Mad About Gatsby
Robert Redford with the famous yellow Rolls Royce in the 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby.
A new film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, due for release this December, has inspired three UK stage performances.
By Estella Shardlow on Tuesday 14th February, 2012
Wilton's Music Hall in East London is first in line with their immersive performance of The Great Gatsby in April. As the world's oldest surviving Grand Music Hall, Wilton’s makes an atmospheric and appropriate setting for this all-singing, all-dancing intrepretation directed by Peter Joucla.
This will be followed by ‘Gatz’ at the West End's Noel Coward Theatre in June, an epic eight-hour re-enactment of Fitzgerald’s 1925 masterpiece created and performed by Elevator Repair Service.
Finally, the King's Head Theatre in Islington is working on The Great Gatsby Musical for August. Award-winning composer Joe Evans is set to write the score, which will no doubt feature the sounds of the Charleston, American tango and ragtime.
Baz Luhrmann has taken on the challenge of bringing Fitzgerald’s decadent world of Speakeasys, cocktail parties and Jazz to life on the big screen, following an earlier adaptation starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in 1974 .
With Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead roles, the new Hollywood version has inspired the creative industries across the board – from the flapper fashions flooding the Spring/Summer 2012 catwalks to a new spin-off novel tracing the fortunes of Pamela Buchanen, the daughter of Gatsby’s love Daisy in the novel.
