Alan Parker ‘never liked’ stage versions of Bugsy Malone
By Lorna Blount
Entertainment reporter
29 April 2015
From the section Entertainment & Arts
Daniel Purves is one of the young actors playing the titular Bugsy Malone
Director Alan Parker has sung the praises of a new stage version of his film Bugsy Malone, confessing he had “never liked” previous adaptations.
“They’ve made the most of the music and brought it up to date,” he said of the production, which opened this week at the Lyric Hammersmith in west London.
Parker said he had previously been wary of stage versions of his 1976 comedy, in which child actors played gangsters.
“I’ve never encouraged it to be on stage,” said the 71-year-old.
“I’ve never liked [stage versions] in the past”.
The current production, directed by Sean Holmes, is the first professional UK staging of the crime film pastiche in more than a decade.
Parker’s other films include Fame, Angel Heart and Mississippi Burning
“I said to Sean, ‘Please just make it as good as the film,'” Parker told the BBC. “When I was watching the rehearsals I said to him, ‘You’re not meant to make it better than the film!’
“In some ways, it is better.”
‘Knock-out force’
The Daily Telegraph echoed those sentiments in its
Source:: BBC Entertainment
