WISH-LIST WEDNESDAY: Man Of La Mancha

Official artwork from the 2002 broadway revival

We’re back again, and returning to the classics, with an enduring piece of musical theatre that this year celebrates sixty years since it first premiered, and has since been revived on broadway a further four times, making it one of the most revived broadway shows in history. The musical is based on the telling of the story of "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, adapting the dialogue from the subsequent non-musical work "I, Don Quixote" by Karl Genus, a play written for television; it features the original work's author de Cervantes as the primary protagonist, transforming himself into Don Quixote for a play-within-a-play, during the course of his imprisonment by the Spanish Inquisition, which he surely wouldn't have expected...

The original production starred Richard Kiney as the titular hero, after initial desired leading man Rex Harrison turned the role down due to him believing the demands of the show to be too heavy for him musically. It trialled at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut in 1965 before a three year off-broadway run, later opening on broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre (now the al Hirschfeld), subsequently the Eden Theatre and the Mark Hellinger theatre (both now defunct), closing after a total of 6 years and over 2300 performances.

Peter Polycarpou and Kelsey Grammer in the 2019 London revival

Often considered a precursor to shows like "Les Miserables", Man of La Mancha has a score by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, with a book by Dale Wasserman, in a rare venture into the world of musical for the three men. Though it has received far less attention on this side of the Atlantic, the show's popularity is incontrovertible, and with a west end revival as recently as 2019, I see no reason why we couldn't see further life for this classic Spanish tale...