Bricusse told Playbill.com that the developing show was workshopped in London at the end of October. Current plans call for a tour to start in 2006. No London dates have yet been announced.
The show has a cast of 10, and will be staged by Gillian Lynne, a lifelong friend and collaborator of Bricusse. Lynne is known for her musical staging and choreography for Aspects of Love, The Phantom of the Opera and works by Bricusse, including The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd.
Brick by Brick — the title is a sort of in-joke borrowing the idea from the revue Side by Side by Sondheim — will include approximately 60 songs.
The songbook from which the writer can draw is a deep, potent well that includes numbers from the films "Dr. Dolittle," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Scrooge" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (and others) as well as such stage shows as Stop the World — I Want to Get Off, The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd, Sherlock Holmes, Pickwick, Harvey, Victor/Victoria, Jekyll & Hyde and more.
Bricusse is both a composer and lyricist (as well as a librettist and screenwriter), and has teamed on songs with Anthony Newley (they are both credited with music and lyrics for Roar of the Greasepaint and Stop the World) and served as lyricist for composers Henry Mancini, John Williams, John Barry and Frank Wildhorn, among others. His songlist includes "Talk to the Animals" (which won the Best Song Academy Award), "Pure Imagination," "The Candy Man," "You," "Thank You Very Much," "You and I," "Goldfinger," "This Is the Moment," "What Kind of a Fool Am I?," "Once in a Lifetime," "Gonna Build a Mountain," "Who Can I Turn To?," "The Joker," "If I Ruled the World," "Can You Read My Mind?" (the love theme from "Superman"), "You Only Live Twice," "Le Jazz Hot," "On a Wonderful Day Like Today," "Two for the Road," "Crazy World" and many more.
Bricusse and Wildhorn penned a new musical version of Cyrano de Bergerac that is expected to bow in England in 2006-07.
A U.S. tour of Dr. Dolittle launches in early 2006. Tommy Tune directs and stars in the production, which is a remount of a staging that started in August 2005 and shut down after nine weeks.
The prolific Bricusse is also working on a stage musical biography about his late friend and entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.
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Bricusse was born in London, and educated at University College School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he was President of the Footlights Revue Club and founded the Musical Comedy Club. There, he co-authored, directed and performed in his first two musical shows, Out of the Blue and Lady at the Wheel, both of which made their way to London's West End. He also acquired a Master of Arts Degree.
Beatrice Lillie pulled him out of the Footlights Revue at the Phoenix Theatre, and made him her leading man in An Evening With Beatrice Lillie at the Globe Theatre, where he spent the first year of his professional life writing another musical, Boy on the Corner, and the screenplay and score of his first motion picture, "Charley Moon." He won his first Ivor Novello Award for it.
Bricusse has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, nine Grammys and four Tonys, and has won two Oscars, a Grammy and eight Ivor Novello Awards (the major British music award).
