Award-winning playwright Mike Bartlett’s new adaptation, inspired by Colin Welland’s original screenplay, is based on Olympic heroes Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams’ remarkable true story. Chariots of Fire features the legendary music of Vangelis with additional live music and arrangements by Tony Award-winning composer Jason Carr. The Vangelis soundtrack Chariots of Fire: The Play - Music from the Stage Show is now available on Decca Records. Designer Miriam Buether has transformed the Gielgud Theatre into an immersive stadia experience, evoking the spirit of the 1924 Paris Olympic Games.  Costumes are by Michael Howells with lighting by Rick Fisher, choreography by Scott Ambler and sound by Paul Groothuis.  

 

1924. The Paris Olympic Games.  A devout Scottish Christian runs for the glory of God. The son of an immigrant Lithuanian Jew runs to overcome predjudice. Two young track athletes who live for the beautiful purity of running and who prevail in the face of overwhelming odds. 

 

Colin Welland’s 1981 Academy Award® winning film of the same name, starred Ian Charleson and Ben Cross as athletes Liddell and Abrahams, was directed by Hugh Hudson.   Produced by David Puttnam, Chariots of Fire also won the BAFTA award for Best Film and a further two awards at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

Chariots of Fire is produced in the West End by Hugh Hudson, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson and Michael Rose Limited who present a Hampstead Theatre production based on the Enigma Productions Limited motion picture by arrangement with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Allied Stars S.A. Panama.