The Assassination of Katie Hopkins revival to feature at MTFest 2020

Pippa Cleary and Jake Brunger’s Jet Set Go!, a stage adaptation of the film Soapdish by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe and a revival of The Assassination of Katie Hopkins will feature at this year’s Turbine Theatre MTFestUK.

The musicals are among a selection of eight shows that will be performed as semi-staged productions at the festival of musical theatre writing and which artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills said “represent the world we’re currently living in”.

MTFestUK was established last year by Taylor-Mills and ran at the Other Palace, where he was previously artistic director.

Festival of new musical theatre to be staged at London’s Other Palace

This year’s festival will see the return of Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth’s The Assassination of Katie Hopkins, which was first staged at Theatr Cwlyd and will once again be directed by James Grieve.

Jet Set Go! premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2008, and will be directed at the festival by Luke Sheppard.

The festival also features Southern Comfort by Julianne Wick Davis and Dan Collins, based on a documentary of the same name, an adaptation of the American comedy film Soapdish by Stiles and Drewe, and Tyrell by Alex Ratner, which is a musical parody of Game of Thrones.

Other shows that will be featured include Eurobeat: Pride of Europe by Craig Christie, Works of Art by Robin Simões Da Silva and Annabel Mutale Reed and Coldfront by Poppy Burton Morgan and Jason Car.

Paul Taylor-Mills told The Stage: “The notion of trying to create new musicals in the current climate is a really precarious, sensitive journey. We are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were five years ago…but there’s still a huge way to go.

“All of us need to work together and join forces and fight even harder.”

MTFestUK 2020 runs from February 3 to 15 at the Turbine Theatre at Battersea Power Station.