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Time for Carrots
The hunt is on for an 11-year-old to star in a revival of Carrots, the musical dedicated to Dr Barnardo
A MUSICAL about Dr Thomas
Barnardo should be
internationally famous by
now. Yet the great Andrew
Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
chose the London East End saviour of
orphans as the subject of their first
show in 1966, and failed. It took until
2005 for the pair to attempt a full public
performance for The Likes Of Us.
Tommy Steele abandoned another
version in the 1960s.
A 1980 attempt, Barnardo, was
described as "a mindless East End
knees-up with indigestible dollops of
nauseating sentimentality" by critics
with James Smillie under fire as the
kindly doctor.
Make way for producer/director
George Critchley of PMA Productions
who is on the look-out for Carrots, an 11-
year-old singing, dancing, acting star,
and his orphan mates.
Auditions are taking place at The
Karen Heritage Dance Studio, Stockton,
on May 26 with application forms
available from
www.pmaproductions.co.uk. George
aims to stage Carrots at the Georgian
Theatre Royal, Richmond, during the
week of August 13-16 using a show
which began life in the late 1970s.
Middlesbrough-born former Stokesley
Primary School headteacher Peter
Canwell created Carrots, which focuses
on the tragic ginger-haired Victorian
boy, John Somers, who inspired
Barnardo.
It started life as a school production
and blossomed into a Billingham Forum
show in 1979 and has clocked up
hundreds of school and youth theatre
versions over the years.
George, who has forged a reputation
at Richmond for creating four years of
audience-pleasing pantomimes,
confesses that it was the persuasive
powers of sprightly 78-year-old Peter
Canwell "who chased me for 18 months
to produce Carrots. He and I agreed to
go for a workshop-style production at
Richmond.
"I'm looking for an average-sized 11-
year-old boy or girl and if they're a little
bit under-nourished it'll help. I'm open
to an interpretation if a girl comes
along and she wows us, then I will cast
her. I want this project to be a big noise
in the North-East because this is a
fantastic opportunity for a potential
young actor," he says.
He doesn't mind if youngsters who
apply don't have much stage school
experience but is keen for cast members
to have good singing voices. "I was
going to contact local choirs at one
stage because there are some really
good numbers and foot-tapping chorus
songs which I'll need about two teams
of 12 supporting cast to take on," says
George who is using Karen Heritage's
school premises at Stockton for
auditions because she is the show's
choreographer.
He was down in London this week
looking at 60 actors to play the role of
Dr Barnardo. "I've got some people in
mind, but because 99 per cent of actors
live in London I'm going there. I may
still go for a talented local actor," he
explains.
Another reason for the trip south is
that the producer will need to recruit a
dialect coach to ensure that North-East
youngsters sound like they could be
auditioning for the West End version of Oliver!, a show which is dominating
primetime weekend viewing on BBC1 at
present.
"It's a fascinating opportunity for
children of modern day to actually go
back in history and see the deprivation
and malnutrition that occurred in the
1860s and also to see it from a
Barnardos' children's perspective and
how much has changed in the last 150
years. There is a lot of good I'm trying
to get out of this as well as being a
business-minded producer.
"The Richmond theatre is a fantastic
and intimate space with a feeling like
sitting in your own front room and this
is more about trying out the story and
seeing if it works, then my plan is to
put it on in Billingham Forum in 2009 to
mark the 30th anniversary."
So why has the only really successful
version of Dr Barnardo the musical
failed to reach the West End?
"I've asked this question of Peter
Canwell and it's something that's
bothered me. No producer has taken it
on. Cameron Mackintosh apparently
came to see it, but at the time he was
producing Oliver! and went with that.
Peter can't give me a reason why
nobody else took it on."
Carrots probably suffered because a
musical about a ginger-haired orphan
opened on Broadway in 1977. "So
Carrots does smack of Annie meets
Oliver!," jokes George who is preparing
to risk around £15,000 on the project.
"I am hoping to raise money for
Barnardos and find some sponsorship,"
he adds.
10:04am Saturday 10th May 2008
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