The Chariots of Fire adaptation for the stage was written by playwright Mike Bartlett, and Edward Hall directed the play. It starred Jack Lowden as Scottish missionary Eric Liddell, and James McArdle as Jewish Cambridge student Harold Abrahams. For the production, stage designer Miriam Buether transformed the entire theatre into an Olympic stadium, so that audiences had the experience of being in the Olympic stands.[1][2][3]
The play includes the film's iconic Vangelis score, and Vangelis also created several new pieces of music for the production.[4][5][6] As in the film, Gilbert and Sullivan songs are also used,[7] and additional music was provided by Tony Award-winning composer Jason Carr.[1]
The stage version for the London Olympic year was the idea of the film's director, Hugh Hudson, who co-produced the play; Hudson stated, "Issues of faith, of refusal to compromise, standing up for one's beliefs, achieving something for the sake of it, with passion, and not just for fame or financial gain, are even more vital today."[8]
Chariots of Fire opened in previews 9 May at London's Hampstead Theatre, and officially opened there on 22 May.[9] It transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End on 23 June, where it ran until 5 January 2013.[10]
Chariots of Fire is the inspirational true story of two great British athletes, outsiders who overcome prejudice and personal strife to compete in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell is a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God. Harold Abrahams is the son of an immigrant Lithuanian Jew who runs to overcome prejudice. The two young track athletes live for the purity and honour of running, and prevail in the face of enormous odds. The story begins in 1919, and climaxes in the heartbreaks and triumphs of the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Production
In addition to his iconic original score, Vangelis created several new pieces of music for the 2012 play.
The stage revival of the film was the inspiration of Hugh Hudson, who directed the 1981 film.[11] He and fellow co-producer Barbara Broccoli, a film-industry magnate best known for the James Bond franchise, set about looking for the perfect director for the piece. Broccoli's involvement with Chariots of Fire extended back to 1980, when she introduced her friend Dodi Fayed to the screenplay, and he ended up co-financing the film and becoming its executive producer.[12]
Hudson and Broccoli chose Edward Hall to helm the stage adaptation, based upon his clear and incisive view of all the challenges involved in adapting the athletics-heavy story to the stage. Hall recruited the award-winning playwright Mike Bartlett, based on his many successes including Earthquakes in London, to write the script for the play.[6]
Set designer Miriam Buether transformed Hampstead Theatre into its very own stadium, giving the audience an immersive experience that evoked the 1924 Paris Olympics, including seating in the round around an Olympic track, and a double revolving stage.[13][14] Buether also later transformed the Gielgud Theatre into an immersive stadium with a track running through the audience.[15] And choreographer Scott Ambler reinvented and choreographed the various running scenes for maximum theatrical effect.[6][16]
Scottish up-and-comer Jack Lowden was cast as Eric Liddell, on the strength of his glowingly reviewed, charismatic, and athletic performance as the main character Cammy in an international tour of the Olivier Award-winning play Black Watch. And RADA-trained James McArdle, with several classics under his belt, had most recently portrayed Robin Hood at the RSC, and was chosen to play Harold Abrahams.
Rehearsals for the actors portraying athletes incorporated grueling training, including lengthy runs, with a British Military Fitness instructor.[15] And when stars Jack Lowden and James McArdle discovered they live on the same London street, they began running to rehearsals in addition to the required group training.[16]
In the 1981 film, screenwriter Colin Welland anchored the period story to the present by opening with Harold Abrahams' 1978 memorial service. In Mike Bartlett's 2012 play, the story is anchored to the present by beginning the piece with 15 modern athletes doing a warm-up, "which turns into a training session, which suddenly evolves into Lord Lindsay and Harold Abrahams."[6]
Bartlett also used theatrical techniques to allow the play to "tell two stories at the same time, and show links between them and metaphors and parallels", using the Eric Liddell story to talk about Harold Abrahams and using Harold to talk about Eric.[6] The play contains more meetings between Liddell and Abrahams than there were in the film, and also more humour.[17] In contrast to the film, the play has Abrahams struggling with, in addition to anti-Semitism, thoughts of his estranged and never-present father.[18]
Director Edward Hall stated that, in addition, "In theatre you can take components of the story and analyse them narratively in different ways. So you can stretch or freeze a moment in a race.... it gives you more freedom." Astute staging, he noted, can convey all of the various emotions that take place while running, and then finishing, a race.[19]
And in contrast to the film, the play also introduces a female admirer for Eric Liddell: his real-life fiancée Florence Mackenzie, the daughter of Canadian missionaries to China. Also in the play, the very fit ensemble cast and extras are not only utilized for running and racing, but also are frequently employed in singing as well.[7][20]
Chariots of Fire opened officially on 22 May 2012, and received positive reviews from major critics in major UK publications.[21][22][23] By 29 May, the Hampstead Theatre run had sold out.[24]
Libby Purves of The Times wrote that "even this grumpy Olymposceptic was brought to actual tears, moved to empathy and understanding by the fabulous theatricality of it." She called Edward Hall's staging "thrilling" and the play "irresistible", adding that "above all, it's the sincerity: a full-blooded willingness to take the hearty morality, amateur spirit and patriotism at its own valuation without modish irony." Praising the main cast, Purves singled out Jack Lowden as "outstanding", and Nicholas Woodeson as "superb".[25][26]
Christopher Hart of the Sunday Times also gave the play five stars, declaring it "a bravura version of the 1981 movie". "It's Edward Hall's staging that's the real winner" he wrote, describing the running sequences as "pure exhilaration". He summed up the play as "a joyful antidote to the modern Olympics", "a real summer high", and "surely one of the great treats of the summer".[27][28]
Ian Shuttleworth in the Financial Times praised Edward Hall's "considerable adroitness" in directing what he deemed "a fine Olympic-season project". He also admired Bartlett's script in that "[h]e utilises the stage's greater ability to open up to the protagonists’ inner voices, showing Abrahams’ preoccupation with his never-present father and in particular Liddell's devout brand of muscular Christianity ...."[18]Michael Billington of The Guardian praised "Edward Hall's bravura production" and Miriam Buether's "brilliant" set. He also noted approvingly that Hall's "kaleidoscopic pageant" of a play is bound together by music, including Gilbert and Sullivan numbers, Scottish bagpipes, a medley of British folk tunes, and the iconic Vangelis theme.[7]
Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out wrote, "This lavish stage adaptation ... is about as close to a West End musical as it's possible to get without in fact being one", citing the frequent Gilbert and Sullivan hits, the impressive stadium set, the 21-strong ensemble cast, and the stylized running choreography. Lukowski praised Bartlett for his "funny, pithy and creative" script, and summarized the production by asserting it is "a spectacle".[29]
The Independent noted that, in a play about competition, "what eventually emerges as the really engaging battle of wills is that of Abrahams and Liddell versus the British Establishment – ironic, as they each strive to shine for king and country."[30] And The Observer opined that "[Hall's] fantastically enjoyable production of Chariots of Fire is a triumph of will that is in keeping with the spirit of the story it tells.... This is an unmissable theatrical offering in the year of the London Olympics."[31]
Many reviewers commented on the intense, often breathless, physicality of the production. The high-speed running around the perimeter of the auditorium and through the audience reminded some of Starlight Express,[32] and Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row evoked the recent hit play War Horse as a comparison to the Chariots play, adding that "It's such an unusual theatre show!"[33]
Henry Hitchings in The Evening Standard deemed the play a "stirring crowd-pleaser" and "a potently realised spectacle", concluding that while "undeniably bombastic fare", "energy and conviction make Chariots of Fire a satisfying experience."[34] In The Stage, Mark Shenton echoed other reviews regarding the high-energy, intriguingly staged production. He emphasized in addition that "the meat of the drama" is the "gripping human confrontation being played out at its centre, in which two young men from very different backgrounds ... are drawn into competition with each other but also a bigger one with themselves and what truly matters to each." Shenton concluded that the play "succeeds on its own terms to provide what is sure to be a huge popular theatrical success."[35]
The play's incidental music was released on CD in 2012, titled Chariots of Fire – The Play: Music from the Stage Show.[36][37] Except for the hymn "Jerusalem", the music was composed, arranged and produced by Vangelis. The CD length is 58:22 minutes, and includes three tracks previously released on the movie soundtrack, two of which are slightly updated. All other 11 Vangelis tracks are newly composed specifically for the stage play.
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical sports drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice. Ben Cross and Ian Charleson star as Abrahams and Liddell, alongside Nigel Havers, Ian Holm, John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, Cheryl Campbell, Alice Krige, Brad Davis and Dennis Christopher in supporting roles. Kenneth Branagh makes his debut in a minor role.
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, known professionally as Vangelis, was a Greek composer and arranger of electronic, progressive, ambient, and classical orchestral music. He was best known for his Academy Award-winning score to Chariots of Fire (1981), as well as for composing scores to the films Blade Runner (1982), Missing (1982), Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and Alexander (2004), and for the use of his music in the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
Harold Maurice Abrahams was an English track and field athlete. He was Olympic champion in 1924 in the 100 metres sprint, a feat depicted in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.
Eric Henry Liddell was a Scottish sprinter, rugby player and Christian missionary. Born in Qing China to Scottish missionary parents, he attended boarding school near London, spending time when possible with his family in Edinburgh, and afterwards attended the University of Edinburgh.
Jackson Volney Scholz was an American sprint runner. In the 1920s, he became the first person to appear in an Olympic sprint final in three different Olympic Games. After his athletic career, he also gained fame as a writer.
Opéra Sauvage is a soundtrack album by the Greek electronic composer Vangelis, released in 1979. It is the score for the nature documentary of the same title by French filmmaker Frédéric Rossif. It is considered one of Vangelis' best albums, and is his second most successful album in the USA, reaching #42 in the album charts.
Barbara Dana Broccoli is a British-American film and stage producer, best known internationally for her work on the James Bond film series. With her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, Broccoli controls the James Bond film franchise.
Ian Charleson was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.
The Stade Yves-du-Manoir is a rugby, track and association football stadium in Colombes, near Paris, France.
Harry Bernard Cross was an English stage and film actor. He was best known for playing Billy Flynn in the original West End production of the musical Chicago, and his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.
Captain Sir Lancelot Carrington Royle, was a British Olympian and businessman.
"Chariots of Fire" is an instrumental theme written and recorded by Vangelis for the soundtrack of the 1981 film of the same name. It has been covered by numerous performers and used for various television programs and sporting events.
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 musical score by Greek electronic composer Vangelis for the British film Chariots of Fire, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Original Music Score.
Scipio Africanus "Sam" Mussabini was an English athletics coach best known for his work with Harold Abrahams. In total, he led athletes to eleven medals over five Olympic Games. However, in an era where amateurism was prized, he was not officially recognised because he was a professional coach.
The men's 100 metres event was part of the track and field athletics programme at the 1924 Summer Olympics. This race was depicted in the film Chariots of Fire. The first two rounds were held on 6 July, with the semifinals and final on 7 July. Eighty-six sprinters from 34 countries competed. The event was won by Harold Abrahams of Great Britain—Great Britain's first Olympic gold medal in the men's 100 metres and only the second time that the United States failed to win. Jackson Scholz kept the Americans on the podium with a silver. Arthur Porritt won the bronze, New Zealand's first medal in the event.
Sybil Marjorie Evers was an English singer and actress. She performed in operettas, operas and plays in London from the early 1920s through the late 1930s, including on BBC radio and television. She married Olympic champion runner Harold Abrahams.
Evelyn Aubrey Montague was an English athlete and journalist. He ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics, placing sixth in the steeplechase race. Montague is portrayed in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, where he is portrayed by Nicholas Farrell. Contrary to the film, however, he attended Oxford, not Cambridge, and went by the name Evelyn (EEV-lin) rather than Aubrey.
James John McArdle is a Scottish actor. He won the Ian Charleson Award for his role as Mikhail Platonov in Platonov and was nominated for an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Louis Ironson in Angels in America.
Jack Andrew Lowden is a Scottish actor. Following a four-year stage career, his first major international onscreen success was in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace, which led to starring roles in feature films.
Sunny Afternoon is a jukebox musical with music and lyrics by Ray Davies and a book by Joe Penhall. Based on the formation and career of the English rock band The Kinks, the musical was commissioned and produced by Sonia Friedman and made its world premiere in 2014 at the Hampstead Theatre, London, before transferring to the West End's Harold Pinter Theatre. Featuring songs by The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon includes their hits such as "Lola", "Waterloo Sunset", "You Really Got Me" and the musical's title song, "Sunny Afternoon".
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