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Old 24th November 2012, 04:41 PM
Susan Foreman's Avatar
Susan Foreman Susan Foreman is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Childhood home of Billy Idol - Orpington
Default Who saw the stage show?

Another show I have never seen, but I was wondering if anyone caught any of the stage versions?

From Wikipedia:

"A stage version of Prisoner was produced in 1989, based on the original scripts, and enjoyed a highly successful tour in the United Kingdom. Original actors Elspeth Ballantyne (Meg Morris) and Patsy King (Erica Davidson) reprised their original characters, while Glenda Linscott (Rita Connors) played a new character, Angela Mason. A second tour followed in 1990 starring Fiona Spence (Vera Bennett) and Jane Clifton (Margo Gaffney). Jacqui Gordon (Susie Driscoll) also appeared, as new character Kath Evans.

A musical version followed starring Maggie Kirkpatrick reprising her role of Joan "The Freak" Ferguson and Lily Savage as an inmate. The new musical essentially a send-up of the purported kitsch aspects of the original show, and again, was successful during both a tour and a West End run in 1995 and 1997. Val Lehman (Bea) was very critical towards the production, in particular, why a drag queen would be in a women's prison.

Due to the huge popularity of the show when shown in the UK in the late 1980s, the British Prisoner fan club organised successful personal appearance tours for several actresses, including Val Lehman (Bea Smith), Carol Burns (Franky Doyle), Betty Bobbitt (Judy Bryant), Sheila Florance (Lizzie Birdsworth), Amanda Muggleton (Chrissie Latham) and Judy McBurney (Pixie Mason). A one-off programme, "The Great Escape", was produced in 1990. The programme featured Val Lehman, Sheila Florance, Amanda Muggleton and Carol Burns on their visit to the UK in 1990 and includes extensive footage of their on-stage interview with TV presenter Anna Soubry in which the cast members talk about their time "inside". It was recorded at the Derby Assembly Rooms, Derby, UK and was made available in the UK on VHS video for a short time but has since been deleted."
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