CHICHESTER Festival Theatre has announced this year’s smash-hit musical Half A Sixpence will transfer to London’s Noël Coward Theatre from October.

The Cameron Mackintosh and Chichester Festival Theatre co-production, which has won critical acclaim this summer, will become the third Festival 2016 production to play in the West End this autumn.

The entire Chichester cast will transfer with the show, led by newcomers Charlie Stemp as Arthur Kipps and Devon-Elise Johnson as Ann Pornick – alongside Ian Bartholomew as Chitterlow and Emma Williams as Helen Walsingham.

Jonathan Church, the outgoing Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre says: “Half A Sixpence has taken Chichester by storm. We didn’t quite know what to expect from this relatively rarely revived British musical; but from the moment this incredible re-worked version burst onto the stage audiences went wild, with standing ovations every night.”

This new stage version of Half A Sixpence, the musical adaptation of H.G. Wells’s semi- autobiographical novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, is a completely fresh adaptation which reunites book-writer Julian Fellowes (Oscar-winning screenwriter and creator of Downton Abbey) with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that co-creator Cameron Mackintosh first put together to create the hit stage adaptation of Mary Poppins with Disney. The score is inspired by and features several of composer David Heneker’s exhilarating songs from the original production, including Flash Bang Wallop, Money To Burn and Half A Sixpence.

Tickets for the Noël Coward Theatre are currently booking from next month until February 2017.