All-star cast of Chicago to bring the razzle dazzle to Tamworth in unique Tamworth Musical Society production

Ben Simpson will tread the boards as underhanded jazz-age lawyer Billy Flynn, for the first time on Friday.

He said Chicago is "one of the best musicals ever written and one of the best original scripts ever written. And the music is the best."

He's part of the 22-strong all-star cast of the society's production of Chicago.

Mr Simpson's version of the razzle-dazzle lawyer is a bit cheekier than normal, and the production has grubbed him up a little bit more, he said.

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"Billy's a man just like any other, who's got his motivations and needs and wants. And what drives him is that money.

"He's got a past like us all, which drives us into trying to maintain life at a certain level, and to meet that he needs to fill that with the successes that allow him to have all that.

"And for that, you need to have somebody who's fairly energetic and gets up in the morning and is ready to attack those goals and go for it."

Originally written in 1975, and based on a play by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins and her experience covering the farcical high-profile 1924 trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, Chicago was revived in 1996 to become the second-longest running Broadway musicals after Phantom of the Opera.

Probably most famous for its Best Picture winning 2002 film version, the musical depicts a battle between Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, a pair of murderers who use the media and the legal system to hold the limelight in jazz-age Chicago.

After training at the Australian Academy of Dramatic Arts, Mr Simpson performed in a number of theatre roles in Sydney, before returning to Tamworth in 2017.

Tamworth audiences may know him best for his role as Sam Carmichael in the 2020 performance of Mama Mia.

"My most prominent role was a Home and Away stint, when I was a bad guy about Yabby Creek," he said.

"Mama Mia was different, I got to play a romantic lead - that was probably one of the first times."

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Director Larni Christie said she'd given the show a few tweaks.

"We've reimagined the world, and we've got a little bit of period in there, but we've taken it away from the 1996 black version," she said.

"I've done that version twice myself. And we had a bit more budget because normally that minimalistic approach works because it's cheaper, and when you have a big cast, you know, there's like more than 200 costumes in this show. So you can be a bit braver with your costume choices.

"And then we've just grubbied it up a little bit. I looked at 1926 Chicago, I just dug a little bit deeper. We take the audience in through the back streets and alleys of a multicultural south town Chicago, so Roxy's traipsing home through a Little India, and little Chinatown."

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The cast includes Deirdre Burke as Roxie, Jessica Clark as Velma, Paul McNeill as Amos Hart, David Engert as Fred Casely, Ann Walsh as Mama Morton and Kevin McCorriston as journalist Mary Sunshine.

Katt Cutmore, Abigail Constable, Abbigale Gwatkin, Shannon Vanderstelt, Catherine Fogarty, Dominic Goodwin-Hauck, Sara Vermeulen, Christopher Burke, Nicole Prout, Grace McKinnon, Kaylah Daly, Emily Hankinson, Toni Ambrogetti, Tara Withers, Iris Cornwell, Wendy Morse, Patrick Fogg, Nicole Shafer, Oscar Newsome make up the ensemble.

The show opens at the Capitol Theatre on Friday night, and runs until November 5.

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