ITV go for Night Fever?

The latest West End show to be given the TV casting treatment looks likely to be Saturday Night Fever, according to the Daily Mail. Producer Robert Stigwood has given the green light for leading television network ITV to hold talks about the new TV series in which the leading role, Tony Manero, will be found and will perform the role in a West End return of Saturday Night Fever.

It's fever all over for this type of television as last year found Connie Fisher taking the lead in the present production of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium and currently two casting contest shows are being broadcast in direct competition with each other: the BBC's Any Dream Will Do, which is seeking stars for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, opening at the Adelphi Theatre on 6 July, and ITV's Grease is the Word, the winners of which will take the leads in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre from 8 August.

Saturday Night Fever is a musical based on the classic 1977 movie which starred John Travolta as Tony Manero, a working class New York kid whose dreams of escape from his humdrum existence revolve around his prowess on the dance floor. The show originally opened at The London Palladium in 1998 and made a star out of Adam Garcia, currently starring in the West End cast of Wicked, and at the time broke Box Office records. The production closed at the 2,300 seated venue in 2000. The show since then has toured the UK almost non-stop and in 2004 made a return to Londons Apollo Victoria Theatre and played to continued season extensions for almost two years when it closed in 2006 making way for the Broadway transfer of Movin' Out which was followed by the theatre's current smash hit, Wicked. If the show returns next year, it will mark its 10th anniversary.

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