Press

All Aboard! Peter Schaufuss’s Midnight Express Rolls into the

London Coliseum 9th-14th April

Olivier and Evening Standard award winning dancer, director and choreographer Peter Schaufuss today announces the production’s UK debut.

The dance world’s most original choreographer partners with its most outspoken young star in an adaptation of Billy Hayes’s smash hit book.

Midnight Express stars Sergei Polunin, the Royal Ballet prodigy who stunned the arts world when he broke with the company earlier this year, making his return to the UK alongside dance superstar Igor Zelensky, current artistic director of the Stanislavski Ballet. The show also stars Wayne Eagling, former Artistic Director of English National Ballet, returning to the stage in the role of the father.

The production will not only dazzle admirers of Peter Schaufuss’s unconventional style, but inspire anyone who identifies with the themes of Billy Hayes’s bestselling 1977 book – later made into an academy award winning Hollywood film which made an international star of John Hurt.

Schaufuss’s Midnight Express is a visceral celebration of balletic ability. As the cast bring Billy’s story to life, youthful exuberance shatters in the face of unspeakable torture, stifling imprisonment juxtaposes with blossoming friendship and the human spirit asserts itself time and again in a thrilling ensemble production.

“I’m proud to be returning to the UK in a show I can genuinely say I believe in. What Peter, inspired by Billy Hayes’s book, has created is beautiful, compelling and brave – it’s exactly the kind of work I want to be making, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.” Sergei Polunin

“When ‘Midnight Express’, the book I wrote in 1976, was made into a Hollywood film I was truly amazed. Now, all these years later, to be involved in a ballet production of my story at the London Coliseum in the West End is very exciting and more than I could have imagined – life really is stranger than fiction.” Billy Hayes

“What motivates me is making powerful works which manage to speak to both dance audiences and people who normally would not go to the theatre. I am very proud to be working closely with Billy Hayes, who will be helping with the staging of his sensational book, whilst presenting Sergei Polunin, the world’s most talented young male dancer, superstar Igor Zelensky and multi talented Wayne Eagling in this production”

Peter Schaufuss