Drop The Dead Donkey to return as a stage show : News 2023 : Chortle : The UK Comedy Guide

Tour dates now confirmed as original cast of Channel 4’s newsroom comedy reunite

Drop The Dead Donkey is returning as a stage play – 26 years after it last aired.

Original cast members will be returning with a new script from the show’s creators Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin with a show that will tour the UK next year.

Hamilton broke the news on the Always Be Comedy podcast, saying ‘I think I am allowed to say that it’s about to be announced that we are doing a Drop The Dead Donkey stage show – from January next year.

‘It’s that same collection of characters all played by the same actors. But being parachuted into the world of AI (artificial intelligence) and 24-hour rolling news. So it’s really exciting.’

Those actors are

• Susannah Doyle as the inappropriately named Joy Merryweather, the cynical, surly and downright aggressive personal assistant; 
• Robert Duncan as Gus Hedges, the chief executive of Globelink news, forever spouting vacuous and convoluted management jargon
• Ingrid Lacey as Helen Cooper, the efficient and capable assistant editor in contrast to the rest of the cast  (she replaced the character of Alex Pates, as played by Haydn Gwynne, in the first two series)
• Neil Pearson as Dave Charnley, the dogsbody sub-editor, compulsive womaniser and inveterate gambler
•  Jeff Rawle as nervous, ineffective editor George Dent.
• Stephen Tompkinson  as star reporter Damien Day, who gets sensational footage – entirely unethically
• Victoria Wicks as the snobbish, dim newsreader Sally Smedley.

Missing is David Swift – who played Henry Davenport, the grouchy, grizzled journalism veteran who begrudgingly anchored the bulletins – as he died, aged 85, in 2016.

The original show ran on Channel 4 for six series from 1990 to 1998, winning the best comedy Bafta in 1994.

News of the revival – to be entitled Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! – comes after Tompkinson endured a high-profile court case in which he was found not guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm on a drunken man he confronted outside his home.

Not all the dates of the tour have yet been  announced,  but Hamilton added: ‘They are going to tour Britain. I think the furthest north they’re going is Newcastle. And down to Plymouth. They’ll do a week in each town. It’s a big old thing!’

Hamilton was speaking with Always Be Comedy’s James Gill ahead of his own UK stand-up tour.

All the original episodes of Drop The Dead Donkey are available to stream from Channel 4.

Drop The Dead Donkey 2024 tour dates

31st January to 3rd February: Richmond Theatre
6th to 10th February: Lyceum Theatre Sheffield
13th to 17th February: The Lowry Salford
20th to 24th February: New Theatre Cardiff
27th February to 2nd March: Arts Theatre Cambridge
5th to 9th March: Theatre Royal Brighton
12th to 16th March: Milton Keynes Theatre
19th to 23rd March: Leicester Curve
26th to 30th March: Theatre Royal Bath
9th to 13th April: Grand Theatre Leeds
16th to 20th April: The Alexandra Birmingham
23rd to 27th April: Theatre Royal Nottingham
30th April to 4th May: Churchill Theatre Bromley
7th to 11th May: Theatre Royal Norwich
14th to 18th May: Playhouse Liverpool
21st to 25th May: Theatre Royal Newcastle
28th May to 1st June: New Victoria Theatre Woking
4th to 8th June: Everyman Theatre Cheltenham

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Published: 30 May 2023