Cast revealed for Our Man in Havana musical at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre

Full casting has been revealed for the premiere of Our Man in Havana at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre.

The musical adaptation of Graham Greene’s iconic novel opens at the venue on Thursday 7 April running to Saturday 21 May.

The production was originally programmed as part of The Watermill’s Spring 2020 season but had to be postponed by the pandemic,

It’s 1958 and Havana is on the brink of revolution. All day and night, the streets are filled with dancing and the shadows are filled with criminals. In the midst of the warm tropical air, an English vacuum cleaner salesman lives a quiet life running a modest business, raising his teenage daughter Milly and collecting miniature whisky bottles.

Just as Milly’s love of shopping reaches new heights, James Wormold receives an offer from the British Secret Intelligence Service that is too good to refuse. What Wormold lacks in sleuthing experience, he makes up for with imagination. Nothing stays quiet for long in Havana and his life is soon turned upside down when the fictional events of his intelligence reports start to come true!

Nigel Lister will play ‘James Wormold’, Daniella Agredo Piper will play ‘Milly Wormold’, Paula James will play ‘Beatrice / Maria’, Alvaro Flores will play ‘Segura / Hawthorne / Marco’, Adam Keast will play ‘Hasselbacher/Chief’ and Antonio Sanchez will be the Onstage Musical Director.

Directed by Watermill Associate Director Abigail Pickard Price, designed by Kat Heath, with Eliane Correa and Ben Morales Frost as co-orchestrators, Our Man in Havana has music by Ben Morales Frost, book & lyrics by Richard Hough, sound design by Adam Fisher, lighting design by Robbie Butler and choreography by Andrea Pelaez, with Chris Cuming as Associate Choreographer. The Stage Management team consists of Rose Burston (DSM), Natalie Toney and Fern Bamber (ASMs) with Katie Crump on ASM placement.

For more information and tickets, visit watermill.org.uk

Abbigail Pickard Price commented: “The heat and heart of Cuba perhaps feels somewhat far away from the rolling hills of Bagnor but on first reading of Ben and Rich’s new telling of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana I felt immediately transported.

“I have loved getting to delve further into this as the team has come together; seeing the brilliantly bright snapshot of Havana that Designer Kat Heath is creating and hearing Eliane and Ben’s Cuban orchestrations. I look forward to joining this wonderful team in rehearsals and hope that the audiences of Newbury will enjoy being transported across the globe and back in time to the world of Our Man in Havana as much as I did the first time I set eyes on this script.”