Organization

Stage director

Sasha Regan

Conductor

Ashley Jacobs

Assistant Director

Kasper Cornish

Choreographer

Set designer

Alex Doidge Green

Costume designer

Bek Palmer

Lighting designer

Warren Letton

Sound designer

Mike Thacker

Singer

Michael Burgen

Dr James Swaby

Charlotte Fleming

Joyce Chilvers

Freddie King

Gilbert Chilvers

Tom Duern

Henry Allardyce

Grange Park Opera

Betty Blue Eyes

Ashford

United Kingdom

HMP Bronzefield

Public

Approved

It is 1947 in a hungry small town in the north of England. Rationing rationing rationing.

Local businessmen plan a party to celebrate the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip and illegally decide to raise a pig (Betty) for this royal occasion. She is gorgeous and delicious and abducted by Gilbert Chivers (played by Michael Palin in the film).

And then there is the region’s food inspector to contend with…

The musical is based on the 1984 film A Private Function to a screen play by Alan Bennett.

In 2011 Cameron Mackintosh, presented with the idea to make the film into a musical, said “The score was written by friends of mine, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, whom I’ve known for 25 years and [who,] of course, did all the terrific new songs for Mary Poppins … The book was written by two Americans [Cowen and Lipman], and it was their idea… I read it and I thought it was the most original piece I had read in a long, long time. I mean, I knew they were working on it, because the moment I heard it was a musical version of A Private Function — a film I loved, by Alan Bennett, which was very, very funny and off-the-wall — I was intrigued…“

English

Betty Blue Eyes by Stiles, From (2022/2022), Directed by Sasha Regan,, Conductor Ashley Jacobs, HMP Bronzefield, Ashford, United Kingdom

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues