Theatre
Preview
Shortland Street – The Musical: from screen to stage
Our favourite TV drama is jumping out of our screens and onto the stage this November.
Shortland Street is set to have its musical theatre debut this November and we can’t wait.
The all-singing, all-dancing cast will be directed by long-time Shortland Street producer and stage director Simon Bennett, so you know it’s in good hands.
Shortland Street – The Musical will bring back some of your favourite iconic characters and classic storylines, drawing specifically from 1992-1995.
In the stage adaptation, Dr Chris Warner (played by Guy Langford) and Dr Hone Ropata will have to ignore their mutual loathing when they find themselves charged with saving the All Blacks, defending a murder case and rescuing the clinic from Chris’ capitalist father Sir Bruce Warner (Mark Hadlow/ Cameron Rhodes), who wants to turn Shortland Street into a medical resort for the rich and famous.
As well as the Dr Hone Ropata VS Dr Chris Warner battle, you’ll also get to relive the iconic love triangle between Lionel Skeggins, Kirsty Knight, and Greg Feeney and the time when bratty teen Rachel McKenna gets struck by lightning.
It’s just drama, drama, drama – how will they ever pull it off?
Other familiar characters include Nurse Carrie Burton (Lisa Chappell), Nick Harrison (Chris Parker), and Rachel McKenna (Comfrey Sanders).
To prepare for the musical, we thought we’d take a look back at the show’s 26-year history and pick out some of our favourite moments.
The Ferndale Strangler
When thinking about Shortland Street history, you can’t go past the Ferndale Strangler storyline. When it all came to a head with Joey jumping to his death from the roof of a storage building – truly heart-stopping stuff.
When Lionel ‘drowned’ the day of his wedding to Mackenzie
There are two sides in every conversation about Lionel’s end – did he really die or is he hanging out somewhere waiting to come back? It’s nearly been ten years, but I’m still hanging out for Lionel to pop back into Shortland Street and tell everyone the truth about what he’s been up to.
When Rangi and Donna went out but then found out they were brother and sister
Wow, what a shock reveal that was. Then things got even crazier when they both resumed their relationship in full knowledge of their sibling status. Okay, we know they eventually found out they weren’t actually related at all, but still, it was a wild ride.
When Dominic burned himself to death after attempting to kill Chris as a last-ditch effort to cover up his murder of Avril
We probably don’t need to say any more about this one.
And finally we can’t go past the first episode – thank you Nurse Carrie
If it wasn’t for this episode, we wouldn’t have the line “You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata” and without that line, where would we all be?
Shortland Street – The Musical will feature at ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland from Wednesday 14 November until Sunday 9 December. It’ll then move to The Opera House Wellington from Thursday 28 March until Saturday 30 March. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.co.nz.
