Princess Caraboo
Book and lyrics by Phil Willmott. Music by Phil Willmott and Mark Collins.
Book and lyrics by Phil Willmott. Music by Phil Willmott and Mark Collins.
Princess Caraboo is a captivating British musical that tells the extraordinary true story of a young woman's deception as she poses as a shipwrecked princess, leading to wealth, power, and a national scandal in Regency England.
About The Play
About The Play
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Nominated for Best New Musical and Best Lighting Design Off West End Theatre Awards
“See only what you want to see and hear only what speaks your heart”
Originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights and commissioned and developed by the Bristol Old Vic, the world premiere of a new British musical, Princess Caraboo.
The extraordinary true story of a beautiful young woman who tricked her way from vagrancy to wealth and power in Regency England by pretending to be a shipwrecked Princess.
Maintaining the deception becomes imperative as the stakes get higher and higher and what begins as a desperate ploy by a petty criminal to evade the law escalates into a national scandal threatening to ruin anyone whose compassion, lust or ambition has blinded them to the truth.
As ‘Princess Caraboo’ becomes the superstar of her day she discovers the price to be paid for living a lie and the cost of drawing the man she loves into her deceit.
We all of us tell little lies; to make life run smoother, to land the perfect job, to win and keep the ones we love. This entertaining, glamorous and romantic story invites us all to consider the impact of life’s embellishments in defining who we really are and who we would like to be.
Originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, Princess Caraboo has been extensively workshopped at Bristol old Vic where its development was overseen by Tony award winner Tom Morris (Jerry Springer – the Opera, War Horse) and benefited from the dramaturgy of the theatre’s Literary Manager, James Peries.