Maureen Lipman To Star In New Stage Comedy

A theatrical recipe for success... Start with one single, middle-aged, work-at-home mum who's a professional dominatrix. Add an annoying obsessive-compulsive cleaning lady, an elderly cross-dressing male client, a maladjusted daughter (can you blame her?) and one Chinese Elvis impersonator.

Make sure they are All Shook Up and the result will be a strange concoction of fantastic comedy drama at Richmond Theatre, from British playwright Charlotte Jones (Humble Boy, The Woman in White and more recently The Lightening Play at the Almeida Theatre).

Martha, Josie And The Chinese Elvis tells the story of Josie, a provider of high-class ‘personal services’ and single mum to Brenda-Marie, who is in no mood to celebrate her fortieth birthday. That is until her most loyal client Lionel, a dry cleaner who longs for a full head of hair (and a wife), insists she must have a party. The guest list is small: Martha a cleaner extraordinaire and Timothy Wong, the Chinese Elvis impersonator who isn’t even really Chinese. A few songs later there’s a knock at the door and an extraordinary chain of events is set in motion. It’s Now or Never.

Maureen Lipman plays Martha in this wonderfully quirky and fabulously feelgood comedy complete with lip-quivering routines of Elvis classics all choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood. One of this country’s best-loved actresses, Maureen Lipman’s extensive career includes the National Theatre’s Oklahoma and most recently the highly successful Glorious! at Richmond and in the West End. She is joined by Lesley Dunlop, Anna Kirkwall in the enormously popular ITV drama Where the Heart Is, as Josie. Other parts are played by Derek Hutchinson as Lionel, Paul Courtenay Hyu as the Chinese Elvis, Emily Aston as Shelley-Louise and Michelle Tate as Brenda-Marie.

Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis is a delightful mixture of charm, pathos and vintage farce played out with twenty-first-century style, and a central character who will touch your heart. It’s just possible that, in the end, a little bit of that old Elvis magic might sort out all of Josie’s problems…

RICHMOND THEATRE
Monday 19 - Saturday 24 March
Monday - Saturday evenings at 7.45pm
Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Tickets £13- £27

For further information, visit theambassadors.com.