Sheffield’s Lyceum will be hosting the highly anticipated premiere of Treason the Musical later this year following its great online success.
The story revolves around the infamous gunpowder plot of 1605 and includes original music from Lighting The Fuse: Sparks From Treason In Concert; the accompanying album which surpassed 100,000 streams in its first month of release.
Ricky Allan, co-writer, composer and lyricist of Treason, explained his inspiration behind the story.
He said: “I was sat in a pub in London just by the Thames and I heard the story that the gunpowder plotters had their first meeting in a pub on the other side of the river. It got me inspired to think ‘What was said in this first meeting?’ Then I went home and wrote the very first song for the show.”
Ricky went on to explain that the development of the show was quite unconventional.
“This was just before lockdown and so I had to look at developing the show in a very different way to how we normally would,” he said. “Between myself and a producer I had on board, we decided we would record some tracks and put them online, basically developing the show in full view of our audience.”
Ricky emphasised that the show is “intrinsically British” and that some elements of the performance haven’t been seen before. He said: “The one question I get asked is ‘Why musical theatre for this particular story? I think to tell an epic story it needs to be told in an epic way and that’s what musical theatre allows us to do.”
The performance hopes to appeal to a wide audience while highlighting the significance of this moment in history.
“We really want them [the audience] to understand that things like terrorism that we think are foreign to us as British people, isn’t that foreign,” Ricky added.
“Making people think about how they perceive themselves as British and be socially aware that division in society can have catastrophic effects.”
The world premiere tour is set to hit both London and Edinburgh as well as Sheffield.
Ricky felt it was important to take the show across the UK.
He said: “I think audiences up and down the country deserve to get the same scale of musicals we get in the West End. I think it’s so important that every region has that accessible to them and so it just excites me that we can bring this story to as many people as we can.”
Alice Read, 22, a passionate theatregoer, expressed her excitement for the performance. She said: “I first heard of Treason the Musical through Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Instagram stories when she starred in the concert version in 2022.
“I have enjoyed historical musicals in the past such as Six and Hamilton and I am very much looking forward to adding this to the list too!”
Treason the Musical will be at the Sheffield Lyceum from 31 October – 4 November.
Tickets can be found on their website: https://treasonthemusical.com/ and at https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/treason-the-musical.