Billionaire Boy for Edinburgh

Adds Playhouse dates to UK tour

The musical adaptation of David Walliams’ best selling story Billionaire Boy has been announced for a three day run at the Edinburgh Playhouse in September 2020.

Produced by the company behind the adaptations of Walliams’ Gangsta Granny and Awful Auntie, the production has just opened in the Capitol Theatre, Horsham, and is now on tour for 15 months, including stops at the Glasgow King’s in January, Eden Court in February and the Playhouse from 10 to 12 September 2020.

Publicity image for Billionaire Boy

Billionaire Boy, which was also made into a one-off TV special on CBBC, follows 12 year-old Joe Spud, son of a toilet paper billionaire and the richest boy in the country. He has his own sports car, two crocodiles as pets and £100,000 a week pocket money.

But what Joe doesn’t have is a friend. So he decides to leave his posh school and start at the local comprehensive. But things don’t go as planned for Joe and life becomes a rollercoaster as he tries to find what money can’t buy.

Walliams, who featured as dreaded dinner lady Mrs Trafe in the TV adaptation, says of the new stage show: “It is the most brilliant thing seeing a book you have written come to life, either on television of on stage. You feel like a magician because what was in your head is somehow now all real.

“I think the best things for children work for the adults too. I always try to make the books entertaining for the grownups to read to their kids. I know the stage show is going to have loads of laughs for grownups too.”

Appropriate

With the Birmingham Stage Company now on its third Walliams adaptation, director and adaptor Neal Foster says: “There couldn’t be a story that is more appropriate for what children are going through at the moment.

“We have got all these things that are supposed to be important – money and fame and social media – and actually the only thing that is really important is family and friends. And that is what Joe is trying to discover.”

Walliams adds: I think this could be the most fun show of all because in a way I think this is the most comic one. This is the one with the emphasis really on jokes and silly situations. Obviously the whole thing is quite surreal, you know, someone having all that money. So, I think it is going to be a really fun theatre show, I can’t wait to see it.”

Listings

Billionaire Boy
Edinburgh Playhouse, 18 – 22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA.
Thursday 10 – Saturday 12 September 2019
Evenings: 7pm; Matinees: Thurs 1.30pm & Sat 2pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.

Glasgow Kings, 297 Bath St, Glasgow, G2 4JN
Wednesday 15 – Sunday 19 January 2020
Wed – Sat: 7pm; Mats Thurs 1.30pm, Fri 10.30am, Sat 2.30pm, Sun 11am & 3pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.

ENDS

Tags: Billionaire Boy, Birmingham Stage Company, David Walliams, Neal Forster, News, Playhouse, Production News