30 Aug 2025
Award-winning Harpenden Musical Theatre Company is bringing the classic musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ to the Eric Morecambe Centre in October.
Set in bustling 1950s New York City, and based on Damon Runyon’s short stories, Guys and Dolls is a musical romantic comedy involving the unlikeliest of Manhattan pairings: a high-rolling gambler and a puritanical missionary, a showgirl dreaming of the straight-and-narrow and a crap game manager who is anything but.
To secure the money for a location for his illegal, but notorious, crap game, Nathan Detroit bets Sky Masterson that he can’t take the ‘doll’ of Nathan’s choosing on a date. When Sky agrees to the bet, Nathan chooses uptight Evangelist Sergeant Sarah Brown, head of Broadway’s Save-a-Soul Mission.
Sky thinks he’s been duped, but negotiates a date with her in exchange for bringing people into her mission, and is in for even more of a surprise when his efforts to woo her are so successful that he falls in love with her himself!
Meanwhile, Nathan’s longtime fiancée, Miss Adelaide wants him to go legit and marry her.
Guys and Dolls will transport audiences from the bustle of Times Square to the dance clubs of Havana to the sewers of New York City as it demonstrates the great lengths to which a guy will go when he truly falls in love with a ‘doll’.
HMTC chairman, and Guys and Dolls director, Linda Dyne promises a production that honours the show’s golden-era roots while giving it fresh energy.
“The heart of Guys & Dolls is its humanity,” she said, “everyone’s chasing a dream, whether it’s love, luck, or just one more roll of the dice.”
A timeless tale of finding love and redemption in the most unexpected places, Guys and Dolls features some of Frank Loesser’s most memorable tunes, including the hilarious ‘Adelaide’s Lament,’ the romantic ‘I’ve Never Been in Love Before’, the classics ‘Luck Be a Lady’ and ’Sit Down you’re Rockin’ the Boat’.
Performances run from October 8-11 with evening performances and a Saturday matinee. Tickets can be purchased through the Eric Morecambe Centre Box Office, 01582 767525.
