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# PREVIEW: Tom Stoppard’s ‘Rough Crossing’
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/preview-tom-stoppards-rough-crossing/
- Published: 2019-01-09T13:18:26.000Z
- Updated: 2019-01-09T13:18:26.000Z
- Description: John Partridge and Charlie Stemp will star in Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing with songs and music by André Previn, at Chichester Festival Theatre, on February 11 – 16.
- Author: Contributor

## John Partridge and Charlie Stemp will star in Tom Stoppard’s *Rough Crossing* with songs and music by André Previn, at Chichester Festival Theatre, on February 11 – 16.

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/web-600-19.jpg)

**John Partridge**, winner of this year’s *Celebrity Masterchef*, is best known to TV audiences as Christian Clarke in *EastEnders*. He is one of musical theatre’s most prolific leading men, having played in major West End musical hits such as *Cats*, *A Chorus Line*, *Chicago* and *La Cage Aux Folles*.

Olivier Award nominee **Charlie Stemp**, who shot to stardom in Chichester Festival Theatre’s *Half A Sixpence* in 2016, joins the company fresh from *Snow White* at the London Palladium. On Broadway he starred opposite **Bette Midler** in *Hello, Dolly!* and will play Bert in the 2019 West End revival of *Mary Poppins*.

They will be joined on stage by **Issy van Randwyck** (Fascinating Aïda), comedy TV favourite **Matthew Cottle** (recently seen in The Chalk Garden at CFT), *Holby City’s* **Rob Ostlere**, and **Simon Dutton** who portrayed Simon Templar in *The Saint*.

Two famous but desperate playwrights (John Partridge and Matthew Cottle) are stuck in an ocean liner headed for New York, feverishly trying to rehearse their latest show before reaching land, and opening night. But they are constantly distracted by their delicate composer’s attempts to end it all, having overheard his lover confess her feelings to the leading man.

Add an absurdly unorthodox waiter (Charlie Stemp), a mistimed lifeboat drill and a vanishing glass of brandy and these colourful characters become tangled up in a typically Stoppardian string of absurd events.

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**Event:** Tom Stoppard’s *Rough Crossing*

**Where:** Chichester Festival Theatre, 11 – 16 February

**When:** February 11 – 16

**Time:** 7.30pm matinees 2.30pm

**Cost: Tickets from £10 – £39**

**To book tickets online, click [here:](http://cft.org.uk/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)**

**Or telephone:** 01243 781 312