The Midnight Gang and Beauty and the Beast to be streamed by Chichester Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre has announced that they will stream David Walliams's The Midnight Gand and Beauty and the Beast following the success of Flowers For Mrs Harris.

Gemma Sangster, Hal Darling and members of the CFYT in Beauty and the Beast. Photo: Pete Jones David Walliams's The Midnight Gang and the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre production of Beauty and the Beast will be the next productions to be streamed online. Both of these shows are suitable for family audiences from ages 7 and up for a period of 30 days, starting with The Midnight Gang from 30 April and Beauty and the Best from 21 May 2020. They are both free to watch.

David Walliams’s The Midnight Gang, adapted by Bryony Lavery with music and lyrics by Joe Stilgoe, premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2018, directed by Dale Rooks.

Cooper Snow, Fibian McKenzie, Albie Stisted, Cody Maolko and Dickon Gough in The Midnight Gang. Photo: Manuel Harland

This inventive tale of fun, friendship and the importance of kindness, about a gang of children who each night escape from their hospital beds to make their dreams come true, is adapted from David Walliams’s biggest-selling children’s book of 2016.

In 2017, the award-winning Chichester Festival Youth Theatre presented a brand new adaptation of Beauty and the Beast by Anna Ledwich (The Butterfly Lion) from the original fairy tale, with music and lyrics by Richard Taylor (Flowers for Mrs Harris).

A cursed prince sits alone in an enchanted castle, destined to remain in monstrous form until he can learn to love and be loved in return. But who could ever love a Beast? Prejudice, jealousy, compassion and love are woven through this magical story, studded with enchanting and deliciously scary characters.

Dale Rooks, whose work at Chichester includes The Butterfly Lion and the award-winning Running Wild, directs a cast of 72 young people in a visually spectacular show.

To connect with as many people as possible in our community, both productions will be captioned for Deaf/deaf and hard of hearing audiences, and Polish-language captions will also be available. Audio introductions will help set the scene for blind and partially sighted audiences.

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE STREAMING SITE