oxford University, before his rise on BBC television in the 1980s.
Curtis said it has been 50 years since he first saw Atkinson on stage. He described a "unique, once in a lifetime talent". Over the summer, the team began assembling the show in front of a small audience. Curtis said he hopes it will "make people very happy".
The characters and the clues
A promotional image shows a dressing-up box containing a priest's vestments and a gorilla mask. The vestments recall Atkinson's routine as a priest who explains how Jesus's miracles led him into a magic career. He revived that routine in 2012 at a Prince's Trust gala at the Royal Albert Hall.
The gorilla mask appears to nod to Gerald the gorilla from Not the Nine O'Clock News. In that sketch, Gerald argues with a professor played by Mel Smith.
Background: Atkinson's stage career
Atkinson had a one-man West End show in 1981, aged 26, and another five years later. He perfected Mr Bean on stage in the 1980s before the character reached TV and film in the 1990s. He later used Mr Bean in a live comedy tour and in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.
More recently he played Fagin in Oliver! in 2009, a role that earned an Olivier nomination. In 2013 he starred in Simon Gray's Quartermaine's Terms.
The show also follows a recent trend for TV nostalgia on stage, after theatre versions of Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Only Fools and Horses.
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What it means for you
Anyone interested should watch official West End channels for the venue, dates and booking details, which were not in the available source. The show opens in February.
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