Photo Flash: Inside Opening Night of West End's TOP HAT!

Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen take the lead roles of Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont in Top Hat which opened on Wednesday 9th May at the Aldwych Theatre in the West End where the show is currently booking until 26 January 2013. To celebrate the cast were treated to an evening of ballroom dancing and 1930's glamour at the Waldorf Hotel, Aldwych. Check out photos from the big opening below!

Directed by Matthew White and choreographed by Bill Deamer, set designs are by Hildegard Bechtler, costume designs by Jon Morrell, lighting design by Peter Mumford, sound by Gareth Owen, new orchestrations by Chris Walker, musical supervision by Richard Balcombe and musical direction by Daniel Jackson.

Chambers and Strallen are joined by Martin Ball and Vivien Parry playing husband and wife Horace and Madge Hardwick, Ricardo Afonso as Alberto Beddini and Stephen Boswell as Horace's valet Bates.

With music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and based on the RKO motion picture, the screenplay by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott has been adapted for the stage by Matthew White and Howard Jacques and is presented by arrangement with RKO Pictures LLC, Warner Bros Theatre Ventures Inc. and the Irving Berlin Music Company.

Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the famous American tap dancer, arrives in London to appear in his first West End show. Travers meets the irresistible Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), the girl of his dreams, and follows her across Europe in an attempt to win her heart.

Nominated for four Academy Awards Top Hat is widely regarded as one of the greatest dance musicals of all time and the most successful picture of the nine movies Astaire and Rogers made together. Top Hat premiered at the Radio City Music Hall where it broke all box office records. Within a few weeks, all five songs from the film occupied the top five places on the American Hit Parade.

Performed by a cast of 31 and accompanied by a live band of 15, this new musical comedy includes Irving Berlin classics from the movie such as Cheek to Cheek, Isn't It a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain and Top Hat White Tie and Tails. In addition, from Berlin's 1200 strong back catalogue, a further ten numbers have been interpolated including Let's Face the Music and Dance and Puttin' On the Ritz.

Top Hat is produced by Kenny Wax, and his partners on the production are Stewart Lane and Bonnie Comley, TEd Hartley, Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon and Lee Menzies.

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