Tom Conti Set for Smash! at London's Menier Chocolate Factory

Tony Award winner Tom Conti will join Kerry Shale and Natalie Walter in the London premiere of Jack Rosenthal’s Smash!. The play is set to run from March 24 to May 8 at the Menier Chocolate Factory, with opening night on March 31.

The rarely seen Smash! is described as a hilarious but scathing look at the journey to get a musical from page to stage, complete with a cantankerous composer, a fantasist lyricist, a neophyte female novelist turned playwright, a cocksure director and a bombastic producer. Rosenthal, who died in 2004, based the play on his experience turning his TV play Bar Mitzvah Boy into a less than successful musical. He is best known for co-writing Yentl with Barbra Streisand.

Conti, a Tony and Olivier Award winner for Whose Life Is It Anyway?, received an Oscar nomination for Reuben, Reuben and co-starred in the popular movie Shirley Valentine. Shale appeared in Rosenthal’s Bar Mitzvah Boy and in London productions of His Girl Friday and Frost/Nixon. Walter’s theater credits include Habeas Corpus, As You Like It and Noises Off.