Ying Tong to Replace Sweeney Todd at London's New Ambassadors Theatre

Ying Tong, Roy Smiles' play about the late comedian Spike Milligan, will be the next tenant at London's New Ambassadors Theatre, beginning performances on February 10. The theater's current show, Sweeney Todd, will close on February 5.

In Ying Tong, Spike Milligan is planning his escape from a mental institution dressed in only his pajamas so he can write The Goon Show to end all Goon Shows. After applying to the British Museum to get his marbles back, he starts to lose his grip on reality and threatens to kill Eccles, the most famous Goon character. Will his partners in Goon, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers, be able to stop him?

The production at the New Ambassadors will be the same version seen at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in the fall. Directed by Michael Kingsbury, it features James Clyde as Milligan, Christian Patterson as Secombe and Peter Temple as Sellers.

This acclaimed mounting of Sweeney Todd began performances at the venue on October 13, after a national tour and a run at the Whitehall Theatre. Sweeney Todd, which features music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, tells the tale of the "demon barber of Fleet Street," fresh out of jail for a crime he did not commit, who cooks up a macabre revenge scheme with his dazzlingly demented accomplice, Mrs. Lovett.