The award winning company Carlton Operatic Society by arrangement with Cameron Mackintosh present Kipps – The New Half a Sixpence Musical.

Meet the charming young orphan, Arthur Kipps, who is overworked and underpaid as a draper’s assistant at Shalford’s Bazaar. Along with his fellow apprentices, Arthur dreams of a better life but when he unexpectedly inherits a fortune that propels him into high society, it confuses everything he thought he knew about life.

Watching from a distance, as Arthur wrestles with his new found fortune and life, is his childhood friend Ann Pornick, who sees with sadness how he is being made over in a new image by the money-grabbing Mrs Walsingham and her son James.

Mrs Walsingham’s daughter, Helen is trying to escape the bounds of her conventional upper-class existence and begins to form a bond with Arthur ‘despite’ his working-class background. When a chance meeting with Ann Pornick reminds Arthur of happy memories and simpler times, it causes Arthur to reflect.

Both Helen and Anne love Arthur and both offer their advice, but just who will he listen to? With the help of his friends, Arthur learns that if you want to have the chance of living the right life you need to make the right choices.

This new stage version of Half A Sixpence, which returns to the H. G. Wells‘ semi-autobiographical novel, “Kipps”, in order to reinvent the musical “Half a Sixpence” for the modern age, is an entertaining and fun-filled show!This updated version reunites book writer Julian Fellowes with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that co-creator Cameron Mackintosh first put together to create the smash-hit stage adaptation of Mary Poppins with Disney.

With well-loved songs such as ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop!’, and ‘Half a Sixpence’, this show is sure to get you tapping your toes and dancing in your seat.

• Based on the H.G. Wells novel “KIPPS: The Story of a Simple Soul” and the original musical by Beverley Cross and David Heneker
• Original Songs by David Heneker
• Book by Julian Fellowes
• New Music and Lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe
• Orchestrations by William David Brohn
• Co-Created by Cameron Mackintosh

This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International (Europe). All authorised performance materials are also supplied by MTI Europe www.mtishows.co.uk