Nancy Baldwin

BBC Arts and Avalon announce today the casting and directors for DEBUT - a unique new initiative enabling four professional creatives - Bim Adewunmi, Katherine Parkinson, Beryl Richards and Frank Skinner - who have never written for the stage before to create their debut play. All four plays will be directed by emerging directors giving a new generation of talent an opportunity to direct a play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018.

The old millennium is in its dying moments and the new millennium is about to begin as a group of friends, lovers and ex-lovers gather in a Manhattan loft apartment on New Year's Eve. As the plot develops, relationships and friendships also witness their dying moments while others develop new beginnings as past mistakes collide with new resolutions. Add to this a bright, tuneful and witty score by composer Charles Miller and librettist/lyricist, Kevin Hammonds and you have the ingredients for a highly enjoyable musical - which is precisely what is currently on the menu at the London fringe venue, the Finborough Theatre (until September 29).When Midnight Strikes, cleverly directed in the theatre?s tiny but highly atmospheric space by Fenton Gray, is a sheer delight.