About: Days of Hope

‘Days of Hope’ is a touching human story of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, finding the dignity to survive when hope appears lost. On the eve of a flight to freedom from a country at war, Sofia and her family prepare for one last meal. Over the course of the evening, truths are exposed, loyalties tested and lives are changed... forever.

The cast is led by West-End leading actors, David Burt (Count Fosco in ‘The Woman in White’ Pilate in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and leading roles in ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Chess’); Siobhan McCarthy (‘Evita’, ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Blood Brothers’) and this year’s BBC Radio 2 Voice of Musical Theatre winner, Aimie Atkinson. Also in the cast are Simon Thomas (RSC’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’), Matt Cross (‘Our House’, ‘Assassins’ RSC’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘King Lear’), James Russell (‘The Myrmidons’, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin) and Victoria Yeates (‘BigLove’ at the Gate).

With a score by Howard Goodall and a book by Renata Allen, ‘Days of Hope’ is directed by TMABarclays Theatre Award winner Russell Labey (‘New Boy’,’ Whistle Down The Wind’) with musical direction by Kelvin Thomson (‘Simply Heavenly’, ‘Song andDance’) and lighting design by Mike Robertson (2007 Laurence Olivier Award winner for ‘Sunday in the Park with George’). Howard Goodall’s stage musicals have been performed throughout the world to great acclaim. ‘The Hired Man’, which he wrote with Melvyn Bragg in 1984, won The Ivor Novello Award for Best Musical, and it received 4 Olivier Award nominations; in Holland a John Kraaijkamp Musical Award (2001), 7 Waterford International Musical Festival awards and in 2004 the TMAAward for Best Musical. ‘Girlfriends’ was premiered in London's West End in 1987 and in the US in 2003; ‘Silas Marner’ was commissioned by the 1993 Salisbury Festival and subsequently revived by the City of Birmingham Touring Opera. Almost everyone knows at least one of Howard Goodall's popular TV themes, including ‘Blackadder’, ‘Mr Bean’, ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘The Catherine Tate Show’, ‘Q.I.’ or ‘The Vicar of Dibley’. Other TV scores include ‘The Borrowers’ and his BAFTA-nominated ‘The Gathering Storm’. He is a prodigious writer of choral music and has contributed songs to several platinum-selling CDs.

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