Cameron Mackintosh and Julian Fellowes' Half a Sixpence, Starring Charlie Stemp, Set for West End Transfer

We were right: Half a Sixpence's dream team is West End-bound! Co-created by mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh and School of Rock scribe Julian Fellowes, the play ran in the U.K.'s Chichester Festival this year. Performances will commence at the Noël Coward Theatre beginning on October 29, with opening night scheduled for November 17. The entire Chichester cast will transfer to the West End, including newcomers Charlie Stemp as Arthur Kipps and Devon-Elise Johnson as Ann Pornick alongside three-time Olivier-nominees Ian Bartholomew as Chitterlow and Emma Williams as Helen Walsingham.

Half a Sixpence, the musical adaptation of H.G. Wells’s semi-autobiographical novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, is a fresh adaptation which reunites book-writer Fellowes with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that Mackintosh first put together to create the hit stage adaptation of Mary Poppins with Disney. The score is inspired by and features several of composer David Heneker’s exhilarating songs from the original production, including "Flash Bang Wallop," "Money To Burn" and "Half A Sixpence."

In Half a Sixpence, Arthur Kipps, an orphan and over-worked draper’s assistant at the turn of the last century, unexpectedly inherits a fortune that propels him into high society. His childhood companion, Ann Pornick, watches with dismay as Arthur is made over in a new image by the beautiful and classy Helen Walsingham. Both young women undoubtedly love Arthur – but which of them should he listen to? With the help of his friends, Arthur learns that if you want to have the chance of living the right life, you need to make the right choices.

Mackintosh's Miss Saigon will open on Broadway in March 2017; Hamilton is scheduled to open in 2017 at his renovated Victoria Palace Theatre in London.