Bugsy Malone promises mobsters, showgirls and dreamers on the Chichester stage

Alan Parker’s world-famous movie, which launched the career of Jodie Foster, becomes a spectacular theatrical experience in this revival of the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre production which comes promised as a “joyously uplifting masterclass of musical comedy.”

Lucy Young, one of the “overs” in the company (the over-18s, the adults) is promising a blast. The piece famously gets children to play the principal roles as does this version, but the supporting roles are played here by adults including Lucy.

It’s Prohibition era New York, a city full of mobsters, showgirls and dreamers. Rival gangster bosses Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. The custard pies are flying and Dandy Dan’s gang has got the upper hand since obtaining the new-fangled splurge gun. Now, Fat Sam and his bumbling buffoons are in real trouble…

“We are having great fun,” Lucy says. “I play so many different roles. I think I've got about 15 quick changes and it's just bonkers. It really is the funnest show. It's so camp. It's so fun. At every single show the audience members are on their feet singing along. It's one of those shows when you go out with just so much joy. Every night is just great. It is just a total feel-good show and it's also very nostalgic. Everyone knows the film. So many people grew up with the film in the 1970s and also I just really love the 1920s (when it is set). I've had my hair cut in a 20s style for the last seven years, and I love listening to the music of the 20s. I've always been quite old fashioned and love that era. I think it's the music and it's the fashions and it's the decor. It is just everything about it. I grew up watching things like The Great Gatsby and I've been in another show that was set in the 1920s in a kind of cabaret style. In fact, my favourite musical of all time is Cabaret. I played Sally Bowles in Cabaret at college. I haven't done it professionally but that really would be the dream role for me.

“I think if anybody said would I like to go back to that era I would probably say ‘No, thank you’, but I just want to take from it all the things that I love about it. It is the jazz age where jazz came across to Europe with Josephine Baker, and it is just so exciting.”

Lucy graduated in 2019 which gave her about six months before Covid hit: “I just went back to Blackpool and spent time my family and it was great because I've got a really supportive family but then in the end I was able to move back to London and start getting back into auditions. It was tough but it was good to have my family around me. And I do think things are pretty much back to normal now. We have probably got a little way to go but by the end of the year I think that we'll be seeing more productions springing up. But we are in Canterbury this week and things are really buzzing.”