West End stage debut for Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers is to perform in London and Edinburgh this summer.

The comedy icon will be celebrating making her West End acting debut in the autobiographical play Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress By A Life In Progress.

It will start in the Underbelly Cow Barn at the Edinburgh Fringe, before moving to London as the debut production in the new Leicester Square Theatre.

There will be a total of 75 UK performances – marking Rivers’s 75th birthday next week. And in the West End, there will be a number of premium £75 VIP tickets, including an after-show 'meet and greet' with the star.

The play is directed by award-winning Sean Foley who previously worked on the Morecambe and Wise show The Play What I Wrote. It premiered in Los Angeles in February.

Set in Joan's dressing room backstage at the Oscars, the show aims to reveal the woman behind the public face, as well as covering the highs and lows of her five decades in comedy.

Tickets for the London run - from August 29 to September 18, then December 2 and January 29 – went on sale at 11.30am today. Click here to buy them

After the run in the newly refurbished, 420-seat Leicester Square Theatre – which was formerly known as the Venue - the show will transfer to Broadway.

Click here to watch a clip from the play.

Published: 23 May 2008